Human Rights has different definition in different countries. Trying to force your version of human rights on to other people is by itself a violation of other people's human rights.
I agree in the shades of gray sense. If someones version of human rights in genocidal, or repressive, then I disagree. If the people don't have the right to change their lot, then I would disagree. Its very hard to ethically argue that non-representational governments are ethically fine.
BUT... As a culture with a standard of human rights, we must ACT accordingly, not matter who we are dealing with. This is not forcing it upon them, but not acting according to their policies that we disagree with. If we don't agree with the actions of Sudan, then we should not facilitate these actions. This isn't forcing them to stop anything, nor is it violating their rights, it is respecting our own.
China violates our standards, therefore it would not be unconscionable to NOT do business with them. We should act according to our principles at all times.
We can also argue thusly; By being ethically supporting governments that violate our prevelant conception of human rights, we are facilitating this, meaning we are acting AGAINST our own principles.
I also haven't swallowed the cultural relativism kool-aid. I can make an ethical stand against the actions of others still. I can say that country X is wrong, or behaving unethically. This isn't to say that my country is 100% correct, its just saying that I have standards (avoiding the nationalism trap). China does not support the right of the people to choose, or deny, their own government, therefore the rights of the people are forfeit. The rights any group of people choose for themselves are irrelevant, the ability to choose is all that matters.
I've always pondered this. It seems that most of the ardent capitalists I know think that profit should always come above the namby-pamby ethical concerns, since corporations are beyond ethics. (which is odd, since they are somewhat legally individuals, and we expect individuals to be ethical) Instead they expect their corporations to follow the law as the ethical minimum. We can see how this often gets blurred into illegal activity with shareholder apathy or encouragement then.
This operates under a very odd assumption, that acting ethically is against profits. It might be true that some potential profits get endangered, but acting ethically doesn't COST money, it just somewhat limits your choices of venue and action, just like the law (which corporations are supposed to follow).
Google, if they chose to stop being in cahoots with China would be doing something ethical. It would cut back on profits, BUT I doubt it would kill them as a company, or actually hurt any shareholders (the positive press involved would probably minimize the the impact). It would be odd to think of such an act as throwing profits away, as well. Since they are doing so EVERYDAY by just obeying the law, and by not doing more drastic things like selling your email addresses to spammers, or doing likewise with all the other terabytes of data on us that they hold. Asking them to do everything possible to maximize profits is irresponsible.
Why should shareholders, and corporations, be above ethical concerns?
Mind, I'm not anti-capitalist, I'm just getting rather sick of the philosophy of "market/shareholders first, responsibility second".
Good job to all the shareholders who voted on this.:)
Hydro is great, but there isn't a huge amount of untapped hydro left. Same with geothermal and other localized sources. Biofuels? You're seeing the results of very small amounts of biofuel production now, in food prices. I'd say the choice was food or fuel, but it's worse than that -- even if all food crop production was converted to fuel production, there wouldn't be enough fuel. Wind, solar? Total potential is orders of magnitude too small with present and forseeable technology.
Agreed with the hydro and geo. But I don't think we can remove biofuels from the equation completely yet. They are working on processing food-crop biproducts, and non-food crops into ethanol (switch grass, and corn wastes). Also if we find a good, ethanol happy, crop that isn't food, and doesn't grow in the same regions that we grow food (which describes switch grass), then I'd say we have a viable solution. Though infrastructure will still be an issue.
Nuclear, though, is the holy grail. I wish we'd get over our irrational fear of it. Europe has been addicted to the stuff, and they are still not over run with giant ants. I was reading about the emergent reactor technology (in sciAm, I think) where they can down convert weapon plutonium, and waste, into less dangerous fuel that can't hold a sustained nuclear reaction (meaning no meltdowns), AND increases the wield per fuel rod.
I have nothing against replacing a million tons of coal wastes distributed globally, for a pencil eraser sized bit of radioactive waste that we can bury somewhere. Someone should bitch-slap Nevada, open Yucca Mountain up, and start decommissioning fossil fuel plants.
To his credit, Barak Obama is the only person running who sees through the corn ethanol spam, and endorses nuclear.
But what if the climate scientists are correct, and not just motived by whatever conservatives say they are motivated by? What about the client scientists that are not politically motivated, or not even American, who find the same things. What about the conservative ones?
Sometimes we SHOULD worry about the future. Or at least I do, since I'm planning on having children some day that will have to live in the mess I made.
And paving over a huge ecosystem would be a bad thing to do. We're not sure what other effects that would have, and some of us accept that there is an inherent value to such ecosystems, while thinking at the same time that our carbon footprint is worry some.
What your saying, to make an analogy, is that people who worry about overpopulation, and don't support genocide, are obviously politically motived. Or people who worry about the poor, but don't give away 100% of their income. Sometimes there is a BAD solution, to a real problem. The answer is finding compromise.
How the fuck did the right make this a political issue? It has jack shit to do with politics, out side of protecting the interests of massive corporations over the people.
As a person who lives in the Sonoran desert, I must pull a NIMBY.
It is not a barren wasteland, it is a lush, green, thriving ecosystem. I always love how people want to shunt their problems to a different ecosystem than the one they live in. I really wouldn't want to destroy a fully functioning ecosystem, no matter where it is.
How would paving over Montana sound? Or chopping down all the forests in the east to plant solar farms in their stead?
Just because its a desert doesn't make it worthless.
