The thing about that, however, is that from a modern perspective Vetinari is disgusting. He's a distorted version of the philosopher-king: the man who believes himself to be so superior to all others that no other can be trusted to rule. His involvement with the criminals - like some Moore-envisoned version of Moriarty - reduces him to the epitome of hypocrisy. By not only manipulating existing crime but actually creating new crime, Vetinari is no less a violent criminal than he is a statesman.
True, Vetinari himself has good intentions, but nonetheless he wields completely disgusting methods.
Because automating a process always makes it "new and novel". People can have babies pretty easily (usually), but you can bet your arse that if I figure out a way to automate it using machinery, I'm going to patent it (that way the Matrix will owe me money).
More concretely, another poster mentioned that all Ford really did was automate the manufacturing process for cars. Are you diminishing his contribution to the industry? Are you suggesting his work wasn't a contribution?
You want to know the simple way? It affects both the office environment, as well as possibly interfering with customer relations. It's the same principle as not wearing a speedo to work: while it doesn't make you (necessarily) work any less effectively, it can certainly interfere with other people.
Many years ago, back when the Sci-Fi channel had Anime Saturdays, they would run an anime movie or two in the morning. One movie, which I no longer can remember, featured a sophisticated robotic 'nanny' type device for geriatrics. It was a bed that could roll, walk, get food, etc. thanks to an AI. All I remember about the plot was that the bed of some old man either thoughut it was his wife, or it was his wife's brain or something and it took him through the city - destroying it in the process - to the beach.
Anyone have any idea what that movie was? I thought it was great at the time...
Actually, it does mean it's fair. It just doesn't mean it's right. To be fair (there are at least 8 or 9 seperate meanings, but only one for this context) is to be even-handed in the administration of rules. If we're allowing one sector of the copyright industry to have these extensions, there's an obligation (if we want to be fair) to allow the other sectors that same obligation.
I don't think this is the right course of action, since I think these extensions are problematic at best, but I do think it's fair.
"I've worked in the pharmaceutical industry for over 20 years, and it is one of the most atrociously exploitive industries in the world. In the United States, the majority of new medications are purchased from universities.
We fund pharmaceutical development, academic research, and buy everything that we can. However, most people don't realize why.
We don't buy most of the research and fully developed medications to help those in need; we buy them so that we can have control. We withhold the cure, because there is so much more money to be made in relieving the symptoms.
A government that is not corrupted by lapdog politicians would allow its people to create an incentive to innovate (government funded R&D, instead of overly powerful private industry)."
(I copied the entire post, because it's an AC and thus below most readers' filters)
If that's true, it's interesting and quite a bit distressing. However, its unrelated to our discussion. We're not talking about the practical issues of existing pharma companies, but rather using pharma as a real-world example of the issues that come up when discussing digitial rights management.
"And just a question for you. If you created a drug that cured cancer and was nearly free to reproduce, you try to make every possible cent from it and deny it to some, or would you ask people to pay what they could, not charging anything if it could save the life of a child who couldn't afford it."
A very interesting question. Personally, I cannot be sure what I'd do. It would depend largely on whether I developed the product alone, or whether it represented the combined work of many people. In a recent post, someone brought up the work involved in developing Penicillin: that involved a handful of people, compared to drugs developed today that involve thousands of man-hours provided by hundreds or thousands of people. Why do I bring them up? It's a question of who should be protected.
Supposing I, individually, develop a cure to cancer that employs research that is otherwise freely available, i.e. the only value-added is my work. If I decide to charge the highest price possible, the only R&D person I can claim to be protecting (or rather, the only person's effort I can claim to be protecting) is my own.
If a group of tens or hundreds or thousands does that work, however, a new issue emerges: don't I, having this cure in my hand and controlling its release, have an obligation to protect those people with whom I've worked towards the cure? Don't I have an obligation to reward them appropriately? I'm not suggesting its equal to the possible altruistic obligation I have towards the millions of people with cancer (or the countless ones who will have it in the future), but rather that it makes the question even more difficult.
What it comes down to is a core question of your ethics, i.e. are you a deontologist, a natural law theorist, etc. As such, it's hard to generalize about the moral issues here (as opposed to the easier socio-politico-economic issues discussed before this post).
