less incentive to write/compose/produce, at least as far as financial rewards go.
Not necessarily. If Red Hat can sell CDs that anyone can freely copy, why can't your favorite band? If they only sell one one-hundredth as many, but are getting the full value instead of the 1% they get from the record industry now, they haven't lost anything. And there are other sources of income besides selling copies: for software there's support, for music there's concert tickets, and there's always merchandizing.
I suspect that big-time creators would make less money, but that most small-time creators would make more. So maybe instead of a one-in-a-million shot at making a million dollars off your CD, you get a one-in-a-thousand shot at making ten thousand dollars. In terms of expected outcome, that leaves you far ahead.
it's almost the same thing the other side is clamoring for... nobody owns anything anymore.
No, what the "other side" is clamoring for is that Microsoft/MPAA/RIAA/Time-Warner/Sony/Columbia/et. al. own everything - music, software, and images - and the rest of us get to pay-per-view. That's a world away from saying that ideas are no one's property.
And I, at least, am not asking anyone to "give up" anything into collectivist projects - I'm saying it was never yours[1] to begin with, except by a questionable act of government which is no longer practical. I'm asking that we stop creating artificial property rights for information, and figure out a better, more ethical and more practical way to "promote the progress of science and useful arts".
([1] In the sense of property; your creations have always been yours in the sense of relationship, like in "your" children.)
You do not want soldiers that hesitate, that are limited by the socializing effects of society. Never forget that war is about one thing: killing. Its not natural for a civilized human being to kill another person, without an obvious threat to themselves.
When I contemplete the possibility of being opposed by soldiers - either those of a hypothetical invader, or those of my own nation in some sort of hypothetical revolution - yes, I do want soldiers to have some civilizing restraint.
When I reflect on the crimes of war perpitated by fighting men of all nations - yes, I do want soldiers to have some civilizing restraint.
When I realize than the soldiers are going to come home and be civilians again someday - yes, I do want soldiers to have some civilizing restraint.
When I think that maybe, just maybe, if those who killed other people in war felt bad about it, we might have fewer wars yes, I do want soldiers to have some civilizing restraint.
Weapons are the tools of violence; all decent men detest them.
Weapons are the tools of fear; a decent man will avoid them except in the direst necessity and, if compelled, will use them only with the utmost restraint. Peace is his highest value. If the peace has been shattered, how can he be content? His enemies are not demons, but human beings like himself. He doesn't wish them personal harm. Nor does he rejoice in victory. How could he rejoice in victory and delight in the slaughter of men?
He enters a battle gravely, with sorrow and with great compassion, as if he were attending a funeral. --Lao Tzu,Tao Te Ching
Companies should have the right to place whatever license they want on their product.
Why should the state go out and enforce the writing on the shrinkwrap? If I sell you a CD of my music, and on the shrinkwrap I write "Opening this CD indicates that you agree to give Thomas M. Swiss all of your possessions, and spend ten hours a week singing sea chanties in the desert", why should anyone's tax dollars go towards backing my lunacy?
No one is putting a gun to your head and focing you to buy the product.
But the state is holding a gun to your head to enforce what you can or cannot do with it once you buy it. That's always been ethically questionable, and in the digital age it's no longer practical.
It works really well...
Well, no, that's the problem. It works extremely poorly. Few content creators are able to get their works noticed by large audiences; content control is in the hands of megacorps rather than artists and authors; real enforcement would require the state to come into your house to make sure you're not making unauthorized copies; and protecting "intellectual property" has become an excuse for maintaining monopoly power.
I wrote a more detailed reply, but Netscape crashed before posting...so I'll keep this short.
You are confusing two completely different entities... Censorship usually has to do with speech, ideas, points of view, etc. What we're referring to above is sensitive information, which are more like facts, specifications, and trade secrets.
The post to which I replied - and I even quoted this, and you quoted my quote - said "Censorship is sometimes a good thing." It said nothing about "protecting sensitive information" being a good thing.
Censorship is forcefully preventing speech or expression. Labeling the material under discussion "sensitive" doesn't change that.
So, based on your definition of "censorship," protecting our military secrets in the interest of keeping American citizens alive is "an evil act, pure and simple."