(actually it might be a bad idea for other reasons to, Arizona has a lot of lung fungus, and nasty, poisonous, predators to be displaced)
I don't take "ur" internet very seriously, but... I do like everything in its place, and while your thing has its place, it isn't this place (unless under the barren wasteland that is Idle) for your thing.
Notice the title "news for nerds", you only got half of the criteria. I came here expecting both, which, oddly, is why I still come here.
To remove the aura of flamebait-y-ness, your thing was funny and clever. But next time, please, submit it to Digg. I don't like being advertised at in the incorrect channels.
I don't disagree with you as much as you think I do.
Your argument against the validity of the word "stealing" is missing the point. Even if you don't mean it as such (and I think you do), it looks is as if an act being "not quite stealing" justifies the act â" it does not. Whatever quibbles may exist about "rational" copyright law and/or "rational" approach to violations, the violations are wrong.
I'm not saying that my semantic quibble validates copyright violation, just that it muddies the water. Just because it is not literally theft does not validate the act, it just makes it not theft. I disagree with you here though; reason is the precursor of determining wrong. If the law is irrational, violating it isn't wrong, just illegal. Wrong, in the moral sense, and legality are often different things. The violators ARE wrong, as are those who prosecute them, no real intellectual issue there.
Here comes the semantics again. Unauthorized use of an idea is literally not akin to removing a physical object, and thus does not fit the definition of theft per se. Again, I'm not justifying the act. The effects are different as well, since in physical theft each item stolen is a physical loss (and measurable loss in revenue), but with IP there is no guarantee that the "thief" would have actually paid money if theft wasn't possible, thus the economic impact is harder to calculate. Again, I'm still not condoning the act.
Single download â" petty theft. Massive reproduction [danwei.org] â" major heist...
I agree with the severity, if not the terminology.:) But damages should also be calculated accordingly. If I download on item, I should be punished accordingly. In the real world, stealing $9000 (or whatever the *AA things a single four minute song is worth these days) is NOT petty theft, which just highlights how stupid all the parties involved are. P2P kids are better off stealing from Best Buy, than downloading, which is absurd. As stated, the loss of a physical object is greater than the loss of some bits.
I generally ignore the mentality of Slashdot, especially the modders. Life is so much more bearable that way.
The *AA's actions are my business. Even if I don't pirate music or movies, I prefer to have a functioning legal system, where the punishment fits the crime. I prefer not to have monolithic corporations try to cannibalize the law for their economic benefit. Misuse of the legal system is everyone's business, on that level.
I was being a bit harsh, I admit. Sorry. I was mostly putting in the context of the "consoles are bling" context of the AC I was replying to. He, I presume, was equating horsepower with quality, I just wanted to bring it back down to where it is supposed to be, by overstating.
The 360 is fun, as is the PS3 (as is the SNES, PS1/2, Atari 2600, etc...), no debating that. The 360 and PS3's 60 bajillion horsepower, though, don't make them any more fun, or less fun, than the Wii. I just get annoyed with people bashing the Wii only based on its power, or lack off. Game selection, though, sadly is a valid gripe.
There are only so many party games one can play, and so many Nintendo sequels one can lust over.
Wow, such vehemence over a silly video game console... There are three choices to pick from here...
A) Your a troll (probably true) B) You still can't find a Wii (perhaps) C) Your suffering from cognative dissonance for buying an over priced console, and this need to justify why it is uber1337(!!!one1!1eleven!) compared to the popular one (from your tone, I'd guess this is true, along with option A)
There is no 7th generation technology, all of the various consoles are different, but all of them are in the 7th round of the console wars, therefore ALL of them are 7th generation. The Wii bag of tricks, though, just happens not to be playing the same horsepower game that has been the rule since SNES and Genesis. So graphically it IS a glorified Gamecube, but lucky for them, that isn't the point.
I didn't know there was a correlation between what console's you buy, and what your IQ is, btw. Do you have a study to cite on that? I would argue that the people who bought PS3s would be the ones with a lower trend, since it costs more than the alternatives, but does the same things. Oddly, I bought a Wii because I'm an adult, I don't have the time to play 4000000 hour graphical frag fests anymore, and am too old to actually equate graphics with good games. Its part of the equation, but not the equation itself.
The Wii is about fun. I respect that, even if I have to check my 1337 haxx0r badge off at the door.
As Slashdot has not unified politics, we also don't have any unified stand on IP. Read one of the ever-so-prevalent RIAA stories, and see how divided that issue is. Its around 50/50 between the "Infringement = theft = capitol punishment" crowd, and the "Piracy is a god given right" folk.
Politically I'd say the various flavors of libertarians are slightly more prevelant than other flavors, followed by Democrats, Republicans, and Anarchists. Not to mention the refreshing smattering of old-fashioned Socialists. This is of course biased, since a small but significant portion of us aren't even American, thus the American labels don't really apply.
I don't know if the cycle will begin anew though, since the 2nd person plural pronoun is generally dialectical, and considered gutter speak. When was the last time you heard an educated person (or more importantly someone who represent the popular conception of such) say something like "ya'll"?
The only way I can see it reintroduced into English is probably through a borrow word from Spanish or such.
I do wish it was common, especially since the rhetorical second person "you", is easily confused with the singular.
Sadly English lacks the 2nd person plural. When I was taking latin, we constantly translated it to "ya'll", as to not be confused with 1st singular "you". Thus our Latin classes sounded like a bunch of yokels reading Seneca and Cicero. Oddly this convention stuck, I suppose there is a reason why most languages have that part of speech, it is useful.
