1. if everyone is self-interested and barely invested in outcomes, a democracy still functions better than all other governmental systems so far devised by mankind. because your eager beaver citizen test is frankly, laughable: no average citizen, in any country that has ever existed, currently exists, or ever will exist will meet your standards. so you raise your eager beaver citizen litmus test as a valid concept simply out of your ignorance of the reality of humankind.
people are mostly self-interested and inward. that's reality. who said your agenda was sueprior to theirs? who said what your list of what people should know about their world is a natural agenda? that's all your eager beaver litmus test is: "abide by my agenda, or you are bad citizen". what you propose is worse than ignorance and selfishness. you propose indoctrination into an agenda. that's what you "education" is, it's just ideological indoctrination. but, for the sake of argument, let's asusme you actually have a lis tof valid neutral educational items everyone should have. do you really think that is goign to be rammed down people's throats without some propaganda going along for the ride? remember, the government is doing this "educating", right? i'd PREFER people to be ignorant and selfish than your idea of what citizens should be: brainwashed. you don't know that's what your opinion means, but that's what it would be in the reality of its execution
2. yes, i absolutely agree 100% with you: some people are most definitely more competent than others. after that, we radically diverge on the conclusions of that observation. i actually do believe that people are better and worse than other people, on a whole number of judgment calls. however, there is no one out there who can accurately measure those qualities in any trustworthy way
therefore, you have no choice other than to start looking at people as equals, and let things fall as they may. proof by outcome of life. no test can test for the qualities that are important in leading, for example. the only honest way to look at your fellow human being is as an equal. there is no magic test or projected characteristic that is a shortcut for making a determination of a complicated quality of that person. race for example. income another example. all failures at judging someone's true value
take a test for intelligence. can you even define intelligence? how incredibly complex a topic are we dealing with? do you honestly think it can be measured in such a way as to find the best leader out there? your standard iq test has things for example that put value in manipulating 3D shapes in your head. there are autistic people who can do that. meanwhile, some guy fails miserably on an iq test for manipulating 3D objects in your head. ok. that same guy is extremely gifted in many leadership qualities: persuasion, instilling trust, etc. so what is the point of this stupid iq test again in determining worthiness in life? zero
so the idea of drawing people into classes in terms of good potential to lead or not lead, vote or not vote, is completely a nonstarter. it's not that people aren't better or worse than another. i believe in fact they are. it's just that there is no way to determine that objectively, so you can't go down that path in any moral or intellectually honest fashion to start trying to determine that objectively, or subjectively. the only thing you can do is treat everyone equally, even though you know they aren't. simply because there is no more morally or intellectually honest way to proceed
3. "No revolution gives power to the people like you seem to think; they put new aristocracies in place, which can be good or bad."
us democracy is poisoned by corporate money. the ideal democracy wouldn't be poisoned by money in this way. however, corporations influencing government via $ is a LOT BETTER than the heads of corporations outright running the country, which is what aristocracy is
in other words aristocracy!=corporatocracy. corporatocracy is an e
one big evolutionary step was democracy. in a democracy, you can have a moronic frat boy like gw bush in the white house, and in 4 or 8 years, he is gone. in other words, he does not hold absolute power, like vladmir putin, nor is the government controlled by a clique of technocrats in beijing, nor is it controlled by some cranky old men who say they speak for god, like in tehran, nor is it controlled by some asshole whose great granddady won a battle, like in monarchy
what politicians do do, in order to win votes, is water themselves down to the lowest common denominator in their words to appeal to the most people. such that you are disgusted, rightfully, by their emptiness. and yet it is necessary to do this to appeal to the most bnumber of people weakly, rather than appealing storngly, to only a few, if you stick tight with your convictions
and yet, this sliminess in democracy is still superior to authoritarianism, technocracy, theogracy, monarchy, etc.
now you could improve upon this: not being beholden to corporations, for example
but the way you are oging to do this is not by rejecting the valid functions that governments serve in society, but by enunciating a way to fulfill these functions in a way better than we currently do
and no, firned, libertarianism or some flavor of anarchism is not that way, sorry. people don't govern themselves. they really don't. nothing about education or income level about it, sorry. get used to the fact. we'll do better osme day than we ar enow, absolutely, but by finessing the goals of the system, not by rejecting those goals
"Indeed, creative works should be a drain on society. Manual labor during the day and creative works during the night. Assuming you're not too tired to do anyhting."
got it. because creative output depends upon enforcing a corrupt and failed economic model. it always has. the creative class as a mafia of extortion is the only way it can ever get funds. pffffffft. moron: you confused me attacking the current failed economic model of cultural creation, for attacking the very idea of supprting cultural creation. which is an absurd mistake to make, but you made it
"Don't know about you but I don't see films being done as concerts (as plays and films are entirely different mediums.) And of course, having reduced ability to do something is always good. Cutting back opportunity is always a benefit."
yes, because in my brief comment, i outlined everythign possible. i didn't mention movie houses, but apparently you can't imagine that that controlled venue functions the same ways a concert does in terms of guaranteed financial support. oh, and about that cutting back of opportunity: the mpaa fought the vhs aftermarket tooth and nail because they thought it would destroy movie houses. now, they fight tooth and nail to preserve the dvd aftermarket. gee, they were wrong before. could it be they are wrong again, or that you are wrong? i mean, we all know that once people got television for FREE, supported by ADVERTISING, what I AM SUGGESTING, in the 1950s, that the movie industry was totally destroyed, right? fucking moron
"Ok. So cost of duplication is gone."