Just for the purpose of edification: I think, personally, I'd do my best to find a way to profit fairly but also get it to everyone. The hardest part about it is that if you give it away to one person, how do you demand more money from another?
Compare: how many people were working towards penicillin, versus how many people working towards a cure for cancer? Alternately, compare: how many people were working together towards penicillin versus the people at ONE company to cure cancer?
The effect of altruism as a motivation doesn't scale linearly.
"To those people who "perfectly cure diseases" (been suckered by some big pharm company TV ads?), if you can't figure out how to profit from your invention, go do something else."
It is very common, in any debate, for a person to suggest that the other side should go "figure something out", as it were. In this case, you have stated that people who have already created an extreme innovation - the perfect cure of a horrible disease - should also go and innovate by figuring out a way to profit from that cure, even though they will receive precisely zero return for the reproduction, distribution and use of the product, correct?
What's your solution? What's your solution for that company to profit?
It's extremely easy to criticize, but very difficult to create. That doesn't mean for a second that you should be discouraged EVER from criticizing, but it does mean that a good critic is able to point in the right direction, at least, so that his criticisms amount to more than "fuck you, loser".
I'm not asking for a huge amount of government intervention, but contrariwise I'm not asking for zero intervention either. I just posted a few minutes ago a lengthy discussion of that (in this thread), so I wont repeat myself. Suffice to say this: neither 100% or 0% intervention by government in an economy involving our sort of technological progress is even theoretically capable of succeeding, short of the invention of a perfect and cheap (or rather, free) replication system that eliminates the concept of "limited supply". I do not, personally, have an ideal solution to how much government intervention is precisely required, but at the same time I don't go around saying that other people's theories are bunk without providing constructive criticism.
I was once in the Guggenheim (my spelling may be off, there...) and overheard a rather zealous instructor explaining to her teenage students that the artist (some painter with whom I wasn't familiar) had made 'this' mistake and 'that' mistake. These were art students (all were sketching, etc.), and this was a teacher of art. Yet she made no constructive comments: she didn't talk about how to make the peices better, or how the students should avoid those mistakes. She - who ironically should have been building these children up into something - was merely tearing down. I fear, my fellor/.'er, you are like this teacher. You are, in fact, correct to the extent that capitalism should be about truth in advertising and effect. You are, in fact, correct to the extent that if you cannot figure out how to profit in a market doing something, then free capitalism says you should stop doing that and do something else. You are wrong, however, in that you are not helping us figure out what is RIGHT. You are not suggesting how to avoid the pitfalls of the wrongs you identify (wrongs which, frankly, we are largely if not entirely already aware of). Your work here wasn't helpful. Please, be helpful. Spend some time and try and figure out solutions. If you come up with any, I'm sure I and many others would like to hear them.
I know I just posted a lengthy reply, but I missed this one comment and I simply must respond to it:
"The person would get satisfaction not from money or credits, but from noteriety and philanthropy (like bill gates)."
Bill Gates is able, as in "posseses the appropriate resources to" be so charitable because of his phenomenal wealth. How would he - a person who has sold only intellectual property - have ever acquired his wealth if there had always been a way to acquire perfect duplicates of his IP without any risk or difficulty?
" People will innovate for a need and or to better mankind."
I don't want to misunderstand you: are you stating that in the absence of any monetary rewards (but NOT in the absence of monetary needs, i.e. money to acquire non-microscopic goods in my hypo such as a car or food) innovation wouldn't be stifled?
If that is your opinion, I have to respectfully disagree. Granted, if some replicator technology existed which eliminated ALL needs (i.e. it could so cheaply reproduce both micro- and macro-scopic products that no one suffered for poverty) then I believe it is possible that innovation would survive. The problem is that if person A needs macroscopic goods, but there are only replicators for microscopic goods, then A has zero incentive to invest his time/money in researching new microscopic products since those products will be unable to recoup him costs, much less provide the profits needed to purchase those macroscopic goods.
"In your example, the companies labs and resources would be offered up free to anyone with apropriate backgrounds. They would then use the facilities to do research and release the end product into the public domain."
Why would the companies do any of this? Your answer seems to be altruism (or, altenately, a self-satisfying desire to create without the need for external gratification), correct? My problem with such an answer is that it doesn't agree at all with history. There is no record of any civilization, ever, sustaining such motivations. As noted earlier in my post, I do not believe those motivations can exert the proper pressure against the society as a whole (as opposed to a handful of possible individuals) unless the technology for duplication applies to ALL goods.