Happily our teacher thought it was a good compromise too. But then again he spent all of his college years living in a cave by Arcosanti (an artists commune/borderline cult/arcology prototype in AZ) declining nouns with chalk on the cave walls, and playing DnD. (I once mistranslated "wisdom" for "intelligent", his correction was "I used to play DnD, I know the difference!")
That movie was indespensible to college life. It cleared my room damn fast, allowing me to turn it off and study in peace. Seriously, after the first 20 minutes EVERYONE runs. If they don't... well...
Yes, the semantics argument is getting old, but it pales in comparison to the tediousness of the RIAA's legal approach.
Not debating that. I do think that they are performing egregious abuse of the legal system, and this is ignoring their lobbying and law making efforts. You won't find me telling anyone that the RIAA is the good guys.
Since the copyright law, as written, does not acknowledge the existence of the internet, file-sharing, uploading or downloading, each case allows complete litigation of every facet of what the RIAA thinks it might say.
This was the crux of my argument. We're in completely new territory, since the law, our ethics, and of behaviors, change much slower than the current pace of technology. Hence copying not equalling "theft", "piracy", or any other term we've decided to attach to it yet. It is a wholly new entity.
The fact that the RIAA spends a lot of time trying to track down who used an IP address at a particular point in time is, in and of itself, a valid argument that what they're looking is not fixed, but transient, volatile and fluid.
For the sake of argument, and bad slashdot analogy, this could be see as akin to someone selling (or, oddly, freely distributing) illegal copies of books at swapmeets or such. You never know where they will show up, but it is the same entity doing the distributing. Remember swap meets in the 80's, where there was always that one sleazy looking guy selling commercial software with handwritten labels?
Then we go to things like "making available," whether the infringer is the person with a shared folder or the person who downloads it and makes a new copy, whether an IP address is an identification, and all those semantic arguments.
Again, no argument there. Many of these tactics are based on... odd... semantics. Or at least very vague, and indefinite, ideas applied as invariable truth.
Carrying on the fight against the internet "pirates" (not to be confused with those involved in making physical counterfeit copies for sale) is much more profitable than winning. If there were no pirates, they might be forced to acknowledged that the video game industry has intercepted a big pile o' dollars that adults would have spent on music a decade ago. You can listen to a CD for about 40 minutes. You can play a video game for weeks, if it's a good one. Highly superior investment of the shrinking entertainment budget.
I agree that the Joe Sixpack "pirates" are really not that much of a threat, as compared to the diligent Chinese and Russian organized ones. Though I do get more enjoyment out of my music than 40 minutes. I spend FAR more time listening to music than playing games (and often when playing games I turn off the music, and replace it with my own). To me music is a better "investment", tastes and mileage may vary.
Though here is a question... Who's right? I really don't agree with unfettered sharing and access of free songs, nor do I agree with the RIAA behavior. I especially don't agree with the RIAA's treatment of artists, which, to me, would be the most valid (and powerful) argument to go out and buy music instead of finding it for free. There has to be a compromise that allows money to the artists, and stops the endless abuse of their customer base.
The term "stealing" is used here for good reason â" it explains, what's happening perfectly well. The "Occam's razor" principle says, we don't need a new term... t I don't think Occam's razor has much to do with this, since it is a question of literal accuracy. The term "stealing" isn't the simplest, its just inaccurate. Many people who pirate something might not have ever bought it, and thus are not "stealing", since no one is deprived of a product. For example.
I'm not condoning or condemning piracy, I'm just stating that the term is misused for impact.
My original post is now "-1 Troll"... Apparently, grasping the parallel between stealing music and stealing source code is too difficult for most Slashdotters...
You must be new here. A wee bit more seriously, I don't think you deserve the -1, for what its worth. I'm getting annoyed at how the moderators increasingly use their points for censorship, and not to increase the quality of the discussion. (People with opposite opinions can express them well, as well)
Some of them can â" but it is their decision and is nobody else's business. If a musician (or any creator of something hard to create but easy to copy) wants to be able to sell their creation via an intermediary (rather than directly to the public), they ought to be able to do so. Treating such intermediaries as somehow undeserving of legal protection simply debases the original creations... It does not change the immorality and illegality of unauthorized copying one bit (pun intended) â" Metallica, for example, which owns its own distribution AFAIK, has been quite outspoken against piracy [wired.com]. So let's not change the subject.
I agree, the choice is theirs, that doesn't change the fact that it is becoming increasingly unviable. We must refrain from painting the record companies in a positive light, since they screw the artists as well. Music is a big business, no one wins besides the business men.
I'm guessing independent artists would make more money per album without the companies, even including piracy. But you are correct, this is a different discussion.
This is all plain and simple. The Slashdot groupthink (muzak â" kooool, RIAA â" baaaad) is simply clouding the judgment... Once again, had this been about, say, Linksys and their use of GPL code, the term "stealing" and the appropriate indignation would've been everywhere â" and highly moderated â" without anybody even being deprived of any revenue.
The difference here is that people view GPL as more a ethical construct than, say, Metallica, or Virgin Records. The GPL is about freedom, while copyright is about restriction. Freedom is more impressive. Even if the average slashbot suddenly agreed with that (copyright violation is wrong), abusing the various free licenses would still be a more important topic to them, for this reason.
I for one think that music IS cool (muzak not so much, I try to limit my stay in elevators), and that the RIAA is bad. No matter what stance you have on piracy, you must admit that the RIAA is going about it the wrong way, and is alienating their customer base. They ARE abusing the justice system, and hurting people, this is wrong no matter if their ends are not. The ends never justify the means.