gee, i dunno. i just dragged this file into this folder and turned on emule. oh shit, that cost of duplication was $175,000. (snicker)
"You love this example because it lets you convince yourself that all you need to do anything is a laptop, and you let yourself ignore ALL of the other costs that go into the production of an album. Never mind that human creativity reaches beyond music albums (and you need more than a laptop if you want to make something that sounds good. I hear microphones are pretty expensive still.)"
uh... what? this is slashdot my friend. the people here tend to have a pretty good feel about how progress in technolgy changes things, leverages your effort in amazing ways, reduces the cost of doing things by orders of magnitude. sell your luddite static unchanging understanding of the world elsewhere dude. no one's going to buy it here. oh! but a good microphone is hard for middle class teenager to afford, so there! after all, advances in music, like the scratch turntable, the 808 drum machine, etc.: these addvances were all made by fabulously wealthy patrons of the art, not by poor starving teenagers who loved music. you obviously need a LOT of money to make good music, right? teehee
"Of course they are, but they need to eat too."
exactly what do you think that means? that you have a right to eat because you want to make a song? i want to make a song, so give me a steak. no, moron, this is how it works, and has always worked, and always will work: you have a passion in something, you invest your own time and energy in it, and you prove yourself by other people liking it, and THEN someone MAY reward you for your effort. just because you have a song in your head doesn't mean God Himself comes down from the heavens and gives you $. you speak from a position of false entitlement. must be some sort of upper middle class turd who never had to work a day in his life
in fact, if you love your art enough, you in fact may starve in order to make it. but you do not fucking go "oh, there's a jingle in my head and i want to commit it to audio tape so you owe me $." are you trying to make yourself look like a total moron on purpose?
"They would, but you'd see a lot fewer people making it. Go ahead and tell yourself that ALL the bad things would go away and all that would remain would be good things."
in fact, the digital HD revolution has results in scads of really awful movies. but: 1.
i take it to mean that cultural protectionism is cultural protectionism is cultural protectionism. it exists, and the current changing of economic models of media distribution due to the internet doesn't change the concept or threaten the need or desire for cultural protectionism. because a nation's governmental cultural support and incentives lie outside of normal free markets anyways, and so feels no negative effects due to piracy
these are valid concepts, everyone, including you, has a vested interest in. it benefits your life, whether you realize it or not. some entity has to represent these concepts
i agree with you 100% that plenty of politicians do an awful job represrnting these concepts. but not all of them
and there is no way, in this world, to protect and promote these concepts without a governmental body
in other words, government is often a failure in the many ways you can demonstrate it is. and it is still essential to your life, and preferable to no government at all
therefore, in order to be a morally and intellectually honest person, you need to stop attacking the concept of government and politicians, and start using your words and your thoughts to improve them
accept the idea of government and poltics, make peace with the necessary evils of life in the real world. at the same time, fight with all your fury against bad government and bad polticians. get it? get the difference between that attitude and your current attitude?
"You must be an american. The number of movies produced in the rest of the world is GREATER then the number of movies produced in the US, or even if you start calling every country that has english as a main language being clubbed together (wonder how the french part of canada feels about it)."
well duh. bollywood makes far more movies than hollywood. but bollywood movies don't spread out from india very much, except in indian expat communities, because outside of india, hindi or other indian languages are used very rarely. but outside of anglophone countries, you still find a lot of people who understand some english
you mention how french canada feels about this. what do you mean how they feel about it? i'm talking how much the movie's cultural influence is. what, french canadians go see a jason bourne movie and then go home and take a shower and vomit in disgust because they saw an english language movie? your attitude is bizarre. either they watch it, or they don't. that's all that matters. they vote with their feet, not with the attitude in their mouths. if they are in the theatre, watching the movie, they are influenced. done deal. if they watch the movie, the deed of cultural influence is done. if they dislike warmongering american neoconservative imperialism, or whatever, who cares? it doesn't change the outcome of going to the movies and being influenced
"This is only logical, while english is a very common language and a great many people speak it as their second, third language, it is not the most common language."
you don't seem to grasp logic. if everyone has language X as a second language, movies on language X will penetrate more people's consciousness than movies in language y. therefore, cultural output in language X will come to dominate. your observation about english supports my opinion, and destroys your conclusion, which isn't logical at all
"In europe, most tv-stations, even the commercial ones are man-dated by law to provide a certain amount of "native" broadcasting. That is why the station RTL4 which was clearly aimed at dutch audience spend money on a luxemburg program block in the early hours to satisfy the law (they were based there using a loophole)."
yes, this is called cultural protectionism. cultural protectionism is unnecessary in a healthy culture that isn't being eroded or feels threatened by another culture. a law requiring a certain amount of cultural output is enacted and enforced because one culture is afraid of being dominated and flooded out by another culture. which gets back to my original question about piracy threatening german, or czech, or danish culture: destroying the financial means to create a culture which feels threatened, would seem to be more damaging to a culture already feeling vulnerable. that's my original question. do you have an answer for it? the rest of your words seem to dance around unrelated subject matter. i think you think you are informing me about very obvious things, things which i already know. it's patronizing and strange...