It's highly questionable as to how much of what's kept secret protects anyone. Anyway, not telling me something isn't censorship (except in a very loose metaphorical sense), it's keeping a secret. (Although the results can be just as bad. Check out this year's results from Project Censored.)
I addressed this in the post you replied to: "Got military secrets? Fine, make sure you only tell people you trust. Don't dare try to silence me if I find out about them." Using force to silence me if I find out something you don't want me to know is censorship, and it is evil. Using force to restrict people's freedom so they don't find out certain information is censorship, and it is evil.
And if you don't believe that there are other nations that would GLADLY smash us into little tiny bits merely for being demi-free Americans, you are very sadly mistaken.
If we had a less paranoid attitude we might treat those other nations better, rather than propping up right-wing dictators, or making excuses to go to war in oil- or mineral-rich nations; and those other nations might be more kindly disposed towards us.
Nurse Chappell (give or take a p or l), as I recall. Also, played a doctor secretly working with the resistance on the early episodes of "Earth:Final Conflict"
Also played a Centauri woman with precognition (Lady Morella????) on an ep of Babylon 5; she tells Londo that he will be emporor - and then tells Vir that he will, too...
Never! Using force to silence someone - anyone - is an evil act, pure and simple.
Read any history book on WWII and find out how control of important information saved hundreds and thousands of lives.
Without censorship, how could Hitler have come to power? How could have other nations failed to act during the early years of the Holocaust? Things would have been quote different had German Jews, or the victims of the rape of Nanking, been able to communicate freely with the citizens of the nations attacking them, and with rest of the world.
WWII might not have happened at all without censorship.
"National security" is no excuse for censorship. The "security" involved is almost always the job security of some politician. If the nation is so insecure that my speech can destroy it, then it needs to fall and be replaced by something better.
Got military secrets? Fine, make sure you only tell people you trust. Don't dare try to silence me if I find out about them.
P.P.S. Copyright law is currently protecting a lot of free software so its occasionally useful too.
Protecting it from what? From being censored, it would seem.
I don't think that the government is the large totalitarian threat nowdays.
It's large corporations.
Ah, but who empowers those corporations? Who charters them, give them special tax status, grants them recognition as legal persons, lets them own property, and creates and defends their "intellectual property" rights? It's the government.
Do you really think that the NSA or whatever is actually interested in what you do? Of course not, they want to get to the people who actually do real things, not the latest kernel patch to an OS of no interest to them.
Maybe, maybe not. To produce a chilling effect on freedom, it's not necessary that Big Brother actually be watching all the time, only that citizens have the impression that he might be - its the idea behind the panopticon.
Why Big Brother might be watching me:
I've had family, friends, and co-workers apply for high-level security clearances; it's conceivable that I've been investigated as part of that process.
I've worked on ARPA and NSA funded contracts, which may have brought my name up for attention.
I know that my name is flagged for special attention in the national database used for criminal background checks of firearms owners - when I purchased a rifle last year, the check took days, instead of minutes. My paranoid side had great fun with that, while my reasonable side figures it's because my brother (who has the same last name and similar SSN) had a little trouble with the law.
I've been spouting my mouth off on the net for years, taking state-unfriendly positions (such as that police ought to be disarmed and citizens armed), spreading information about currently illegal drugs, arguing pro-animal rights and pro-environmental positions (which in some peoples' eyes makes me a terrorist sympathizer, if you can beleive it) and generally stirring up trouble; it's certainly conceivable that some domestic surveillance guy put my name on a list for "special attention" after reading a post where I said, for example, that shooting cops who break into your house executing "no-knock" search warrants might be justified.
All it really takes is the suspicion of surveillance.
(And I know "Little Brother" is watching me - my credit card purchases, my long-distance calling patterens, my web surfing habits, et cetera, are all of great interest to marketers and salesmen.)
maybe that's what I saw last night?
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G3 Solar Storm
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· Score: 1
Wonder if this is what I saw last night? I'm in Catonsville MD, in the light-polluted suburbs a bit south of Baltimore and around 50 miles north of DC. Around 8:30 or 9 pm EDT (which would be 60-90 minutes after sunset), I noticed a reddish glow overhead. Not knowing about the auroral activity, I guessed that maybe some very high, thin clouds were reflecting the sunset, but I couldn't make out any clouds and but it didn't really seem to line up with where the sun sets around here.