Bringing it back to focus: right now, I can digitally copy most intellectual property, but I cannot copy any real-world property (ignore the overlap, e.g. books, for the moment). If there is no profit-incentive to produce that intellectual property, why would any person who still needed to pay for real-world goods enter the intellectual-property production market? Some, of course, will be so driven by the artistic/altruistic drive, but do you honestly believe that is even a significant minority, much less the majority of the population? Such a market crash hasn't occured yet, because it is too difficult for most users to actually obtain copies of most intellectual property (MPAA/RIAA concerns aside, most people in this country obtain their music, video and video games legally), but what happens which it is easy enough for your arthritic grandma with no eyeballs to do so? Why would most people - at such a point - spend his time doing the unexciting parts of intellectual property creation?
Wrapping up a long post: it seems to me that, in the absence of universal replicator technology, your theory relies on the presence of a large number of artists and altruists, correct? If so, does your experience with humanity seem to validate that theory? I'm asking you, personally, whether you think there are a sufficient number of altruists and artists in our species to fulfill the innovative needs of our world without economic (or possibly even social) compensation?
"By "purely capitalist," I am assuming you mean "no state invervention in the market.""
Yes, I should have mentioned that. You're correct.
"In such a system, DRM backed by legislation would not be an issue, since there could be none. I would see two results from this scenario: the development of "perfect" DRM; or a change in the present business model." per se, but rather an indirect criticism of outright dismissal of DRM. I believe DRM to be a flawed but properly-intended attempt to protect innovation. If you're rejecting DRM, which is a valid perspective to take, I was just asking what your ideal solution to the problem would be.
My feeling is this: in a purely capitalist state of that kind, it'd be impossible. That is why, much like a purely communist state, human nature precludes the long-term survival of a pure capitalist state. I define myself as a subclass of libertarian, an 'anarcho-capitalist'. The Wiki has a good article about it. My basic point though is that either complete intervention (communism) or the lack of any intervention (pure capitalism) inevitably result in the stifling of innovation (not to mention a variety of other flaws in either system). By simple logic, if either extreme leads to such an undesireable result, then the only possible solutions which may lead to a desireable result must lie somewhere in between the two extremes.
"You're right. It's not all the corporations, just the publicly traded ones that are legally obligated to take any legal action that will maximise shareholder profit without regards for how their actions affect others."
Except you're wrong. Corporations are required to maximize shareholder profit within reasonable parameters. It is entirely up to the corporation to refuse to act in a certain manner so as to reflect the ethos of its managers so long as that ethos is clear and not part of a deception of the shareholders.
You just sound like someone who isn't happy with how much money he makes, how much he spends on other products, etc. It happens. You just need to realize that what you think is "evil" is apparently the nature of the capitalist system. Maybe you ought to have the courage of your convictions: leave our system, and join a country like China.
"Except that DRM enforced by legislation is about as far from capitalist as you can get. Let us not make a habit of associating free market capitalism with pro-corporate authoritarianism, if that is indeed what you were doing. The two are polar opposites."
I'm curious: how exactly would you suggest, in a purely capitalist system, that the creator of a thing which can be copied (and thus re-sold without any money going to the creator) protect his product? Put differently, how would support the people who innovate?
Easy example: suppose the existence of a molecular replicator on a small level, i.e. a device capable of "reading" medicine and generating perfect (i.e. digitally perfect) duplicates of the original at a significantly reduced cost. Now, there is a disease (it doesn't matter of what type). A developer (a person or a corporation, it doesn't matter) spends a few billion dollars to develop a medicine that perfectly cures the disease. The process is highly complex, and the procedure for making it is patented (like currently). However, the existence of the replicator means that anyone who obtains a microscopic sample can easily and cheaply replicate countless amounts. How is the developer to recoup his costs? He cannot sell the medicine for any more than it would cost to replicate it (assume that one person bought it at full price, but then sold a ton of it at cost).
Basically, I'm curious as to what you think a capitalist system should contain to prevent this problem?
"DG: You're a jerk and a pedant.
PG: Yes, but I'm still right. Neener neener neener."