"As for how it is affected, it is not even clear yet how copyright infringement affects hollywood, how it affects local cinema in the rest of the world is anyones guess."
ah! an answer: you don't know
"We certainly are not going to get the truth about it from the media, they after all have a rather direct intrest in the matter."
huh? i asked you. i'm not the media, you're not the media
"So far however it seems to matter little, Remember non-hollywood movies tend not to pay quit as much to their stars. This matters a lot, to pay those idiotic salaries a Tom Hanks gets you need to make massive profits. Pay them a more modest wage and you have a lot more room."
ah! good answer, great answer, and one i agree with: people will always make movies in danish, or german, or czech, because they are proud of being danish, or german, or czech. well done
"Also what you claim about english content being more easily accepted in the res
however, your atittude and your sig is disturbing. you have a profound mistrust of government, lawyers, and politicians. not that you should like them, but i think your severe dislike of them speaks more about your own personal failures in an ability to fundamentally trust than anything a lawyer or politician ever did to you. i wouldn't be surprised if your mistrust also poisoned your personal relationships. it is bad to trust too much in this world. it is also bad to trust too little
non-english speaking cultural output is a lot smaller than english language output. not only because its large, but english language output tends to penetrate non-english speaking countries, not the other way around
therefore, when say, germans abandon the financial support for german cultural output, this should have a more devastating effect on financing german cultural output than when english language fans pirate music or movies
and since piracy is hugely prevalent in europe, i wonder what the epxerience has been for danish movie, czech music, etc.
incidentally, i think that the financial support for all culture via traditional means SHOULD collapse. it isn't viable anymore with the internet. new channels of financial support will emerge (concerts, advertising, etc.), but i think they will be permanently reduced funds. not that this is a big problem:
1. no more need for a middle man who presses lps and cds and tapes 2. the cost of production, sutdios, cameras, etc.: shrinking dramatically every day in the digital era. to make an album nowadays, all you need is a laptop 3. people are motivated to do art for the sake of art. if you were guaranteed to make $0 from making a song or a movie, people would still make songs and movies. it's called love of art, not love of money. money is an artificial injection into the creation of art
a professional class of people whom you hire to guide you through a complex legal system is absolutely a necessity because
1. you will never find the time to learn the complexity of your legal system on your own unless you are a lawyer yourself 2. if your legal system isn't complex, it is simple and brutal and you are living in a barbaric society
so there's simply no way around lawyers. they are necessity. a disgusting necessity, but a necessity nonetheless
when people say they hate lawyers, what they are really saying, in a deferred way, is they hate the fact that justice is a human, flawed endeavour
that the lawyer class seems to attract the slimiest of human beings, rather than more virtuous ones, is an observation i won't touch, because i, er, agree with it
oh what the hell: shoot lawyers on sight, you win;-)
the problem with judging cases with a professional class of adjudicators is that over time, the adjudicator forms an agenda, and his or her judgment becomes less and less about the actual case in front of them, and more about his or her abstract approach to a certain kind of crime. judgments on one case begin to color and cloud judgments on others. this is extremely dangerous
btw, this effect is absolutely certain. it's called the seduction of power. no one is immune to it. to say anyone is immune to it, is to simply admit that one is also blind to their own weaknesses
say for example you have an expert on dna evidence. the man has various personal opinions of his own on certain procedures and such. it is impossible not to have these opinions. anyone who studies any special class of knowledge has certian passionate opnions on the subject. it is impossible not to. no one devotes years of their life to a subject matter and has a robotic neutral outlook on the subject matter. its simply impossible. if someone had such a neutral uncaring attitude on a subject matter, they would never get involved in studying in it in the first place. catch-22
so these underlying passions are always in danger of seriously clouding an experts agenda. there is no such thing as an expert on any class of knowledge that is also impartial and without an agenda. i repeat: it is impossible for a human being to be learned in a subject matter and not also have a dangerous (dangerous in terms of an ability to judge impartially) ideological agenda on that subject matter
furthermore, much of education really isn't education, but indoctrination into the dominant opinion on a subject matter within a given academic clique. for objective sciences, like physics, or math, this is less so, but still prevalent. go ahead, ask any doctoral student in any university if there is no soap operas and cliquish political drama and pressure to conform to the dominant opinion. for soft sciences, like psychology and criminal justice, this effect is massive. the end result is those who are supposedly annoited with the most objective knowledge on a subject, also saddled with the most subjective attitudes and agenda on the subject matter
this is why a jury of impartial peers is superior to a professional class of adjudicators: they don't care. your professional judging class of swedes DO care. about an ideologicla agenda. a concept absolutely anathema to the idea of impartial justice
universities, by bequeathing the imprimature of truth and knowledge, merely rubber stamp and give weight and credence to something that is nothing more than intellectual fashion and vogue in the soft sciences. go ahead and compare dominant attidues on controversial topics from now and 30 years ago. you can say new research merely changes attitudes. except that a lot of this new research often boils down to the conclusions of folk wisdom from 5 centuries ago! pfffft. it's all bullshit
so so-called experts have something to prove, an axe to grind. this will color their judgment on cases, espcially as they blur together. his or her judgment on cases begin to resemble less a search for impartial truth, and more a soapbox for him to push his agenda. i am deathly frightened of being judged by an "expert". he won't see and my case at all. he will see his or emotionally invested theories, and how my case befor ehim or her could prove or disprove his theories. frightening
meanwhile, the stupid, uninterested guy on the street who would rather be drunk? i MUCH RATHER be judged by him. the experts can be in teh courtroom to guide him or her about scientific facts and opinion. and taken as one or the other, the man on the street can most definitely have some really bad prejudices. but averaged out over 12 people, those prejudices cancel out. those prejudices don't average out that way with a bunch of so called experts, all born of the same university clique, deciding amongst themselves who is deserving or not, simply because they conform to the same opinio
1. have no justice system at all 2. have a human system of justice
which means you have all manner of abuses and failures and stupidity at every step of the system
those are your choices. 1 or 2. there is no
3. have a perfect infallible system of justice
sorry, never will be
to have this sort of disdain for the entire justice system because it has human flaws doesn't make you wise, it makes you naive
of course things can be improved, and that is where our disappointment in the system should be channeled. but this is not the vibe i get from some people. some people i get this vibe that they hate the idea of police and courts, rather than they'd like to improve them. which is an attitude which is bizarre and ignorant
there is another issue: giving money to fundamentalist regimes (iran, saudi arabia) and authoritarian regimes (venezuela, russia)
the west basically funds those who wish to see the downfall of the west via petrodollars. in what world does bankrolling your worst enemies makes sense?
