Except the only people who are aware of IceWeasel's existence will be those who asked "How do I get Firefox on this machine," so if it crashes, they'll still spread the impression that Firefox sucks.
My post explicitly ruled abortion, fetuses, and the like out of scope. I was addressing the point that the subject is vague by virtue of the fact that it involves morality. Morality is not inherently vague; there are some specific points of contention and disagreement, such as abortion, but issues do not fail to have objective answers solely because they involve "morality."
And define "ownership" - if I have a right to "own" myself, does that mean I should be able to levitate, because I have a right to defy the evil tyranny of gravity?
Abortion, for example - people will argue until the end of time whether it should or shouldn't be allowed, and there is no real objective truth to be had there because it is a strictly moral question.
I'll admit abortion is a hairy issue, but the idea that there can be no objective truth in moral issues in general is bogus. Given the obvious and reasonable axiom of self-ownership (and if you don't own yourself, who does? and if other people don't own themselves, but you claim to, on what basis do you base your claim?), some very basic and irrefutable principles of morality are easily derivable, giving us a system on which all can and should agree, regardless of religion (or the lack thereof) or any other philosophy. Anyone violating this (which includes all politicians) is in fact immoral and violating the principle of self-ownership.
Regardless of your source of morality, pretty much everyone agrees with the principle of self-ownership and argues for what is "right" and "wrong" based on it: a violation of rights is a violation of the principle of self-ownership. While religions differ vastly on theology, almost all religions agree at the core on the basic morality of these rights, and non-religious people also accept their own self-ownership and the rights of other people based on their own self-ownership.
The really important things in morality are not hairy or ambiguous at all.
They all want to make the world a better place with other people's money, and so far I've yet to hear a politician conceal this desire. They seem to think it's a good thing. So do the people who vote for them, apparently.
The kinks come in because there is a finite supply of money (no matter how much they print -- it just devalues the rest) and it usually isn't enough to cover all of the things they promised to do with it.
That's it. Politicians are really very open about what they want to do in general; they just differ on the particulars of which actions, specifically, will better the world when funded by money they take from other people. None of them hides this desire to steal, though, which is really astounding when you think about it.
I think it's misguided to be "bitter" that one group garners more attention than the other, when one group isn't doing as much as the other to bring attention, publicity and resources to their cause.
I think it's misguided that the government amasses all these resources through legalized theft ("taxation") and then offers them up to whoever makes the noise and gets the best PR, mostly so that politicians can claim they did "favors" to everyone by making the resources available, even though the resources were taken from causes we will never see, which might have even been more important.
The solution, of course, would be to allow citizens to annotate the entries for their fellow citizens, and to rate the contributions of their fellow citizens to allow popular opinions the visibility they deserve.
Actually, I think the solution to all this is a free market. But what do I know...
After reading the slashdot writeup and the linked page, I still don't know what they're doing. I know they're trying something new for funding, and I know how it got its name, but I still don't know what new thing it is they're trying. If it was in there, it got buried under a mass of other less important details.
I think it means they are going to raise some funds (how?) to pay some developers directly to work exclusively for some time on Etch. But if so, that's not exactly innovative; other projects have done so before (Perl foundation grants, as one of many examples), and I'm surprised Debian hasn't.
The people who bought the brand and built the new service got a lot of things, but didn't get *it*.
Yep. Newsflash to the buyers: Napster was popular because it was a great place to get music without paying for it. Other than that, there wasn't much draw. Other people are doing a much better job on the "pay to download music" model, so unless you can do a better job of delivering on that, or unless you're willing to go back to Napster's original model, owning the Napster name doesn't do much for you.
Just because a library is government funded, does not mean they should be able to pick and choose which ideas are provided to the public.
It absolutely means that the public which owns it should vote democratically about whatever standards they want the library to hold. The public should not be forced to fund something they don't want.
This is also why I think democracy is a terrible way to run things like libraries and education.
If the government at any level forbids a library from carrying a book, it has been banned.