Looks like this guy got a better look, around the same time, from a few miles further north and a bit west, away from the city.
Damn! Wish I'd known what this was, I would have paid more attention to it! Probably the only time I will ever see the northern lights from my backyard.
The argument is your claim that capitalism forces conformity. I think it's BS, and I don't see how your claim that capitalism encourages people to buy changes that.
You are encouraged to buy by way of being encouraged to conform. Advertizing shows us how we're supposed to live, and we go out and buy.
When the most meaningful decision you are encouraged to make is whether to buy the GE washer or the Whirlpool one (and that on the basis of what color it is and how many buttons there are on the front), or whether to buy Nike or Reebok's overpriced sneakers, that's not individualism.
When in order to afford all the stuff you're encouraged to buy, you have to perform like a good little worker-drone at your job, that's not individualism.
When in order to avoid offending advertizers, mass media offers up bland lowest-common-denomenator content, that's not individualism, that's conformity. And when control of that mass media falls into the hands of fewer and fewer corporate owners, all spouting essentially the same drivel, that's certainly not individualism.
Funny, I thought the whole idea of the manifesto was that it was time to get away from the capitalist ideal of everyone being alike (or "keeping up with the Joneses", being good little consumer-units and worker-drones)
Well you're a pretty freaking stupid individual aren't you? That has nothing to do with capitalism, either in theory or in practice.
It has everything to do with capitalism. Capitalism - at least as practiced in today's corporate industrial economy - is dependant on the continual growth of production. If the GDP doesn't rise every year, everyone goes into a tizzy. Production can only rise if consumption rises as well, and there are only two ways that consumption can rise: more consumers, or more consumption per capita.
We obvously can't have an endless number of consumers. (Though globalism is trying to maximize the possibilities.) So our capitalist society applies cultural pressure to get the consumer to consume more - "keeping up with the Joneses", as I said. Partially it's unconscious, partially it's a deliberate collusion between government and industry to keep profits flowing. (The competition for shiny baubles also serves to keep the citizens distracted from just how badly government and industry are fscking them over.)
This cultural pressure - the constant drumbeat of "Buy! Buy! Buy!" - is the backbeat of the one-way communication that we've been discussing. The most dangerous threat to our modern economic system is people deciding that they'd rather communicate with each other, and form human relationships, than follow the consumption parade.
Thus, perhaps it's no surprise that the forces of commercialization are at work, trying to turn the net into nothing more than one giant Sears & Robuck catalog. Blinking evidence of that can be found above this message. (Unless you're running Justbuster or have images off.)
I'd always thought that mass media had a range of viewpoints,
We must have a different opinion of "wide range". I see little difference in the slants of the local ABC, NBC, and CBS affiliates, the Washington Post, the Baltimore Sun, Time, and Newsweek - its all the same BS, just maybe in different colors.
and if you don't agree with those there's always alternative media. I mean, you're reading/. right?
Alternative media is just what its name implies - alternative. It's not the mass media of which I was speaking. Fortunately, the net is making the alternatives more accessable - which was the whole fscking point.
When people stop trying to control the thoughts of net users then things might change, but until then communist ideals of everyone being alike (or "getting it") will hold these changes back.
Funny, I thought the whole idea of the manifesto was that it was time to get away from the capitalist ideal of everyone being alike (or "keeping up with the Joneses", being good little consumer-units and worker-drones) and letting salesmen tell us how to think; that by engaging in conversations rather than sitting through lectures, we might find out that "we all have our own views of life, and that these views are all valid in their own ways," as opposed to the pre-digested single-POV content of the mass media.
But, you can link directly to a file - making the link essentially the equivalent of the file.
A link is not equivalent to a file, any more than a finger pointing to the moon is equivalent to the moon. Consult any Zen master for further enlightenment.
Then - oh Anonymous Coward - kindly post your SSN, bank & account #, address, phone, DOB, driver's ID, and a copy of your last 1040 form submitted to the IRS. That information wants to be free too.
If I may get poetic for a moment...