we need to get off fossil fuels because of the environment, yes. but there is also the issue of security. if we stop funding fundamentalism in the middle east, and we stop funding regimes which oppress the rights of their people like venezuela and russia, then we go along way to making this world a better place, with or without more smog
i honestly think the security issue is more important than the environmental issue. it doesn't do our grandchildren any good to inherit a word with a pristine physical environment, and a fascist political one. so gung ho on biofuels, even if they pollute more than fossil fuels by an order of magnitude
but even better, go nuclear and electric cars. then we win at the environment AND security. if we go nuclear and electric cars, we won't have to worry about chernobyl because of the newer failsafe nuclear tech (the staff can just walk away from a pebble bed reactor and it won't ever melt down), and we won't have to worry about the 10,000 year old waste if we use breeder reactors (which also means getting 10x more energy out of the fuel, with a tenth of the waste, that lasts only a century or two, at a much safer radiation profile). by using thorium as well as uranium, we can have enough fuel for centuries (btw: uranium and thorium isn't mostly buried in the land of vile regimes, like oil)
and in a few centuries, we better have fusion finally figured out
how about that you are someone who uses their mind and their logic to explain away their simple human responsibility to care about the well being of others
like i said, you can rationalize anything
congratulations, you've successfully rationalized your prediliction for not caring about other people
the world doesn't need more smart people. the world needs more good people
you're obviously smart. but you're also an asshole
but then again, you are "mrlibertarian". libertarianism is a gem of feeble-minded modern foolishness if there ever was one
states exist in this world. trade within, to, or from a state affects its health and its viability. to explain this any more to you would be at a pedantic level of intellectual charity i am not interested in stoooping to
concentrate real hard, and maybe some simple realities of human society that most people learn in kindergarten will dawn on you someday
however, this my online hobby. my real life is nothing like my online identity. if you met me offline, you would find me quite pleasant and agreeable
while online, i am more like a slobbering retarded pit bull. this bifurcation suits me well. it allows me to explore a side of personality online that i cannot in real life
"Doing business with apartheid south africa helps bring up the standard of living for the black people under it, eventually as the black middle class grows it forces reform. Once there's food in your belly and a roof over your head, you start to pay more attention to what else is going on in your life. While (insert name of corporation that didn't pull out of south africa in the 1980s here) is being a party to the state-sponsored racism in South Africa, remember that it's really the South African government at fault, and overall (Coca Cola/ Pepsi/ etc.) will have done more good than harm."
this quote is of course pure unadulterated bullshit
the idea of having a sense of morality or a human conscience is to act on it, not explain it away
when you see someone get raped, you report the rape. if you don't report it, you have no claim on having a sense of moralit yor a human conscience. if you say nothing because you will wait for the woman to resist by herself, your bullshit rationalization is basically just an attempt by you to neutralize your human conscience, for whatever stupid or evil motivation you have
so congratulations, based on your words above, you have no human conscience
read up on apartheid and divestment. international economic sanctions HELPED BRING DOWN APARTHEID
of course china is plugged into the international economy far more than south africa ever was. pulling out of china will be extremely painful for any economy. i didn't say it would be easy. but not divesting of china in one way or anyother because of china's horrible human rights record simply means the entirety of the human race has blood on its hands whenever china abuses its citizens
i'm not naive, i don't believe divestment from china is possible. but i'm not morally bankrupt either. which means the current state of affairs is simply depressing, and evil
Slashdot Mirror
1. if everyone is self-interested and barely invested in outcomes, a democracy still functions better than all other governmental systems so far devised by mankind. because your eager beaver citizen test is frankly, laughable: no average citizen, in any country that has ever existed, currently exists, or ever will exist will meet your standards. so you raise your eager beaver citizen litmus test as a valid concept simply out of your ignorance of the reality of humankind.
