No, I shan't go away - not until you realise that you can't with any moral justification hold the rights of any individual or group as more important than those of any others.
If you'd like to discuss this further, go right ahead. Or, if you'd like to behave like a child whose fantasy world has been spoiled by a rational adult... oh wait, you already have. Sorry for wasting your time:-)
No, I didn't think it was fine. It was an appaling practice, and deserved all the negative attention it got. But I consider the idea that the Government places the interests of one individual or group above the interests of another to be evil.
Why do you assume that the interests of one group (black citizens who wish to watch movies) should be placed above those of another (white citizens who don't wish to have black customers)?
Personally, I wouldn't select my customers on the basis of race - one of the main reasons I live in a city is that I enjoy living in an area that's ethnically diverse. Nonetheless, it isn't moral to enforce any form of interaction (business, social, whatever) against the wishes of those involved.
In other words, if it's okay for a business to choose to ignore a minority like the blind, why is it wrong for them to ignore other minorities, like blacks? The logic is the same in both cases, both for and against the government taking a stand on the issue.
Indeed it is the same. Why should the State override the rights of an individual in favour of another individual, solely on the basis of their respective race?
Yeah!! Any why should companies have to hire blacks and women if they don't want to?
I presume you're being sarcastic here, but you're right. Why should they? Only because the State has decided that it has the right to override the choices made by those companies.
as a measure of human decency
So you're saying that State coercion, the forcing of people to hire employees they don't want, or do business with customers they don't want, is an example of human decency? Where is the moral basis for deciding that the ability of a blind person to read a website is more important than the right of a sighted person to create a website in the fashion he chooses?
Your solution is to hold the rights of the blind person over those of the sighted person - solely by virtue, it would seem, of the fact of his or her blindness. If you truly held their rights in equal esteem, you wouldn't advocate State control over either of their lives.
This strikes me as a matter of simple human rights. Does anyone have the right to force a company to spend money on a minority, or accept customers they wouldn't otherwise accept? I don't believe they do.
If the minority (in this case, the blind) are sufficiently profitable as customers, it's likely the company will spend the time and money to cater for them. Or, perhaps, the owner(s) of the company feel that their public image would be best served by catering to the minority. Or maybe they respect the effort many blind people make to achieve their goals, and decide to assist them.
Either way, it's the choice of the company - what right has any individual or group (including the State) to force a company to accept customers they don't want?
I'm just suprised it's taken this long. In New Zealand, the Government can't afford to pay for tertiary education, and the majority of students seem unwilling to pay their own way - I'm picking it's only a (short) matter of time until the same thing happens here.
Until Governments everywhere bite the bullet and stop using other peoples money to pay for Public Education (an oxymoron if ever there was one), underfunded Universities are going to have to try every trick in the book to obtain funding.
If students themselves paid, in entirety, for their tution, then Universities wouldn't find themselves in the position of sucking up to large corporations in order to obtain money they desperately need, thereby compromising the education they are providing to their students.
I agree - there are many sick people (murders and rapists especially) in society, as well as the people who would prevent potential victims from defending themselves.
I notice you didn't actually question any of the findings I reported in my editorial....
For me, that rules them out, despite the fact that I prefer the technical aspects of their service to those of any other search engine. If you want to know my position on such things, see my editorial on my homepage, titled Firearms And Self Defense for details.
>Is it me or is it a reconstructed "me" with a >different awareness, while the original "me" was >destroyed?
What do you mean? If the 'new you' is constructed as an identical copy (down to the electrochemical set-up of your nervous system at the exact time of teleportation), the 'new you' will indeed be indistinguishable from the 'old you'. It will be the same.
This should actually be a good test for the existence of the soul as separate from the body - if such a soul exists, the result of teleportation would be the removal of the soul from the body. Of course, if the results of teleporting humans are identical to the originals, I'm sure the fundamentalists will find some entertaining way of avoiding the truth, as they have done with evolution.