You miss out on the fact that the library is (usually) a government institution funded at public expense. Declining to spend public money to provide a book at taxpayer expense is not equivalent to banning. Banning would be forbidding people to provide a book at their own expense.
Very good response, but one other reason the DMCA is unconstitutional is because it is a violation of the First Amendment. However, while that point is very short and sweet, I think yours is more effective in showing the world the way it should exist without the interference of the state.
Well, the problem is that the results returned by Goolge are 99% spam and you have to wade through dozens of pages with results to find one or more that may be of interest.
Maybe you should search for something besides Viagra.
BTW, I really appreciated reading your posting history on this subject.
Also, may I please encourage you to look into the economics that I believe people will need to know about in order to survive the shifts in governments that are likely to happen between now and then?
What bugs me is that people's right to their own personal beliefs ought to be protected regardless of the nature of the belief: religious, scientific, personal, commercial. It doesn't matter. It's nobody's business but their own. I don't believe law has any moral basis for distinguishing between types of beliefs. A basis for punishing people for actions that violate the rights of others, yes, but not for concerning itself directly with what people believe.
Best of luck to you, and I hope you succeed in all your goals including your journey into the future. And I hope you find a paradise where liberty reigns.
Right. And that's why I didn't believe the posting when it said, "No jet pack means not getting home if you inadvertently push yourself away from the space station and into space."
As near as I can tell, that's just government "graciously" deciding to allow some people to keep a piece of their rights: allowing their communications to remain private and unsubject to government regulation.
On the contrary, Microsoft participates in the government-granted monopoly of ideas known as "intellectual property." But you are right in that Microsoft is not a monopoly over, say, operating systems in general, or software in general.
Slashdot Mirror
Except the only people who are aware of IceWeasel's existence will be those who asked "How do I get Firefox on this machine," so if it crashes, they'll still spread the impression that Firefox sucks.
My post explicitly ruled abortion, fetuses, and the like out of scope. I was addressing the point that the subject is vague by virtue of the fact that it involves morality. Morality is not inherently vague; there are some specific points of contention and disagreement, such as abortion, but issues do not fail to have objective answers solely because they involve "morality."
And define "ownership" - if I have a right to "own" myself, does that mean I should be able to levitate, because I have a right to defy the evil tyranny of gravity?
Huh? Dude, do you own anything at all?
Abortion, for example - people will argue until the end of time whether it should or shouldn't be allowed, and there is no real objective truth to be had there because it is a strictly moral question.
I'll admit abortion is a hairy issue, but the idea that there can be no objective truth in moral issues in general is bogus. Given the obvious and reasonable axiom of self-ownership (and if you don't own yourself, who does? and if other people don't own themselves, but you claim to, on what basis do you base your claim?), some very basic and irrefutable principles of morality are easily derivable, giving us a system on which all can and should agree, regardless of religion (or the lack thereof) or any other philosophy. Anyone violating this (which includes all politicians) is in fact immoral and violating the principle of self-ownership.
Regardless of your source of morality, pretty much everyone agrees with the principle of self-ownership and argues for what is "right" and "wrong" based on it: a violation of rights is a violation of the principle of self-ownership. While religions differ vastly on theology, almost all religions agree at the core on the basic morality of these rights, and non-religious people also accept their own self-ownership and the rights of other people based on their own self-ownership.
The really important things in morality are not hairy or ambiguous at all.
They all want to make the world a better place with other people's money, and so far I've yet to hear a politician conceal this desire. They seem to think it's a good thing. So do the people who vote for them, apparently.
The kinks come in because there is a finite supply of money (no matter how much they print -- it just devalues the rest) and it usually isn't enough to cover all of the things they promised to do with it.
That's it. Politicians are really very open about what they want to do in general; they just differ on the particulars of which actions, specifically, will better the world when funded by money they take from other people. None of them hides this desire to steal, though, which is really astounding when you think about it.
I think it's misguided to be "bitter" that one group garners more attention than the other, when one group isn't doing as much as the other to bring attention, publicity and resources to their cause.