It's exactly because that information wants to be free that those of us with privacy concerns don't dare let it out. My passwords want to run wild across the net, into the hands of every cracker; no law could stop their wild rampage. Therefore I must keep them tightly caged, and don't even share them with friends. My SSN wants to be spray-painted across billboards all over the world, where identity theives will take it for their own; once it gets out even the FBI and Secret Service couldn't stop it, so I must keep it well-leashed, not even divulging it to my doctor.
"Information want to be free" doesn't say what those affected by the information want - it's a value-neutral statement about an emergent property of data-flow in highly connected systems. You can't half-share a secret.
I think it was Twain who said "Two can keep a secret - if one of them is dead." Same thing, a billion times bigger.
So... what if I put up a whole page of _links_ to child pornography. Call it www.kiddiesex.com, but I don't host any of the images. However, I scour the net every day to find images, and keep my links up to date, sort of a convenient one-stop-shop for your kiddie porn needs.
Would this be legal?
Under any rational interpretation of the First Amendment, yes. However, child pornography and the net both tend to bring out the irrational side in the government.
Linking is no more than a source-code way of exactly specifying the site under discussion, and we have good precedent that source code is legitimate expression.
If Microsoft Word were declared a controlled dangerous substance in some state (it's certainly more harmful than cannabis), it would still be legal to say "You can find out about Word at Microsoft's website"; it would be no different to say "Follow the link to find out about the software more evil than Satan himself."
People also use photocopiers, tape recorders, cigarette lighters, firearms, screwdrivers, automobiles, ball-point pens, and telephones to break the law. You'll pardon me if I don't find that a compelling reason to outlaw any of these things.
We have bans on certain types of guns which are used to break the law (eg, assault rifles, which have *no* legitimate purpose)
No legitimate purpose? Why do soldiers and police use M-16s then? (Of course, one might argue that soldiering and policing aren't legitimate action, but I don't think that was your point.) The purpose of an assult rifle (that is, a rifle that can be selected for automatic fire and uses a small-caliber bullet) is to throw a lot of lead very fast. The purpose of that flying lead is a function of the weapon wielder, not the weapon itself; it may be shooting targets for sport, it may be defending one's self or community from attack, it may be attacking someone else.
likewise, Napster could be legally banned.
Not here in the US - there's no legitimate constitutional authority for the feds to ban a computer program. Doesn't mean they won't do it anyway, of course; since they command the soldiers and police - who have the assult rifles - they pretty much do what they want.
but let's not paint to bright a picture of copyright violations, eh emmett?
Copyright is dead. I wish we could recognize that and move on, but I suspect it's going to be a very painful transition.
Re:shrinking talent pool (gratuitous cheap shot)
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Microsoft Loses
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What talent?... Do you really want people capable of such abominations working for your company?
I've actually known three talented people who were seduced by the Dark Side... I've concluded that M$ just doesn't think it's profitable to make quality products. Sad thing is, it worked pretty well for a long while.
Re:But is this really for the better?
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Microsoft Loses
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MSFT dropped 15 points. That caused the NASDAQ to drop 300 some points.
...which nicely makes the point about Micro$oft being too much influence and power in the market, no?
But you have to come up with a new paradigm now, not later!
Yes, I've been saying that for two or three years now.
If creators of content stop making money, they stop making content. It is as simple as that.
I don't know about that...I know many people who make make music, art, poetry without getting paid, myself not least among them. But it's a good thing if creators can get paid, yes.
I don't know what the new paradigm should be, and you didn't suggest one either.
Not in that message, no, but I have discussed it before. My suggestion is that copying of audio or video recordings be unrestricted, but that the for-profit sale or use of copies be subject to royalites. What I have in mind is something like the exisiting system of music performance royalties presently in place in the US - copying a CD should be recognized as being just as free as an musician performing a song at a party, while selling that copy would be like playing that song in a bar (in which case ASCAP or BMI gets a nickel to forward to the songwriter).
Of course, there's nothing to say that the artist can't sell CDs and make a profit there - if RedHat can sell a CD that can be freely copied, why not your favorite band? And when the net takes the corporate bastards out of the loop so that the artist, rather than the record company, get most of the money, it's not so bad if sales fall dramatically.
Add to that concert tickets, merchandizing, and all the other secondary sources of income that artists enjoy today, and I don't think we have to worry about starving artists any more than we do today.