Consider implementing cost recovery, so that each department is charged proportionally for its bandwidth usage. Provide a per machine bandwidth usage report to heads of department, then watch said heads of department jump upon wasters.
Personally, I find it interesting that BSI is going after DAoC, calling Mythic a "software giant," while ignoring the more established compettion
Really? They are adopting an excellent strategy AFAICT. As they don't have as much money as the larger companies, nor as many corrupt officials in their pockets, they're going after the smaller company to set a precedent which they can then use against the larger companies.
A company could legally force you to use a spam-supporting client, using the DCMA.
Imagine if they used prorietary authentication protocols, forcing you to either use their clients, or implement your own version of the protocol in violation of the DCMA.
Currently, the difference between the example I've just described, and MSN, is that MSN doesn't (yet) enforce TrustE-authorised spam.
Since when does the DMCA force people to use this software? It only forces people to not reverse-engineer the software they are using.
This kind of statement is often used by DCMA-apologists. What if, say, Microsoft decided to enforce this for all of their POP servers that, IIRC, use some wierdass authentication protocol.
Use MSN? Want your mail? Read the spam. And once other ISPs realise how lucrative that could be, they may well jump on the bandwagon.
Here's a thought - what if I wrote an email client that forced users to read TrustE-authorised spam. Say, before you could read any non-TrustE-spam, you had to spend at least 5 seconds on each spam, scrolling from top to bottom. This would be to put it mildly a trivial addition to any existing mail client (except telnet:-).
Hey presto, you have a spamming tool that is legally enforced in the U.S.A. by the DCMA. Want to remove the spam? You're breaking the law.
Of course, if I was being a *real* bastard, I would prosecute any clients that don't enforce spam, but use my mail-server. Yep, if you're using an unauthorised mail client to strip spam from mail you receive, that's a DCMA violation as well.
Do you doubt this could happen? Imagine having a conversation with someone twenty years ago, trying to explain to them the DCMA, DVD encryption and the Skylarov case.
Slashdot Mirror
No, I shan't go away - not until you realise that you can't with any moral justification hold the rights of any individual or group as more important than those of any others.
... oh wait, you already have. Sorry for wasting your time :-)
If you'd like to discuss this further, go right ahead. Or, if you'd like to behave like a child whose fantasy world has been spoiled by a rational adult
No, I didn't think it was fine. It was an appaling practice, and deserved all the negative attention it got. But I consider the idea that the Government places the interests of one individual or group above the interests of another to be evil.
Why do you assume that the interests of one group (black citizens who wish to watch movies) should be placed above those of another (white citizens who don't wish to have black customers)?
Personally, I wouldn't select my customers on the basis of race - one of the main reasons I live in a city is that I enjoy living in an area that's ethnically diverse. Nonetheless, it isn't moral to enforce any form of interaction (business, social, whatever) against the wishes of those involved.
I presume you're being sarcastic here, but you're right. Why should they? Only because the State has decided that it has the right to override the choices made by those companies.
So you're saying that State coercion, the forcing of people to hire employees they don't want, or do business with customers they don't want, is an example of human decency? Where is the moral basis for deciding that the ability of a blind person to read a website is more important than the right of a sighted person to create a website in the fashion he chooses?
Your solution is to hold the rights of the blind person over those of the sighted person - solely by virtue, it would seem, of the fact of his or her blindness. If you truly held their rights in equal esteem, you wouldn't advocate State control over either of their lives.
This strikes me as a matter of simple human rights. Does anyone have the right to force a company to spend money on a minority, or accept customers they wouldn't otherwise accept? I don't believe they do.
If the minority (in this case, the blind) are sufficiently profitable as customers, it's likely the company will spend the time and money to cater for them. Or, perhaps, the owner(s) of the company feel that their public image would be best served by catering to the minority. Or maybe they respect the effort many blind people make to achieve their goals, and decide to assist them.
Either way, it's the choice of the company - what right has any individual or group (including the State) to force a company to accept customers they don't want?