people are mostly self-interested and inward. that's reality. who said your agenda was sueprior to theirs? who said what your list of what people should know about their world is a natural agenda? that's all your eager beaver litmus test is: "abide by my agenda, or you are bad citizen". what you propose is worse than ignorance and selfishness. you propose indoctrination into an agenda. that's what you "education" is, it's just ideological indoctrination. but, for the sake of argument, let's asusme you actually have a lis tof valid neutral educational items everyone should have. do you really think that is goign to be rammed down people's throats without some propaganda going along for the ride? remember, the government is doing this "educating", right? i'd PREFER people to be ignorant and selfish than your idea of what citizens should be: brainwashed. you don't know that's what your opinion means, but that's what it would be in the reality of its execution
2. yes, i absolutely agree 100% with you: some people are most definitely more competent than others. after that, we radically diverge on the conclusions of that observation. i actually do believe that people are better and worse than other people, on a whole number of judgment calls. however, there is no one out there who can accurately measure those qualities in any trustworthy way
therefore, you have no choice other than to start looking at people as equals, and let things fall as they may. proof by outcome of life. no test can test for the qualities that are important in leading, for example. the only honest way to look at your fellow human being is as an equal. there is no magic test or projected characteristic that is a shortcut for making a determination of a complicated quality of that person. race for example. income another example. all failures at judging someone's true value
take a test for intelligence. can you even define intelligence? how incredibly complex a topic are we dealing with? do you honestly think it can be measured in such a way as to find the best leader out there? your standard iq test has things for example that put value in manipulating 3D shapes in your head. there are autistic people who can do that. meanwhile, some guy fails miserably on an iq test for manipulating 3D objects in your head. ok. that same guy is extremely gifted in many leadership qualities: persuasion, instilling trust, etc. so what is the point of this stupid iq test again in determining worthiness in life? zero
so the idea of drawing people into classes in terms of good potential to lead or not lead, vote or not vote, is completely a nonstarter. it's not that people aren't better or worse than another. i believe in fact they are. it's just that there is no way to determine that objectively, so you can't go down that path in any moral or intellectually honest fashion to start trying to determine that objectively, or subjectively. the only thing you can do is treat everyone equally, even though you know they aren't. simply because there is no more morally or intellectually honest way to proceed
3. "No revolution gives power to the people like you seem to think; they put new aristocracies in place, which can be good or bad."
us democracy is poisoned by corporate money. the ideal democracy wouldn't be poisoned by money in this way. however, corporations influencing government via $ is a LOT BETTER than the heads of corporations outright running the country, which is what aristocracy is
in other words aristocracy!=corporatocracy. corporatocracy is an e
one big evolutionary step was democracy. in a democracy, you can have a moronic frat boy like gw bush in the white house, and in 4 or 8 years, he is gone. in other words, he does not hold absolute power, like vladmir putin, nor is the government controlled by a clique of technocrats in beijing, nor is it controlled by some cranky old men who say they speak for god, like in tehran, nor is it controlled by some asshole whose great granddady won a battle, like in monarchy
what politicians do do, in order to win votes, is water themselves down to the lowest common denominator in their words to appeal to the most people. such that you are disgusted, rightfully, by their emptiness. and yet it is necessary to do this to appeal to the most bnumber of people weakly, rather than appealing storngly, to only a few, if you stick tight with your convictions
and yet, this sliminess in democracy is still superior to authoritarianism, technocracy, theogracy, monarchy, etc.
now you could improve upon this: not being beholden to corporations, for example
but the way you are oging to do this is not by rejecting the valid functions that governments serve in society, but by enunciating a way to fulfill these functions in a way better than we currently do
and no, firned, libertarianism or some flavor of anarchism is not that way, sorry. people don't govern themselves. they really don't. nothing about education or income level about it, sorry. get used to the fact. we'll do better osme day than we ar enow, absolutely, but by finessing the goals of the system, not by rejecting those goals
part of the american system is shit like oj: morons floored by celebrity letting off a double murderer
and yet with that flaw, the amrican jurist system is still superior to the swedish classist one
they were rebuffed for anticompetitive practices. they were ready to trash microsoft money and take over quicken
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quicken#History
"Microsoft Trolling"
the meaning of which can go both ways, and still summarizes the meaning of the story better
in the state of denmark ;-)
;-)
and please be exporting more connie nielsens and more viggo mortensens, thanks
"Indeed, creative works should be a drain on society. Manual labor during the day and creative works during the night. Assuming you're not too tired to do anyhting."
got it. because creative output depends upon enforcing a corrupt and failed economic model. it always has. the creative class as a mafia of extortion is the only way it can ever get funds. pffffffft. moron: you confused me attacking the current failed economic model of cultural creation, for attacking the very idea of supprting cultural creation. which is an absurd mistake to make, but you made it
"Don't know about you but I don't see films being done as concerts (as plays and films are entirely different mediums.) And of course, having reduced ability to do something is always good. Cutting back opportunity is always a benefit."
yes, because in my brief comment, i outlined everythign possible. i didn't mention movie houses, but apparently you can't imagine that that controlled venue functions the same ways a concert does in terms of guaranteed financial support. oh, and about that cutting back of opportunity: the mpaa fought the vhs aftermarket tooth and nail because they thought it would destroy movie houses. now, they fight tooth and nail to preserve the dvd aftermarket. gee, they were wrong before. could it be they are wrong again, or that you are wrong? i mean, we all know that once people got television for FREE, supported by ADVERTISING, what I AM SUGGESTING, in the 1950s, that the movie industry was totally destroyed, right? fucking moron
"Ok. So cost of duplication is gone."