Some people are trying adverts, but from my perspective, they don't seem to be working. Personally I hate them, and block and filter out all adverts that people try to send my way.
Me too - banner ads suck. I'm working on an idea I had a few weeks ago for a somewhat less odious approach to sponsorship; I'll submit to/. and Freshmeat when the write-up and sample implementation are ready, hopefully within the next few weeks. (If you're curious, drop me a line and I'll e-mail you a first draft, I could always use feedback.)
Seriously... THis thing just encourages software/mp3 piracy.
Welcome to the digital age - copying (not "pirating", there's no theft or violence involved here) can no longer be regulated. Deal with it. It's time to drop the idea of creators profiting from a state-granted monopoly on making copies, and come up with a new pardigm to support artists and authors.
Slashdot Mirror
I suspect that big-time creators would make less money, but that most small-time creators would make more. So maybe instead of a one-in-a-million shot at making a million dollars off your CD, you get a one-in-a-thousand shot at making ten thousand dollars. In terms of expected outcome, that leaves you far ahead.
No, what the "other side" is clamoring for is that Microsoft/MPAA/RIAA/Time-Warner/Sony/Columbia/et. al. own everything - music, software, and images - and the rest of us get to pay-per-view. That's a world away from saying that ideas are no one's property.
And I, at least, am not asking anyone to "give up" anything into collectivist projects - I'm saying it was never yours[1] to begin with, except by a questionable act of government which is no longer practical. I'm asking that we stop creating artificial property rights for information, and figure out a better, more ethical and more practical way to "promote the progress of science and useful arts".
([1] In the sense of property; your creations have always been yours in the sense of relationship, like in "your" children.)
When I reflect on the crimes of war perpitated by fighting men of all nations - yes, I do want soldiers to have some civilizing restraint.
When I realize than the soldiers are going to come home and be civilians again someday - yes, I do want soldiers to have some civilizing restraint.
When I think that maybe, just maybe, if those who killed other people in war felt bad about it, we might have fewer wars yes, I do want soldiers to have some civilizing restraint.
I wrote a more detailed reply, but Netscape crashed before posting...so I'll keep this short.
The post to which I replied - and I even quoted this, and you quoted my quote - said "Censorship is sometimes a good thing." It said nothing about "protecting sensitive information" being a good thing.Censorship is forcefully preventing speech or expression. Labeling the material under discussion "sensitive" doesn't change that.
It's highly questionable as to how much of what's kept secret protects anyone. Anyway, not telling me something isn't censorship (except in a very loose metaphorical sense), it's keeping a secret. (Although the results can be just as bad. Check out this year's results from Project Censored.)I addressed this in the post you replied to: "Got military secrets? Fine, make sure you only tell people you trust. Don't dare try to silence me if I find out about them." Using force to silence me if I find out something you don't want me to know is censorship, and it is evil. Using force to restrict people's freedom so they don't find out certain information is censorship, and it is evil.
If we had a less paranoid attitude we might treat those other nations better, rather than propping up right-wing dictators, or making excuses to go to war in oil- or mineral-rich nations; and those other nations might be more kindly disposed towards us.Without censorship, how could Hitler have come to power? How could have other nations failed to act during the early years of the Holocaust? Things would have been quote different had German Jews, or the victims of the rape of Nanking, been able to communicate freely with the citizens of the nations attacking them, and with rest of the world.
WWII might not have happened at all without censorship.
"National security" is no excuse for censorship. The "security" involved is almost always the job security of some politician. If the nation is so insecure that my speech can destroy it, then it needs to fall and be replaced by something better.
Got military secrets? Fine, make sure you only tell people you trust. Don't dare try to silence me if I find out about them.
Protecting it from what? From being censored, it would seem.Maybe, maybe not. To produce a chilling effect on freedom, it's not necessary that Big Brother actually be watching all the time, only that citizens have the impression that he might be - its the idea behind the panopticon.
Why Big Brother might be watching me:
All it really takes is the suspicion of surveillance.
(And I know "Little Brother" is watching me - my credit card purchases, my long-distance calling patterens, my web surfing habits, et cetera, are all of great interest to marketers and salesmen.)