Honestly, this gave me a great laugh. Not so much because of the "neener" part, but rather the fact that I actually heard someone [in a philosophy class about group ethics] call someone else, literally, 'a pedantic jerk' in class once for basically the same reason (the philosophical analogue was a debate about whether or not to use the author's given explanation or a third-party's interpretation).
Bastard of Subhumani wrote: "But you aren't, are you. Anyone want to take a guess at the reason for that?"
Ooh, ooh, can I guess? Is it because I'm in law school/grad school, and not currently available for a full-time position? Is it because were I available, I'd apply for jobs in my schools (i.e. law, philosophy, general liberal arts) instead of schools wherein I have no background (i.e. business school)? Is it because I've never applied?
Your type of ad-hominem attack, which was completely unfounded and unecessary, says more about you and your character than I think you realized.
Well, I know very little about Dutch (besides the fact that it's Germanic, and a little bit of the sound shifts it reflects from PIE), but I understand what you're saying about English.
The problem is that you need at least some restrictions on language. While it's fine for an artist to play with the language a bit (one of my author friends once wrote a line something like "He went sidewalking down the street...", etc.), we need a minimum level of commonality to engage in reasonable conversation. If you say every rule is completely variable, you're left in Babel.
To extend the biological analogy: if every individual in a species born in a given generation was so mutated as to prevent interbreeding, what happens to the species? It dies (strictly speaking, it dies creating an incredibly large number of mules, but still...), and leaves no one the better. Evolution must be slow (or, at worst, Punctuated) in order to preserve a semblance of continuity of discourse.
It's because of this fear of Babel that we need to require a certain stringency of langauge. Things like the data/datum or viruses/virii debate are healthy: they're words where the confusion causes no serious difficulty, and eventually common usage will win out. More dangerous are situations where people play loosely with core grammatical structures (coughleetspeakcough) or core phonetical structures (coughebonicscough). In those situations, the language runs a dangerous risk of becoming a full dialect, and eventually its own language-esque object. When such things are allowed to happen, entire groups - typically geographical or ethinc groups - can find themselves constructively excluded from the society. This can have terrifying implications: ask the poor working-class teenager who honestly doesn't know that "ask" isn't pronounce "axe" in educated society why he isn't getting the same respect as his suburbanite peers from adults? Ask the heavily-accented technician at a dentist's office why she is viewed as less intelligent than her better spoken peers? Better yet, ask President Bush why he's regarded as less intelligent by most than President Clinton? (okay, maybe that last one was a bit unfair...but his vocab is extremely low...).
"And to what extend did they indeed know they were violating security measures ?"
Think about it this way: if they thought they could get there legitimately, why would they have needed to alter the account information in the URL? I don't think they could reasonably believe this wasn't a violation of security measures.
"It could easily be mistaken for something very innocent, like guessing each other's hotmail passwords and such... i know a lot of kids who do that, is that unethical enough to deny them from a school application too ?"
If I were on the board, yes. Perhaps this is where you and I differ, but I take a hard-line on the ethical issue of breaking security measures for the sole purpose of extracting information that doesn't belong to you. If my friends figured out my password to some account and violated my privacy, I'd seriously reconsider their status as my friend because it is so offensive. You may have different boundaries with your friends.
"Comparing an url modification with getting busted for drug posession really removed a lot of credibility from your post, I'm sorry..."
I understand your concern: did I, in comparing a minor ethical infraction which isn't a crime to a minor ethical infraction which is a crime, in fact create a strawman? You apparently think I did, but I disagree. The reason is that you homed in on the wrong aspect of the argument. My comment was in response to the concern that these students were already going to be accepted, and their otherwise acceptable applications were being dismissed out of hand. My reply was that there are plenty of reasons the schools provide that otherwise valid applications may be rejected, one of them being ethical violations, one of them being criminal violations, etc. Perhaps I was too glib and succint, and in doing so invited a misunderstanding such as yours. I hope I clarified it properly.
I'm not a linguist, but I have a limited background in historical linguistics so take this with an appropriate grain of salt. My study of language is primarily rooted in my philosophical work (philosophy of language, by the way, is insanely esoteric...please never ever study it if you're not sure about being a philosophy major...).