I'm guessing that the RIAA could think of a better way to curb piracy, this would, though, involve updating their various business models.
Or they could keep on the course, and breed more people like me. I regularly deprive them of their revenue stream. But not through piracy, I haven't bought a CD on a major label (or RIAA affiliate) for years. They generally don't produce anything that is even worth wasting my bandwidth on.
Though if I didn't own them from long ago, I WOULD pirate things such as The Beatles, and old Jazz (Ella, Satchmo, and Parker, oh my!), since I think it absurd that I need to give Micheal Jackson money for something he didn't do, or someones
Socialism is fine, just be sure to go to a country where people are happy with that. I'm certainly not happy with it in the US.
Last I checked we were the least socialized country in the developed world, so I wouldn't worry to much. Even our "liberals" are at best moderates in other countries. See Hillary for example, if she's a liberal I'm a moose.
Every 'social' program we have has been a disaster, never goes away after it's proven to cause overall harm, and will ultimately be what stalls our system.
I happen to think that my Pell grants worked just fine. In the long run you paid some of my school costs, but I figure it works out fine. Damn communist education! Social security would be working fine if the Government didn't use it as a place to find missing money from their other progr^Wwars, and to pay of their voter bribes... I mean tax cuts.
But then again I am a person who thinks that we have a responsibility to everyone else, and don't value my meaningless consumption above anyone's welfare or well being. Money is just money, human life is more important, always.
That said, our current programs could use some work. The problem isn't the programs, but the systems implementing them.
If a family member falls down, we are there for them. If a stranger falls down, well, he should have thought twice before pissing off his family, eh?
If only life was that simple. Damn those people who don't have families from circumstances out of their control! And Damn those families that didn't have the good fortune to be as well of as yours. The average household is two paychecks from the streets, there isn't much room for helping others, much less kin, there.
Hell, I heard we could save money by dressing up the poor in grey canvas clothing much cheaper than premium cottons. Let's start a company to 'deliver clothing to every child' so they can have a snappy lil Stalin uniforms to match their laptops. All the while, the media would be like "WOW, WHAT GREAT GUYS! CLOTHING FOR THE POOR!
Huh? A voluntary NPO is now like Stalinism? When did OLPC start forcing us to give them money? If this is their view of an altruistic thing, good for them. Sadly some people want EVERYONE to act like a souless ass in an Ayn Rand novel.
Name one instance of a large fire in a crowded building with restricted exits where people were, in fact, not trampled. Fires without lots of burn injuries don't count.
You may of may not be correct, but there still is a fallacy there. What if the fires where someone acted altruistically lead to fewer burn injuries? I would say, then, to be fair, all fires in situations matching the "crowded building with restricted exits" criteria would have to be counted, since your criteria is artificially made to support your point.
Keep feeding us the socialist dream while I keep get modded down by our friends from the east.:)
How the hell has "socialist" become a slander? Especially when it is used against ideas that have nothing to do with "socialism" whatsoever.
Besides, it's invoking Godwin's Law via the back door. The RIAA is bad, BUT not comparable to the Nazi party in any meaningful way, outside of the banal "both are repressive!". Hell, has anyone actually been locked up because of file sharing, much less gassed?
The semantics argument is ALSO getting old, mind. We all know what copyright violation is, it doesn't matter if we append "stealing" to it or not, the issue remains the same.
That said, it isn't really theft, even if it costs someone money. No one is deprived of property, due to the nature of the beast. Someone might be denied a small portion of their revenue stream though.
What we really need is a new term to describe the (arguable) bad effects of copyright violations, to end this silly debate.
I would, personally say, that its a bunch of stodgy companies fighting for a dying business model. If a VERY large group of people are violating your business model, perhaps its time to change, since obviously you are now divorced from your user base. The whole Record Company model is broken, and completely unnecessary now, and the behavior of the people bear this out. There is no reason why artists can't self distribute, and maintain control of their IP now.
their families are billed for the hazard pay and other recovery costs associated.
This is the thing that always gets me. Why the hell should I be billed for the tom foolery that my relatives/spouse/children pull? I can see billing the estate, but billing an individual next-of-kin is just silly.
On a less serious note... I don't understand why I have to pay taxes on a park, then have to pay up-front to actually use it. In some parks I get to pay both federal taxes AND local taxes, and then out of pocket if I ever go there. This annoys me, especially since it is called "public land", last I checked I was part of the public, and payed all the taxes and obligations that allow me that status. Therefore, why can't I got to the park?
One of the parks out here in Phoenix, is even dumber. At Usury Pass, you pay taxes, and to go there you have to go to a gas station and buy a usage permit, but... the nearest gas station is 30 miles away. I'm guessing the gas station gets a cut too, as well. This annoys the hell out of me. When I'm at my girlfriends parents place (about 5 miles from the park), we need to go on a 60 mile round trip just to go for a small hike 5 miles away, along with paying twice.
Slashdot Mirror
Who gave Evil the permission to be root?
Don't we all know this is a bad idea? Evil should not have administrator access!
Human Rights has different definition in different countries. Trying to force your version of human rights on to other people is by itself a violation of other people's human rights.
I agree in the shades of gray sense. If someones version of human rights in genocidal, or repressive, then I disagree. If the people don't have the right to change their lot, then I would disagree. Its very hard to ethically argue that non-representational governments are ethically fine.