Try reading "For The New Intellectual", by Ayn Rand. That should give you an idea of whether or not you want to work for the public sector.
I'm just suprised it's taken this long. In New Zealand, the Government can't afford to pay for tertiary education, and the majority of students seem unwilling to pay their own way - I'm picking it's only a (short) matter of time until the same thing happens here.
Until Governments everywhere bite the bullet and stop using other peoples money to pay for Public Education (an oxymoron if ever there was one), underfunded Universities are going to have to try every trick in the book to obtain funding.
If students themselves paid, in entirety, for their tution, then Universities wouldn't find themselves in the position of sucking up to large corporations in order to obtain money they desperately need, thereby compromising the education they are providing to their students.
Oh well. It seems Salon may be going out of business through faults of their own, and that's news. However, Emperors-Clothes is being attacked by media giants because they report the truth, and that's not news.
Have I missed something here?
I agree - there are many sick people (murders and rapists especially) in society, as well as the people who would prevent potential victims from defending themselves.
I notice you didn't actually question any of the findings I reported in my editorial....
Google has a strong anti-gun bias - see Google Refuses Business from Gun and Knife Advertisers for details.
For me, that rules them out, despite the fact that I prefer the technical aspects of their service to those of any other search engine. If you want to know my position on such things, see my editorial on my homepage, titled Firearms And Self Defense for details.
>Is it me or is it a reconstructed "me" with a
>different awareness, while the original "me" was
>destroyed?
What do you mean? If the 'new you' is constructed as an identical copy (down to the electrochemical set-up of your nervous system at the exact time of teleportation), the 'new you' will indeed be indistinguishable from the 'old you'. It will be the same.
This should actually be a good test for the existence of the soul as separate from the body - if such a soul exists, the result of teleportation would be the removal of the soul from the body. Of course, if the results of teleporting humans are identical to the originals, I'm sure the fundamentalists will find some entertaining way of avoiding the truth, as they have done with evolution.
Consider implementing cost recovery, so that each department is charged proportionally for its bandwidth usage. Provide a per machine bandwidth usage report to heads of department, then watch said heads of department jump upon wasters.
Your .sig wouldn't have anything to do with the game Tau Ceti, from CRL, would it?
Really? They are adopting an excellent strategy AFAICT. As they don't have as much money as the larger companies, nor as many corrupt officials in their pockets, they're going after the smaller company to set a precedent which they can then use against the larger companies.
Precedents are important.
A company could legally force you to use a spam-supporting client, using the DCMA.
Imagine if they used prorietary authentication protocols, forcing you to either use their clients, or implement your own version of the protocol in violation of the DCMA.
Currently, the difference between the example I've just described, and MSN, is that MSN doesn't (yet) enforce TrustE-authorised spam.
I *meant* client - especially if the spam-enabled client was the only client able to connect to the server (e.g. MSN), you'd be screwed.
This kind of statement is often used by DCMA-apologists. What if, say, Microsoft decided to enforce this for all of their POP servers that, IIRC, use some wierdass authentication protocol.
Use MSN? Want your mail? Read the spam. And once other ISPs realise how lucrative that could be, they may well jump on the bandwagon.
Here's a thought - what if I wrote an email client that forced users to read TrustE-authorised spam. Say, before you could read any non-TrustE-spam, you had to spend at least 5 seconds on each spam, scrolling from top to bottom. This would be to put it mildly a trivial addition to any existing mail client (except telnet :-).
Hey presto, you have a spamming tool that is legally enforced in the U.S.A. by the DCMA. Want to remove the spam? You're breaking the law.
Of course, if I was being a *real* bastard, I would prosecute any clients that don't enforce spam, but use my mail-server. Yep, if you're using an unauthorised mail client to strip spam from mail you receive, that's a DCMA violation as well.
Do you doubt this could happen? Imagine having a conversation with someone twenty years ago, trying to explain to them the DCMA, DVD encryption and the Skylarov case.