Keep in mind that this was just one person asking about the wisdom of a software tarrif on slashdot. One person starting a debate is not the same as a population having a widly accepted policy or opinion on the matter. As far as I know, nobody in the US goverment has advocated this (this is the first I've even become aware of the idea), so going of on rant about the irony of whining, tarrif crazed americans seems a little premature.
Regardless of your opinion of most of the crap hollywood churns out, film is still art and writers and directors are artists. If you alter an artists work and redistribute it against his objections, then he has every right to be angry as well as a moral justification to fight against it. I conceed that whether artist creative rights trump consumer rights is a difficult question. What is clear to me is that a video store is not a consumer, it is a distribution channel. A distribution channel does not have a right to destort or re-interperate an artists work at their whim and then pass it on to consumers over the artists objections.
It's akin to a company buying history books, cutting out all refrences to the civil war, the holocost, and the civil rights movement, and selling it to schools.
How can survival of the fittest drive evolution when everyone survives?
'Until recently, there were massive differences between individuals' lifespans and fecundity,' said Jones. 'In London, the death rate outstripped the birth rate for most of the city's history. If you look at graveyards from ancient to Victorian times, you can see that a half of all children died before adolescence, probably because they lacked genetic protection against disease. Now, children's chances of reaching the age of 25 have reached 98 per cent. Nothing is changing. We have reached stagnation.'
If it is just as likely that someone of lesser intelligence/strength/education/etc will reproduce than it is that someone of superior attributes, how do the superior genes gain dominance in the population?
If a population advances to the point where their culture, technology and economy allow for sufficient health care for all, regardless of strength, intelligence, education, wealth, political power, or new evolutionary advantage X, what determines whether an individual reproduces or not is more personal preference than evolutionary pressure. Actually, I believe the trend that has been developing, in the West at least, is that the more educated/wealthy/successful an individual, the smaller the family, which seems like a de-evolutionary factor. I would argue, at least for "Western Civilization", that the author has a valid point and that in the current environment, evolution is probably stalled. For how long is another question.
The obvious things that could jump-start evolution would be:
catastophies (asteroids, large scale nuclear war, climate change, plage)
overpopulation (food/health care resources become scarce again)
If a population fails to evolve because they have managed to conquer the nastiness that the universe and their own natures can throw at them, than is it really much of a loss? Certainly, as humans move into new environments, harsher environments, such as space or other planets, evolutionary pressures will exert themselves again.
Adobe has every right, reason, and frankly, moral justification to persue this suit. Adobe Illustrator is an established, well known, widely recognized brand name, due in no small part to the quality of the product and the boatloads of marketing money spend by Adobe. Naming a product that is a direct competetor KIllustrator, a one letter diffrence, is not just an innocent naming choice, but a blatenty obvious effort to ride on the coatails of Adobe's efforts.
Adobe did it first. Adobe did a good job of it. Adobe chose to identify all their hardwork with the label Illustrator. Regardless of the legality/wisdom of trying to trademark a standard word, naming their productKIllustrator is a cheep ploy and is an excellent example of the kind of thing trademark laws were set up to stop in the firstplace.
Seriously people, if Microsoft released an MS-Apache webserver the majority of the posters on this board would be demanding blood. Just because someone is an underdog doesn't always make them the good guys.
Slashdot Mirror
Keep in mind that this was just one person asking about the wisdom of a software tarrif on slashdot. One person starting a debate is not the same as a population having a widly accepted policy or opinion on the matter. As far as I know, nobody in the US goverment has advocated this (this is the first I've even become aware of the idea), so going of on rant about the irony of whining, tarrif crazed americans seems a little premature.
Video stores are distribution channels.
Regardless of your opinion of most of the crap hollywood churns out, film is still art and writers and directors are artists. If you alter an artists work and redistribute it against his objections, then he has every right to be angry as well as a moral justification to fight against it. I conceed that whether artist creative rights trump consumer rights is a difficult question. What is clear to me is that a video store is not a consumer, it is a distribution channel. A distribution channel does not have a right to destort or re-interperate an artists work at their whim and then pass it on to consumers over the artists objections.
It's akin to a company buying history books, cutting out all refrences to the civil war, the holocost, and the civil rights movement, and selling it to schools.
If a population advances to the point where their culture, technology and economy allow for sufficient health care for all, regardless of strength, intelligence, education, wealth, political power, or new evolutionary advantage X, what determines whether an individual reproduces or not is more personal preference than evolutionary pressure. Actually, I believe the trend that has been developing, in the West at least, is that the more educated/wealthy/successful an individual, the smaller the family, which seems like a de-evolutionary factor. I would argue, at least for "Western Civilization", that the author has a valid point and that in the current environment, evolution is probably stalled. For how long is another question.
The obvious things that could jump-start evolution would be:
- catastophies (asteroids, large scale nuclear war, climate change, plage)
- overpopulation (food/health care resources become scarce again)
- political/moral changes (segregation, genocide, policy imposed abortions, etc)
If a population fails to evolve because they have managed to conquer the nastiness that the universe and their own natures can throw at them, than is it really much of a loss? Certainly, as humans move into new environments, harsher environments, such as space or other planets, evolutionary pressures will exert themselves again.Adobe has every right, reason, and frankly, moral justification to persue this suit. Adobe Illustrator is an established, well known, widely recognized brand name, due in no small part to the quality of the product and the boatloads of marketing money spend by Adobe. Naming a product that is a direct competetor KIllustrator, a one letter diffrence, is not just an innocent naming choice, but a blatenty obvious effort to ride on the coatails of Adobe's efforts. Adobe did it first. Adobe did a good job of it. Adobe chose to identify all their hardwork with the label Illustrator. Regardless of the legality/wisdom of trying to trademark a standard word, naming their productKIllustrator is a cheep ploy and is an excellent example of the kind of thing trademark laws were set up to stop in the firstplace. Seriously people, if Microsoft released an MS-Apache webserver the majority of the posters on this board would be demanding blood. Just because someone is an underdog doesn't always make them the good guys.
Isnt that the plot to Homeworld?