Wonder if this is what I saw last night? I'm in Catonsville MD, in the light-polluted suburbs a bit south of Baltimore and around 50 miles north of DC. Around 8:30 or 9 pm EDT (which would be 60-90 minutes after sunset), I noticed a reddish glow overhead. Not knowing about the auroral activity, I guessed that maybe some very high, thin clouds were reflecting the sunset, but I couldn't make out any clouds and but it didn't really seem to line up with where the sun sets around here.
Looks like this guy got a better look, around the same time, from a few miles further north and a bit west, away from the city.
Damn! Wish I'd known what this was, I would have paid more attention to it! Probably the only time I will ever see the northern lights from my backyard.
You are encouraged to buy by way of being encouraged to conform. Advertizing shows us how we're supposed to live, and we go out and buy.
When the most meaningful decision you are encouraged to make is whether to buy the GE washer or the Whirlpool one (and that on the basis of what color it is and how many buttons there are on the front), or whether to buy Nike or Reebok's overpriced sneakers, that's not individualism.
When in order to afford all the stuff you're encouraged to buy, you have to perform like a good little worker-drone at your job, that's not individualism.
When in order to avoid offending advertizers, mass media offers up bland lowest-common-denomenator content, that's not individualism, that's conformity. And when control of that mass media falls into the hands of fewer and fewer corporate owners, all spouting essentially the same drivel, that's certainly not individualism.
It has everything to do with capitalism. Capitalism - at least as practiced in today's corporate industrial economy - is dependant on the continual growth of production. If the GDP doesn't rise every year, everyone goes into a tizzy. Production can only rise if consumption rises as well, and there are only two ways that consumption can rise: more consumers, or more consumption per capita.
We obvously can't have an endless number of consumers. (Though globalism is trying to maximize the possibilities.) So our capitalist society applies cultural pressure to get the consumer to consume more - "keeping up with the Joneses", as I said. Partially it's unconscious, partially it's a deliberate collusion between government and industry to keep profits flowing. (The competition for shiny baubles also serves to keep the citizens distracted from just how badly government and industry are fscking them over.)
This cultural pressure - the constant drumbeat of "Buy! Buy! Buy!" - is the backbeat of the one-way communication that we've been discussing. The most dangerous threat to our modern economic system is people deciding that they'd rather communicate with each other, and form human relationships, than follow the consumption parade.
Thus, perhaps it's no surprise that the forces of commercialization are at work, trying to turn the net into nothing more than one giant Sears & Robuck catalog. Blinking evidence of that can be found above this message. (Unless you're running Justbuster or have images off.)
Sometimes I wanna hear "Take the A Train", sometimes I wanna hear "Blitzkrieg Bop". They're both fine examples of the art of music.
It's exactly because that information wants to be free that those of us with privacy concerns don't dare let it out. My passwords want to run wild across the net, into the hands of every cracker; no law could stop their wild rampage. Therefore I must keep them tightly caged, and don't even share them with friends. My SSN wants to be spray-painted across billboards all over the world, where identity theives will take it for their own; once it gets out even the FBI and Secret Service couldn't stop it, so I must keep it well-leashed, not even divulging it to my doctor.
"Information want to be free" doesn't say what those affected by the information want - it's a value-neutral statement about an emergent property of data-flow in highly connected systems. You can't half-share a secret.
I think it was Twain who said "Two can keep a secret - if one of them is dead." Same thing, a billion times bigger.
Linking is no more than a source-code way of exactly specifying the site under discussion, and we have good precedent that source code is legitimate expression.
If Microsoft Word were declared a controlled dangerous substance in some state (it's certainly more harmful than cannabis), it would still be legal to say "You can find out about Word at Microsoft's website"; it would be no different to say "Follow the link to find out about the software more evil than Satan himself."
Of course, there's nothing to say that the artist can't sell CDs and make a profit there - if RedHat can sell a CD that can be freely copied, why not your favorite band? And when the net takes the corporate bastards out of the loop so that the artist, rather than the record company, get most of the money, it's not so bad if sales fall dramatically.
Add to that concert tickets, merchandizing, and all the other secondary sources of income that artists enjoy today, and I don't think we have to worry about starving artists any more than we do today.
Me too - banner ads suck. I'm working on an idea I had a few weeks ago for a somewhat less odious approach to sponsorship; I'll submit to