gee, i dunno. i just dragged this file into this folder and turned on emule. oh shit, that cost of duplication was $175,000. (snicker)
"You love this example because it lets you convince yourself that all you need to do anything is a laptop, and you let yourself ignore ALL of the other costs that go into the production of an album. Never mind that human creativity reaches beyond music albums (and you need more than a laptop if you want to make something that sounds good. I hear microphones are pretty expensive still.)"
uh... what? this is slashdot my friend. the people here tend to have a pretty good feel about how progress in technolgy changes things, leverages your effort in amazing ways, reduces the cost of doing things by orders of magnitude. sell your luddite static unchanging understanding of the world elsewhere dude. no one's going to buy it here. oh! but a good microphone is hard for middle class teenager to afford, so there! after all, advances in music, like the scratch turntable, the 808 drum machine, etc.: these addvances were all made by fabulously wealthy patrons of the art, not by poor starving teenagers who loved music. you obviously need a LOT of money to make good music, right? teehee
"Of course they are, but they need to eat too."
exactly what do you think that means? that you have a right to eat because you want to make a song? i want to make a song, so give me a steak. no, moron, this is how it works, and has always worked, and always will work: you have a passion in something, you invest your own time and energy in it, and you prove yourself by other people liking it, and THEN someone MAY reward you for your effort. just because you have a song in your head doesn't mean God Himself comes down from the heavens and gives you $. you speak from a position of false entitlement. must be some sort of upper middle class turd who never had to work a day in his life
in fact, if you love your art enough, you in fact may starve in order to make it. but you do not fucking go "oh, there's a jingle in my head and i want to commit it to audio tape so you owe me $." are you trying to make yourself look like a total moron on purpose?
"They would, but you'd see a lot fewer people making it. Go ahead and tell yourself that ALL the bad things would go away and all that would remain would be good things."
in fact, the digital HD revolution has results in scads of really awful movies. but:
1.
i take it to mean that cultural protectionism is cultural protectionism is cultural protectionism. it exists, and the current changing of economic models of media distribution due to the internet doesn't change the concept or threaten the need or desire for cultural protectionism. because a nation's governmental cultural support and incentives lie outside of normal free markets anyways, and so feels no negative effects due to piracy
although it may change its implementation someday
you just reworded my choice #2 and said i did not put forth that option
just read a comment in its entirety before responding to it next time please
these are valid concepts, everyone, including you, has a vested interest in. it benefits your life, whether you realize it or not. some entity has to represent these concepts
i agree with you 100% that plenty of politicians do an awful job represrnting these concepts. but not all of them
and there is no way, in this world, to protect and promote these concepts without a governmental body
in other words, government is often a failure in the many ways you can demonstrate it is. and it is still essential to your life, and preferable to no government at all
therefore, in order to be a morally and intellectually honest person, you need to stop attacking the concept of government and politicians, and start using your words and your thoughts to improve them
accept the idea of government and poltics, make peace with the necessary evils of life in the real world. at the same time, fight with all your fury against bad government and bad polticians. get it? get the difference between that attitude and your current attitude?
because currently, you sound like a big fool
"You must be an american. The number of movies produced in the rest of the world is GREATER then the number of movies produced in the US, or even if you start calling every country that has english as a main language being clubbed together (wonder how the french part of canada feels about it)."
...
well duh. bollywood makes far more movies than hollywood. but bollywood movies don't spread out from india very much, except in indian expat communities, because outside of india, hindi or other indian languages are used very rarely. but outside of anglophone countries, you still find a lot of people who understand some english
you mention how french canada feels about this. what do you mean how they feel about it? i'm talking how much the movie's cultural influence is. what, french canadians go see a jason bourne movie and then go home and take a shower and vomit in disgust because they saw an english language movie? your attitude is bizarre. either they watch it, or they don't. that's all that matters. they vote with their feet, not with the attitude in their mouths. if they are in the theatre, watching the movie, they are influenced. done deal. if they watch the movie, the deed of cultural influence is done. if they dislike warmongering american neoconservative imperialism, or whatever, who cares? it doesn't change the outcome of going to the movies and being influenced
"This is only logical, while english is a very common language and a great many people speak it as their second, third language, it is not the most common language."
you don't seem to grasp logic. if everyone has language X as a second language, movies on language X will penetrate more people's consciousness than movies in language y. therefore, cultural output in language X will come to dominate. your observation about english supports my opinion, and destroys your conclusion, which isn't logical at all
"In europe, most tv-stations, even the commercial ones are man-dated by law to provide a certain amount of "native" broadcasting. That is why the station RTL4 which was clearly aimed at dutch audience spend money on a luxemburg program block in the early hours to satisfy the law (they were based there using a loophole)."
yes, this is called cultural protectionism. cultural protectionism is unnecessary in a healthy culture that isn't being eroded or feels threatened by another culture. a law requiring a certain amount of cultural output is enacted and enforced because one culture is afraid of being dominated and flooded out by another culture. which gets back to my original question about piracy threatening german, or czech, or danish culture: destroying the financial means to create a culture which feels threatened, would seem to be more damaging to a culture already feeling vulnerable. that's my original question. do you have an answer for it? the rest of your words seem to dance around unrelated subject matter. i think you think you are informing me about very obvious things, things which i already know. it's patronizing and strange
"As for how it is affected, it is not even clear yet how copyright infringement affects hollywood, how it affects local cinema in the rest of the world is anyones guess."