BUT... As a culture with a standard of human rights, we must ACT accordingly, not matter who we are dealing with. This is not forcing it upon them, but not acting according to their policies that we disagree with. If we don't agree with the actions of Sudan, then we should not facilitate these actions. This isn't forcing them to stop anything, nor is it violating their rights, it is respecting our own.
China violates our standards, therefore it would not be unconscionable to NOT do business with them. We should act according to our principles at all times.
We can also argue thusly; By being ethically supporting governments that violate our prevelant conception of human rights, we are facilitating this, meaning we are acting AGAINST our own principles.
I also haven't swallowed the cultural relativism kool-aid. I can make an ethical stand against the actions of others still. I can say that country X is wrong, or behaving unethically. This isn't to say that my country is 100% correct, its just saying that I have standards (avoiding the nationalism trap). China does not support the right of the people to choose, or deny, their own government, therefore the rights of the people are forfeit. The rights any group of people choose for themselves are irrelevant, the ability to choose is all that matters.
I've always pondered this. It seems that most of the ardent capitalists I know think that profit should always come above the namby-pamby ethical concerns, since corporations are beyond ethics. (which is odd, since they are somewhat legally individuals, and we expect individuals to be ethical) Instead they expect their corporations to follow the law as the ethical minimum. We can see how this often gets blurred into illegal activity with shareholder apathy or encouragement then.
:)
This operates under a very odd assumption, that acting ethically is against profits. It might be true that some potential profits get endangered, but acting ethically doesn't COST money, it just somewhat limits your choices of venue and action, just like the law (which corporations are supposed to follow).
Google, if they chose to stop being in cahoots with China would be doing something ethical. It would cut back on profits, BUT I doubt it would kill them as a company, or actually hurt any shareholders (the positive press involved would probably minimize the the impact). It would be odd to think of such an act as throwing profits away, as well. Since they are doing so EVERYDAY by just obeying the law, and by not doing more drastic things like selling your email addresses to spammers, or doing likewise with all the other terabytes of data on us that they hold. Asking them to do everything possible to maximize profits is irresponsible.
Why should shareholders, and corporations, be above ethical concerns?
Mind, I'm not anti-capitalist, I'm just getting rather sick of the philosophy of "market/shareholders first, responsibility second".
Good job to all the shareholders who voted on this.
You must be new here.
Hydro is great, but there isn't a huge amount of untapped hydro left. Same with geothermal and other localized sources. Biofuels? You're seeing the results of very small amounts of biofuel production now, in food prices. I'd say the choice was food or fuel, but it's worse than that -- even if all food crop production was converted to fuel production, there wouldn't be enough fuel. Wind, solar? Total potential is orders of magnitude too small with present and forseeable technology.
Agreed with the hydro and geo. But I don't think we can remove biofuels from the equation completely yet. They are working on processing food-crop biproducts, and non-food crops into ethanol (switch grass, and corn wastes). Also if we find a good, ethanol happy, crop that isn't food, and doesn't grow in the same regions that we grow food (which describes switch grass), then I'd say we have a viable solution. Though infrastructure will still be an issue.
Nuclear, though, is the holy grail. I wish we'd get over our irrational fear of it. Europe has been addicted to the stuff, and they are still not over run with giant ants. I was reading about the emergent reactor technology (in sciAm, I think) where they can down convert weapon plutonium, and waste, into less dangerous fuel that can't hold a sustained nuclear reaction (meaning no meltdowns), AND increases the wield per fuel rod.
I have nothing against replacing a million tons of coal wastes distributed globally, for a pencil eraser sized bit of radioactive waste that we can bury somewhere. Someone should bitch-slap Nevada, open Yucca Mountain up, and start decommissioning fossil fuel plants.
To his credit, Barak Obama is the only person running who sees through the corn ethanol spam, and endorses nuclear.
But what if the climate scientists are correct, and not just motived by whatever conservatives say they are motivated by? What about the client scientists that are not politically motivated, or not even American, who find the same things. What about the conservative ones?
Sometimes we SHOULD worry about the future. Or at least I do, since I'm planning on having children some day that will have to live in the mess I made.
And paving over a huge ecosystem would be a bad thing to do. We're not sure what other effects that would have, and some of us accept that there is an inherent value to such ecosystems, while thinking at the same time that our carbon footprint is worry some.
What your saying, to make an analogy, is that people who worry about overpopulation, and don't support genocide, are obviously politically motived. Or people who worry about the poor, but don't give away 100% of their income. Sometimes there is a BAD solution, to a real problem. The answer is finding compromise.
How the fuck did the right make this a political issue? It has jack shit to do with politics, out side of protecting the interests of massive corporations over the people.
God bless America.
As a person who lives in the Sonoran desert, I must pull a NIMBY.
It is not a barren wasteland, it is a lush, green, thriving ecosystem. I always love how people want to shunt their problems to a different ecosystem than the one they live in. I really wouldn't want to destroy a fully functioning ecosystem, no matter where it is.
How would paving over Montana sound? Or chopping down all the forests in the east to plant solar farms in their stead?
Just because its a desert doesn't make it worthless.
(actually it might be a bad idea for other reasons to, Arizona has a lot of lung fungus, and nasty, poisonous, predators to be displaced)
I don't take "ur" internet very seriously, but... I do like everything in its place, and while your thing has its place, it isn't this place (unless under the barren wasteland that is Idle) for your thing.
Notice the title "news for nerds", you only got half of the criteria. I came here expecting both, which, oddly, is why I still come here.