My feeling is that there's no such thing as an "invalid" evolution of language, any more than there is an invalid evolution of a species (sorry, Creationists). Language is a living thing, in the sense that it simply cannot remain static without a strictly controlling body. Consider the emergence of a word like "bad" as meaning "good" (yes, I know I'm dating myself a bit here). Arguably it perhaps first arose as an extension of sarcasm, but it certainly seperated itself enough that when people said "Man, that's bad!" they didn't think of themselves as being sarcastic. Were they wrong to consider the word as having seperated from its original use? I can't believe they were wrong.
As to data/datum/dataset specifically, I think the point is that until the last ten, twenty years or so, no living speaker used data, datum or dataset excent in the most jargonistic fashion. It was a peice of argot, with an extremely narrowly defined meaning. I think it is arguable that as data grew into common use, it appropriated the former meanings of datum and dataset, so that the current English word (as opposed to the Latin word) has fully subsumed those other meanings.
I posted nearby that I fully agree that the company these schools contracted with (not Stanford, HBS etc. themselves) did indeed make mistakes, and should indeed be punished. Their wrongdoing however does nothing to eliminate the students' wrongdoing (although, also as I noted elsewhere, it does reduce it to some degree albeit not enough to merit permitting their acceptance).
"So, since these schools by definition hadn't yet given the acceptance to these students (since, if they'd already received the acceptance, they wouldn't have checked out this site), there cant have been any obligation on the school's part. While it's true that once you mail an offer, you're obligated to honor that offer, it has never been interpreted that the posting of an offer without notifying the receiving party of the posting qualifies."
"Therefore, the university has no legal right/obligation to deny these students admission into the program, regardless of whether it was a setup or not."
Completely wrong. Universities have no legal obligation to accept anyone, so long as their reason for refusing entry isn't unconstitutionally discriminatory (remember, some discrimination is by definition constitutional). In fact, a university could easily (although this would be an immensely dumb thing to do) announce one year that it was just going to accept a randomly selected group from its pool as opposed to making any qualitative decisions. The only legal obligation the school has is to - having given an acceptance - to honor the acceptance so long as the student abides by the conditions of the acceptance.
"although not the best thing to do, especially if getting caught in the act may make you look like a thief, you personally haven't committed any crime. maybe attempted to, but not yet."
Wrong. Wrong for several reasons. (A) "Attempt" of a specific crime is, itself, a crime. (B) Attemptingt to circumvent a lock begins when you first contact the lock with your tool with the expectation that you may be able to unlock it (according to almost every jurisdiction with specific discussion of lockpicking within their breaking-and-entering laws and case law). (C) You've trespassed onto private property. Putting a key into a lock is considered trespassing. It's almost never been an issue except in the very case you suggest: someone trying their key on your lock to attempt to open it illicitly.
Slashdot Mirror
The thing about that, however, is that from a modern perspective Vetinari is disgusting. He's a distorted version of the philosopher-king: the man who believes himself to be so superior to all others that no other can be trusted to rule. His involvement with the criminals - like some Moore-envisoned version of Moriarty - reduces him to the epitome of hypocrisy. By not only manipulating existing crime but actually creating new crime, Vetinari is no less a violent criminal than he is a statesman.
True, Vetinari himself has good intentions, but nonetheless he wields completely disgusting methods.
Because automating a process always makes it "new and novel". People can have babies pretty easily (usually), but you can bet your arse that if I figure out a way to automate it using machinery, I'm going to patent it (that way the Matrix will owe me money).
More concretely, another poster mentioned that all Ford really did was automate the manufacturing process for cars. Are you diminishing his contribution to the industry? Are you suggesting his work wasn't a contribution?
How old are you? I cant figure out if you're making a bad joke ("oooh, NAD!") or a troll who thinks this is an actual criticism of the software.
No, his name is Philip J. Fry. Farnsworth is the last name of his nephew, the professor, many generations removed.
You want to know the simple way? It affects both the office environment, as well as possibly interfering with customer relations. It's the same principle as not wearing a speedo to work: while it doesn't make you (necessarily) work any less effectively, it can certainly interfere with other people.
Many years ago, back when the Sci-Fi channel had Anime Saturdays, they would run an anime movie or two in the morning. One movie, which I no longer can remember, featured a sophisticated robotic 'nanny' type device for geriatrics. It was a bed that could roll, walk, get food, etc. thanks to an AI. All I remember about the plot was that the bed of some old man either thoughut it was his wife, or it was his wife's brain or something and it took him through the city - destroying it in the process - to the beach.