I think it's misguided that the government amasses all these resources through legalized theft ("taxation") and then offers them up to whoever makes the noise and gets the best PR, mostly so that politicians can claim they did "favors" to everyone by making the resources available, even though the resources were taken from causes we will never see, which might have even been more important.
The solution, of course, would be to allow citizens to annotate the entries for their fellow citizens, and to rate the contributions of their fellow citizens to allow popular opinions the visibility they deserve.
Actually, I think the solution to all this is a free market. But what do I know...
After reading the slashdot writeup and the linked page, I still don't know what they're doing. I know they're trying something new for funding, and I know how it got its name, but I still don't know what new thing it is they're trying. If it was in there, it got buried under a mass of other less important details.
I think it means they are going to raise some funds (how?) to pay some developers directly to work exclusively for some time on Etch. But if so, that's not exactly innovative; other projects have done so before (Perl foundation grants, as one of many examples), and I'm surprised Debian hasn't.
The people who bought the brand and built the new service got a lot of things, but didn't get *it*.
Yep. Newsflash to the buyers: Napster was popular because it was a great place to get music without paying for it. Other than that, there wasn't much draw. Other people are doing a much better job on the "pay to download music" model, so unless you can do a better job of delivering on that, or unless you're willing to go back to Napster's original model, owning the Napster name doesn't do much for you.
Just because a library is government funded, does not mean they should be able to pick and choose which ideas are provided to the public.
It absolutely means that the public which owns it should vote democratically about whatever standards they want the library to hold. The public should not be forced to fund something they don't want.
This is also why I think democracy is a terrible way to run things like libraries and education.
If the government at any level forbids a library from carrying a book, it has been banned.
You miss out on the fact that the library is (usually) a government institution funded at public expense. Declining to spend public money to provide a book at taxpayer expense is not equivalent to banning. Banning would be forbidding people to provide a book at their own expense.
The thing is, there is nothing in the post you replied to that proves dada21 to be factually incorrect.
Very good response, but one other reason the DMCA is unconstitutional is because it is a violation of the First Amendment. However, while that point is very short and sweet, I think yours is more effective in showing the world the way it should exist without the interference of the state.
a possible new bird flu strain spurs contemporary panic
Only because the media keeps telling us we should be worried. Personally, I'm not worrying, and neither is anybody that I know in meatspace.
Same old, same old.
Saw a great article on this just last week.
Not if you have the freedom to choose an insurance company that has the freedom to be choosy about its clients. Oh, wait.
Well, the problem is that the results returned by Goolge are 99% spam and you have to wade through dozens of pages with results to find one or more that may be of interest.
Maybe you should search for something besides Viagra.
BTW, I really appreciated reading your posting history on this subject.
Also, may I please encourage you to look into the economics that I believe people will need to know about in order to survive the shifts in governments that are likely to happen between now and then?
What bugs me is that people's right to their own personal beliefs ought to be protected regardless of the nature of the belief: religious, scientific, personal, commercial. It doesn't matter. It's nobody's business but their own. I don't believe law has any moral basis for distinguishing between types of beliefs. A basis for punishing people for actions that violate the rights of others, yes, but not for concerning itself directly with what people believe.
Best of luck to you, and I hope you succeed in all your goals including your journey into the future. And I hope you find a paradise where liberty reigns.
make it hard to home-school kids
You should think hard before advocating aggression and the violation of people's liberties.
Aw, Lex, there you go again, injecting reason into a debate. You ruin all the fun that way. :P ;)
Right. And that's why I didn't believe the posting when it said, "No jet pack means not getting home if you inadvertently push yourself away from the space station and into space."
As near as I can tell, that's just government "graciously" deciding to allow some people to keep a piece of their rights: allowing their communications to remain private and unsubject to government regulation.
Wow. Somebody is finally trying to fulfill the Digital Convergence "vision."
"Insider trading" also provides a valuable market signal.
On the contrary, Microsoft participates in the government-granted monopoly of ideas known as "intellectual property." But you are right in that Microsoft is not a monopoly over, say, operating systems in general, or software in general.