To remove the aura of flamebait-y-ness, your thing was funny and clever. But next time, please, submit it to Digg. I don't like being advertised at in the incorrect channels.
Hmmm... I've been reading /. for years, and have come to expect a certain standard (or lack thereof) for the front page, this... though...
Is the dumbest thing I've ever seen here.
Who the hell is this "Ben Mallahan", and would it be okay to break his knee caps? Notice I don't pick on Timothy, some things are expected.
Perhaps its April Fools somewhere in the universe?
Is it god hinting at me that I should spend more time wading though the Obama spam on Reddit?
Has Slashdot jumped the shark?
Is there a cowboy neal option?
I don't disagree with you as much as you think I do.
:) But damages should also be calculated accordingly. If I download on item, I should be punished accordingly. In the real world, stealing $9000 (or whatever the *AA things a single four minute song is worth these days) is NOT petty theft, which just highlights how stupid all the parties involved are. P2P kids are better off stealing from Best Buy, than downloading, which is absurd. As stated, the loss of a physical object is greater than the loss of some bits.
Your argument against the validity of the word "stealing" is missing the point. Even if you don't mean it as such (and I think you do), it looks is as if an act being "not quite stealing" justifies the act â" it does not. Whatever quibbles may exist about "rational" copyright law and/or "rational" approach to violations, the violations are wrong.
I'm not saying that my semantic quibble validates copyright violation, just that it muddies the water. Just because it is not literally theft does not validate the act, it just makes it not theft. I disagree with you here though; reason is the precursor of determining wrong. If the law is irrational, violating it isn't wrong, just illegal. Wrong, in the moral sense, and legality are often different things. The violators ARE wrong, as are those who prosecute them, no real intellectual issue there.
Here comes the semantics again. Unauthorized use of an idea is literally not akin to removing a physical object, and thus does not fit the definition of theft per se. Again, I'm not justifying the act. The effects are different as well, since in physical theft each item stolen is a physical loss (and measurable loss in revenue), but with IP there is no guarantee that the "thief" would have actually paid money if theft wasn't possible, thus the economic impact is harder to calculate. Again, I'm still not condoning the act.
Single download â" petty theft. Massive reproduction [danwei.org] â" major heist...
I agree with the severity, if not the terminology.
I generally ignore the mentality of Slashdot, especially the modders. Life is so much more bearable that way.
The *AA's actions are my business. Even if I don't pirate music or movies, I prefer to have a functioning legal system, where the punishment fits the crime. I prefer not to have monolithic corporations try to cannibalize the law for their economic benefit. Misuse of the legal system is everyone's business, on that level.
I was being a bit harsh, I admit. Sorry. I was mostly putting in the context of the "consoles are bling" context of the AC I was replying to. He, I presume, was equating horsepower with quality, I just wanted to bring it back down to where it is supposed to be, by overstating.
The 360 is fun, as is the PS3 (as is the SNES, PS1/2, Atari 2600, etc...), no debating that. The 360 and PS3's 60 bajillion horsepower, though, don't make them any more fun, or less fun, than the Wii. I just get annoyed with people bashing the Wii only based on its power, or lack off. Game selection, though, sadly is a valid gripe.
There are only so many party games one can play, and so many Nintendo sequels one can lust over.
Wow, such vehemence over a silly video game console... There are three choices to pick from here...
A) Your a troll (probably true)
B) You still can't find a Wii (perhaps)
C) Your suffering from cognative dissonance for buying an over priced console, and this need to justify why it is uber1337(!!!one1!1eleven!) compared to the popular one (from your tone, I'd guess this is true, along with option A)
There is no 7th generation technology, all of the various consoles are different, but all of them are in the 7th round of the console wars, therefore ALL of them are 7th generation. The Wii bag of tricks, though, just happens not to be playing the same horsepower game that has been the rule since SNES and Genesis. So graphically it IS a glorified Gamecube, but lucky for them, that isn't the point.
I didn't know there was a correlation between what console's you buy, and what your IQ is, btw. Do you have a study to cite on that? I would argue that the people who bought PS3s would be the ones with a lower trend, since it costs more than the alternatives, but does the same things. Oddly, I bought a Wii because I'm an adult, I don't have the time to play 4000000 hour graphical frag fests anymore, and am too old to actually equate graphics with good games. Its part of the equation, but not the equation itself.
The Wii is about fun. I respect that, even if I have to check my 1337 haxx0r badge off at the door.
Back to playing Mario Kart now. Troll away.
Oddly, I doubt it.
As Slashdot has not unified politics, we also don't have any unified stand on IP. Read one of the ever-so-prevalent RIAA stories, and see how divided that issue is. Its around 50/50 between the "Infringement = theft = capitol punishment" crowd, and the "Piracy is a god given right" folk.
Politically I'd say the various flavors of libertarians are slightly more prevelant than other flavors, followed by Democrats, Republicans, and Anarchists. Not to mention the refreshing smattering of old-fashioned Socialists. This is of course biased, since a small but significant portion of us aren't even American, thus the American labels don't really apply.
insightful != something you agree with.
I don't agree with him, but he has the right to his opinions, as much as I (or you) do.
Good reply. You deserve a +1 informative.
I don't know if the cycle will begin anew though, since the 2nd person plural pronoun is generally dialectical, and considered gutter speak. When was the last time you heard an educated person (or more importantly someone who represent the popular conception of such) say something like "ya'll"?
The only way I can see it reintroduced into English is probably through a borrow word from Spanish or such.
I do wish it was common, especially since the rhetorical second person "you", is easily confused with the singular.