ah! an answer: you don't know
"We certainly are not going to get the truth about it from the media, they after all have a rather direct intrest in the matter."
huh? i asked you. i'm not the media, you're not the media
"So far however it seems to matter little, Remember non-hollywood movies tend not to pay quit as much to their stars. This matters a lot, to pay those idiotic salaries a Tom Hanks gets you need to make massive profits. Pay them a more modest wage and you have a lot more room."
ah! good answer, great answer, and one i agree with: people will always make movies in danish, or german, or czech, because they are proud of being danish, or german, or czech. well done
"Also what you claim about english content being more easily accepted in the res
i heard that ideological motivation can destroy a person's ability to reason
and that some people called "experts" mistake indoctrination into an agenda for actual education
ban ideology!
ban "experts"!
however, your atittude and your sig is disturbing. you have a profound mistrust of government, lawyers, and politicians. not that you should like them, but i think your severe dislike of them speaks more about your own personal failures in an ability to fundamentally trust than anything a lawyer or politician ever did to you. i wouldn't be surprised if your mistrust also poisoned your personal relationships. it is bad to trust too much in this world. it is also bad to trust too little
non-english speaking cultural output is a lot smaller than english language output. not only because its large, but english language output tends to penetrate non-english speaking countries, not the other way around
therefore, when say, germans abandon the financial support for german cultural output, this should have a more devastating effect on financing german cultural output than when english language fans pirate music or movies
and since piracy is hugely prevalent in europe, i wonder what the epxerience has been for danish movie, czech music, etc.
incidentally, i think that the financial support for all culture via traditional means SHOULD collapse. it isn't viable anymore with the internet. new channels of financial support will emerge (concerts, advertising, etc.), but i think they will be permanently reduced funds. not that this is a big problem:
1. no more need for a middle man who presses lps and cds and tapes
2. the cost of production, sutdios, cameras, etc.: shrinking dramatically every day in the digital era. to make an album nowadays, all you need is a laptop
3. people are motivated to do art for the sake of art. if you were guaranteed to make $0 from making a song or a movie, people would still make songs and movies. it's called love of art, not love of money. money is an artificial injection into the creation of art
until you need one
;-)
a professional class of people whom you hire to guide you through a complex legal system is absolutely a necessity because
1. you will never find the time to learn the complexity of your legal system on your own unless you are a lawyer yourself
2. if your legal system isn't complex, it is simple and brutal and you are living in a barbaric society
so there's simply no way around lawyers. they are necessity. a disgusting necessity, but a necessity nonetheless
when people say they hate lawyers, what they are really saying, in a deferred way, is they hate the fact that justice is a human, flawed endeavour
that the lawyer class seems to attract the slimiest of human beings, rather than more virtuous ones, is an observation i won't touch, because i, er, agree with it
oh what the hell: shoot lawyers on sight, you win
the problem with judging cases with a professional class of adjudicators is that over time, the adjudicator forms an agenda, and his or her judgment becomes less and less about the actual case in front of them, and more about his or her abstract approach to a certain kind of crime. judgments on one case begin to color and cloud judgments on others. this is extremely dangerous
btw, this effect is absolutely certain. it's called the seduction of power. no one is immune to it. to say anyone is immune to it, is to simply admit that one is also blind to their own weaknesses
say for example you have an expert on dna evidence. the man has various personal opinions of his own on certain procedures and such. it is impossible not to have these opinions. anyone who studies any special class of knowledge has certian passionate opnions on the subject. it is impossible not to. no one devotes years of their life to a subject matter and has a robotic neutral outlook on the subject matter. its simply impossible. if someone had such a neutral uncaring attitude on a subject matter, they would never get involved in studying in it in the first place. catch-22
so these underlying passions are always in danger of seriously clouding an experts agenda. there is no such thing as an expert on any class of knowledge that is also impartial and without an agenda. i repeat: it is impossible for a human being to be learned in a subject matter and not also have a dangerous (dangerous in terms of an ability to judge impartially) ideological agenda on that subject matter
furthermore, much of education really isn't education, but indoctrination into the dominant opinion on a subject matter within a given academic clique. for objective sciences, like physics, or math, this is less so, but still prevalent. go ahead, ask any doctoral student in any university if there is no soap operas and cliquish political drama and pressure to conform to the dominant opinion. for soft sciences, like psychology and criminal justice, this effect is massive. the end result is those who are supposedly annoited with the most objective knowledge on a subject, also saddled with the most subjective attitudes and agenda on the subject matter
this is why a jury of impartial peers is superior to a professional class of adjudicators: they don't care. your professional judging class of swedes DO care. about an ideologicla agenda. a concept absolutely anathema to the idea of impartial justice
universities, by bequeathing the imprimature of truth and knowledge, merely rubber stamp and give weight and credence to something that is nothing more than intellectual fashion and vogue in the soft sciences. go ahead and compare dominant attidues on controversial topics from now and 30 years ago. you can say new research merely changes attitudes. except that a lot of this new research often boils down to the conclusions of folk wisdom from 5 centuries ago! pfffft. it's all bullshit
so so-called experts have something to prove, an axe to grind. this will color their judgment on cases, espcially as they blur together. his or her judgment on cases begin to resemble less a search for impartial truth, and more a soapbox for him to push his agenda. i am deathly frightened of being judged by an "expert". he won't see and my case at all. he will see his or emotionally invested theories, and how my case befor ehim or her could prove or disprove his theories. frightening
meanwhile, the stupid, uninterested guy on the street who would rather be drunk? i MUCH RATHER be judged by him. the experts can be in teh courtroom to guide him or her about scientific facts and opinion. and taken as one or the other, the man on the street can most definitely have some really bad prejudices. but averaged out over 12 people, those prejudices cancel out. those prejudices don't average out that way with a bunch of so called experts, all born of the same university clique, deciding amongst themselves who is deserving or not, simply because they conform to the same opinio
but "Do away with the lawyers"? wuh? how's that supposed to work?