Sadly English lacks the 2nd person plural. When I was taking latin, we constantly translated it to "ya'll", as to not be confused with 1st singular "you". Thus our Latin classes sounded like a bunch of yokels reading Seneca and Cicero. Oddly this convention stuck, I suppose there is a reason why most languages have that part of speech, it is useful.
:)
Happily our teacher thought it was a good compromise too. But then again he spent all of his college years living in a cave by Arcosanti (an artists commune/borderline cult/arcology prototype in AZ) declining nouns with chalk on the cave walls, and playing DnD. (I once mistranslated "wisdom" for "intelligent", his correction was "I used to play DnD, I know the difference!")
Generally creepy experience.
I would actually see that.
That movie was indespensible to college life. It cleared my room damn fast, allowing me to turn it off and study in peace. Seriously, after the first 20 minutes EVERYONE runs. If they don't... well...
You should be frightened.
Yes, the semantics argument is getting old, but it pales in comparison to the tediousness of the RIAA's legal approach.
Not debating that. I do think that they are performing egregious abuse of the legal system, and this is ignoring their lobbying and law making efforts. You won't find me telling anyone that the RIAA is the good guys.
Since the copyright law, as written, does not acknowledge the existence of the internet, file-sharing, uploading or downloading, each case allows complete litigation of every facet of what the RIAA thinks it might say.
This was the crux of my argument. We're in completely new territory, since the law, our ethics, and of behaviors, change much slower than the current pace of technology. Hence copying not equalling "theft", "piracy", or any other term we've decided to attach to it yet. It is a wholly new entity.
The fact that the RIAA spends a lot of time trying to track down who used an IP address at a particular point in time is, in and of itself, a valid argument that what they're looking is not fixed, but transient, volatile and fluid.
For the sake of argument, and bad slashdot analogy, this could be see as akin to someone selling (or, oddly, freely distributing) illegal copies of books at swapmeets or such. You never know where they will show up, but it is the same entity doing the distributing. Remember swap meets in the 80's, where there was always that one sleazy looking guy selling commercial software with handwritten labels?
Then we go to things like "making available," whether the infringer is the person with a shared folder or the person who downloads it and makes a new copy, whether an IP address is an identification, and all those semantic arguments.
Again, no argument there. Many of these tactics are based on... odd... semantics. Or at least very vague, and indefinite, ideas applied as invariable truth.
Carrying on the fight against the internet "pirates" (not to be confused with those involved in making physical counterfeit copies for sale) is much more profitable than winning. If there were no pirates, they might be forced to acknowledged that the video game industry has intercepted a big pile o' dollars that adults would have spent on music a decade ago. You can listen to a CD for about 40 minutes. You can play a video game for weeks, if it's a good one. Highly superior investment of the shrinking entertainment budget.
I agree that the Joe Sixpack "pirates" are really not that much of a threat, as compared to the diligent Chinese and Russian organized ones. Though I do get more enjoyment out of my music than 40 minutes. I spend FAR more time listening to music than playing games (and often when playing games I turn off the music, and replace it with my own). To me music is a better "investment", tastes and mileage may vary.
Though here is a question... Who's right? I really don't agree with unfettered sharing and access of free songs, nor do I agree with the RIAA behavior. I especially don't agree with the RIAA's treatment of artists, which, to me, would be the most valid (and powerful) argument to go out and buy music instead of finding it for free. There has to be a compromise that allows money to the artists, and stops the endless abuse of their customer base.
The term "stealing" is used here for good reason â" it explains, what's happening perfectly well. The "Occam's razor" principle says, we don't need a new term...
t
I don't think Occam's razor has much to do with this, since it is a question of literal accuracy. The term "stealing" isn't the simplest, its just inaccurate. Many people who pirate something might not have ever bought it, and thus are not "stealing", since no one is deprived of a product. For example.
I'm not condoning or condemning piracy, I'm just stating that the term is misused for impact.
My original post is now "-1 Troll"... Apparently, grasping the parallel between stealing music and stealing source code is too difficult for most Slashdotters...
You must be new here. A wee bit more seriously, I don't think you deserve the -1, for what its worth. I'm getting annoyed at how the moderators increasingly use their points for censorship, and not to increase the quality of the discussion. (People with opposite opinions can express them well, as well)
Some of them can â" but it is their decision and is nobody else's business. If a musician (or any creator of something hard to create but easy to copy) wants to be able to sell their creation via an intermediary (rather than directly to the public), they ought to be able to do so. Treating such intermediaries as somehow undeserving of legal protection simply debases the original creations... It does not change the immorality and illegality of unauthorized copying one bit (pun intended) â" Metallica, for example, which owns its own distribution AFAIK, has been quite outspoken against piracy [wired.com]. So let's not change the subject.
I agree, the choice is theirs, that doesn't change the fact that it is becoming increasingly unviable. We must refrain from painting the record companies in a positive light, since they screw the artists as well. Music is a big business, no one wins besides the business men.
I'm guessing independent artists would make more money per album without the companies, even including piracy. But you are correct, this is a different discussion.
This is all plain and simple. The Slashdot groupthink (muzak â" kooool, RIAA â" baaaad) is simply clouding the judgment... Once again, had this been about, say, Linksys and their use of GPL code, the term "stealing" and the appropriate indignation would've been everywhere â" and highly moderated â" without anybody even being deprived of any revenue.
The difference here is that people view GPL as more a ethical construct than, say, Metallica, or Virgin Records. The GPL is about freedom, while copyright is about restriction. Freedom is more impressive. Even if the average slashbot suddenly agreed with that (copyright violation is wrong), abusing the various free licenses would still be a more important topic to them, for this reason.
I for one think that music IS cool (muzak not so much, I try to limit my stay in elevators), and that the RIAA is bad. No matter what stance you have on piracy, you must admit that the RIAA is going about it the wrong way, and is alienating their customer base. They ARE abusing the justice system, and hurting people, this is wrong no matter if their ends are not. The ends never justify the means.
I'm guessing that the RIAA could think of a better way to curb piracy, this would, though, involve updating their various business models.
Or they could keep on the course, and breed more people like me. I regularly deprive them of their revenue stream. But not through piracy, I haven't bought a CD on a major label (or RIAA affiliate) for years. They generally don't produce anything that is even worth wasting my bandwidth on.
Though if I didn't own them from long ago, I WOULD pirate things such as The Beatles, and old Jazz (Ella, Satchmo, and Parker, oh my!), since I think it absurd that I need to give Micheal Jackson money for something he didn't do, or someones
Socialism is fine, just be sure to go to a country where people are happy with that. I'm certainly not happy with it in the US.
Last I checked we were the least socialized country in the developed world, so I wouldn't worry to much. Even our "liberals" are at best moderates in other countries. See Hillary for example, if she's a liberal I'm a moose.
Every 'social' program we have has been a disaster, never goes away after it's proven to cause overall harm, and will ultimately be what stalls our system.
I happen to think that my Pell grants worked just fine. In the long run you paid some of my school costs, but I figure it works out fine. Damn communist education! Social security would be working fine if the Government didn't use it as a place to find missing money from their other progr^Wwars, and to pay of their voter bribes... I mean tax cuts.
But then again I am a person who thinks that we have a responsibility to everyone else, and don't value my meaningless consumption above anyone's welfare or well being. Money is just money, human life is more important, always.
That said, our current programs could use some work. The problem isn't the programs, but the systems implementing them.
If a family member falls down, we are there for them. If a stranger falls down, well, he should have thought twice before pissing off his family, eh?
If only life was that simple. Damn those people who don't have families from circumstances out of their control! And Damn those families that didn't have the good fortune to be as well of as yours. The average household is two paychecks from the streets, there isn't much room for helping others, much less kin, there.
Hell, I heard we could save money by dressing up the poor in grey canvas clothing much cheaper than premium cottons. Let's start a company to 'deliver clothing to every child' so they can have a snappy lil Stalin uniforms to match their laptops. All the while, the media would be like "WOW, WHAT GREAT GUYS! CLOTHING FOR THE POOR!
Huh? A voluntary NPO is now like Stalinism? When did OLPC start forcing us to give them money? If this is their view of an altruistic thing, good for them. Sadly some people want EVERYONE to act like a souless ass in an Ayn Rand novel.
Name one instance of a large fire in a crowded building with restricted exits where people were, in fact, not trampled. Fires without lots of burn injuries don't count.
:)
You may of may not be correct, but there still is a fallacy there. What if the fires where someone acted altruistically lead to fewer burn injuries? I would say, then, to be fair, all fires in situations matching the "crowded building with restricted exits" criteria would have to be counted, since your criteria is artificially made to support your point.
Keep feeding us the socialist dream while I keep get modded down by our friends from the east.
How the hell has "socialist" become a slander? Especially when it is used against ideas that have nothing to do with "socialism" whatsoever.
It is his bloody sled.
Take that.
I'm getting sick of this...
Besides, it's invoking Godwin's Law via the back door. The RIAA is bad, BUT not comparable to the Nazi party in any meaningful way, outside of the banal "both are repressive!". Hell, has anyone actually been locked up because of file sharing, much less gassed?
The semantics argument is ALSO getting old, mind. We all know what copyright violation is, it doesn't matter if we append "stealing" to it or not, the issue remains the same.
That said, it isn't really theft, even if it costs someone money. No one is deprived of property, due to the nature of the beast. Someone might be denied a small portion of their revenue stream though.
What we really need is a new term to describe the (arguable) bad effects of copyright violations, to end this silly debate.
I would, personally say, that its a bunch of stodgy companies fighting for a dying business model. If a VERY large group of people are violating your business model, perhaps its time to change, since obviously you are now divorced from your user base. The whole Record Company model is broken, and completely unnecessary now, and the behavior of the people bear this out. There is no reason why artists can't self distribute, and maintain control of their IP now.
their families are billed for the hazard pay and other recovery costs associated.
This is the thing that always gets me. Why the hell should I be billed for the tom foolery that my relatives/spouse/children pull? I can see billing the estate, but billing an individual next-of-kin is just silly.
On a less serious note... I don't understand why I have to pay taxes on a park, then have to pay up-front to actually use it. In some parks I get to pay both federal taxes AND local taxes, and then out of pocket if I ever go there. This annoys me, especially since it is called "public land", last I checked I was part of the public, and payed all the taxes and obligations that allow me that status. Therefore, why can't I got to the park?
One of the parks out here in Phoenix, is even dumber. At Usury Pass, you pay taxes, and to go there you have to go to a gas station and buy a usage permit, but... the nearest gas station is 30 miles away. I'm guessing the gas station gets a cut too, as well. This annoys the hell out of me. When I'm at my girlfriends parents place (about 5 miles from the park), we need to go on a 60 mile round trip just to go for a small hike 5 miles away, along with paying twice.