i was complaining about the morons who have 0% faith in the system
you are complaining about the morons who have 100% faith in the system
both extremes, of course, are moronic
the true attitude we should all have is found somewhere in the middle
the justice system, like most human endeavours, is severely compromised and insufficient and error-prone and manipulated
and yet, life without it is even worse
1. have no justice system at all
2. have a human system of justice
which means you have all manner of abuses and failures and stupidity at every step of the system
those are your choices. 1 or 2. there is no
3. have a perfect infallible system of justice
sorry, never will be
to have this sort of disdain for the entire justice system because it has human flaws doesn't make you wise, it makes you naive
of course things can be improved, and that is where our disappointment in the system should be channeled. but this is not the vibe i get from some people. some people i get this vibe that they hate the idea of police and courts, rather than they'd like to improve them. which is an attitude which is bizarre and ignorant
there is another issue: giving money to fundamentalist regimes (iran, saudi arabia) and authoritarian regimes (venezuela, russia)
the west basically funds those who wish to see the downfall of the west via petrodollars. in what world does bankrolling your worst enemies makes sense?
we need to get off fossil fuels because of the environment, yes. but there is also the issue of security. if we stop funding fundamentalism in the middle east, and we stop funding regimes which oppress the rights of their people like venezuela and russia, then we go along way to making this world a better place, with or without more smog
i honestly think the security issue is more important than the environmental issue. it doesn't do our grandchildren any good to inherit a word with a pristine physical environment, and a fascist political one. so gung ho on biofuels, even if they pollute more than fossil fuels by an order of magnitude
but even better, go nuclear and electric cars. then we win at the environment AND security. if we go nuclear and electric cars, we won't have to worry about chernobyl because of the newer failsafe nuclear tech (the staff can just walk away from a pebble bed reactor and it won't ever melt down), and we won't have to worry about the 10,000 year old waste if we use breeder reactors (which also means getting 10x more energy out of the fuel, with a tenth of the waste, that lasts only a century or two, at a much safer radiation profile). by using thorium as well as uranium, we can have enough fuel for centuries (btw: uranium and thorium isn't mostly buried in the land of vile regimes, like oil)
and in a few centuries, we better have fusion finally figured out
how about that you are someone who uses their mind and their logic to explain away their simple human responsibility to care about the well being of others
like i said, you can rationalize anything
congratulations, you've successfully rationalized your prediliction for not caring about other people
the world doesn't need more smart people. the world needs more good people
you're obviously smart. but you're also an asshole
now THAT'S an insult
xoxoxoxoxox
but then again, you are "mrlibertarian". libertarianism is a gem of feeble-minded modern foolishness if there ever was one
states exist in this world. trade within, to, or from a state affects its health and its viability. to explain this any more to you would be at a pedantic level of intellectual charity i am not interested in stoooping to
concentrate real hard, and maybe some simple realities of human society that most people learn in kindergarten will dawn on you someday
however, this my online hobby. my real life is nothing like my online identity. if you met me offline, you would find me quite pleasant and agreeable
while online, i am more like a slobbering retarded pit bull. this bifurcation suits me well. it allows me to explore a side of personality online that i cannot in real life
"Doing business with apartheid south africa helps bring up the standard of living for the black people under it, eventually as the black middle class grows it forces reform. Once there's food in your belly and a roof over your head, you start to pay more attention to what else is going on in your life. While (insert name of corporation that didn't pull out of south africa in the 1980s here) is being a party to the state-sponsored racism in South Africa, remember that it's really the South African government at fault, and overall (Coca Cola/ Pepsi/ etc.) will have done more good than harm."
this quote is of course pure unadulterated bullshit
the idea of having a sense of morality or a human conscience is to act on it, not explain it away
when you see someone get raped, you report the rape. if you don't report it, you have no claim on having a sense of moralit yor a human conscience. if you say nothing because you will wait for the woman to resist by herself, your bullshit rationalization is basically just an attempt by you to neutralize your human conscience, for whatever stupid or evil motivation you have
so congratulations, based on your words above, you have no human conscience
read up on apartheid and divestment. international economic sanctions HELPED BRING DOWN APARTHEID
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartheid#Western_influence
of course china is plugged into the international economy far more than south africa ever was. pulling out of china will be extremely painful for any economy. i didn't say it would be easy. but not divesting of china in one way or anyother because of china's horrible human rights record simply means the entirety of the human race has blood on its hands whenever china abuses its citizens
i'm not naive, i don't believe divestment from china is possible. but i'm not morally bankrupt either. which means the current state of affairs is simply depressing, and evil
i will sue you into oblivion ;-)