Anyone have any idea what that movie was? I thought it was great at the time...
Actually, it does mean it's fair. It just doesn't mean it's right. To be fair (there are at least 8 or 9 seperate meanings, but only one for this context) is to be even-handed in the administration of rules. If we're allowing one sector of the copyright industry to have these extensions, there's an obligation (if we want to be fair) to allow the other sectors that same obligation.
I don't think this is the right course of action, since I think these extensions are problematic at best, but I do think it's fair.
"I've worked in the pharmaceutical industry for over 20 years, and it is one of the most atrociously exploitive industries in the world. In the United States, the majority of new medications are purchased from universities.
We fund pharmaceutical development, academic research, and buy everything that we can. However, most people don't realize why.
We don't buy most of the research and fully developed medications to help those in need; we buy them so that we can have control. We withhold the cure, because there is so much more money to be made in relieving the symptoms.
A government that is not corrupted by lapdog politicians would allow its people to create an incentive to innovate (government funded R&D, instead of overly powerful private industry)."
(I copied the entire post, because it's an AC and thus below most readers' filters)
If that's true, it's interesting and quite a bit distressing. However, its unrelated to our discussion. We're not talking about the practical issues of existing pharma companies, but rather using pharma as a real-world example of the issues that come up when discussing digitial rights management.
"And just a question for you. If you created a drug that cured cancer and was nearly free to reproduce, you try to make every possible cent from it and deny it to some, or would you ask people to pay what they could, not charging anything if it could save the life of a child who couldn't afford it."
A very interesting question. Personally, I cannot be sure what I'd do. It would depend largely on whether I developed the product alone, or whether it represented the combined work of many people. In a recent post, someone brought up the work involved in developing Penicillin: that involved a handful of people, compared to drugs developed today that involve thousands of man-hours provided by hundreds or thousands of people. Why do I bring them up? It's a question of who should be protected.
Supposing I, individually, develop a cure to cancer that employs research that is otherwise freely available, i.e. the only value-added is my work. If I decide to charge the highest price possible, the only R&D person I can claim to be protecting (or rather, the only person's effort I can claim to be protecting) is my own.
If a group of tens or hundreds or thousands does that work, however, a new issue emerges: don't I, having this cure in my hand and controlling its release, have an obligation to protect those people with whom I've worked towards the cure? Don't I have an obligation to reward them appropriately? I'm not suggesting its equal to the possible altruistic obligation I have towards the millions of people with cancer (or the countless ones who will have it in the future), but rather that it makes the question even more difficult.
What it comes down to is a core question of your ethics, i.e. are you a deontologist, a natural law theorist, etc. As such, it's hard to generalize about the moral issues here (as opposed to the easier socio-politico-economic issues discussed before this post).
Just for the purpose of edification: I think, personally, I'd do my best to find a way to profit fairly but also get it to everyone. The hardest part about it is that if you give it away to one person, how do you demand more money from another?
As I said, hard question, and a well aimed one.
Compare: how many people were working towards penicillin, versus how many people working towards a cure for cancer? Alternately, compare: how many people were working together towards penicillin versus the people at ONE company to cure cancer?
The effect of altruism as a motivation doesn't scale linearly.
"To those people who "perfectly cure diseases" (been suckered by some big pharm company TV ads?), if you can't figure out how to profit from your invention, go do something else."
/.'er, you are like this teacher. You are, in fact, correct to the extent that capitalism should be about truth in advertising and effect. You are, in fact, correct to the extent that if you cannot figure out how to profit in a market doing something, then free capitalism says you should stop doing that and do something else. You are wrong, however, in that you are not helping us figure out what is RIGHT. You are not suggesting how to avoid the pitfalls of the wrongs you identify (wrongs which, frankly, we are largely if not entirely already aware of). Your work here wasn't helpful. Please, be helpful. Spend some time and try and figure out solutions. If you come up with any, I'm sure I and many others would like to hear them.
It is very common, in any debate, for a person to suggest that the other side should go "figure something out", as it were. In this case, you have stated that people who have already created an extreme innovation - the perfect cure of a horrible disease - should also go and innovate by figuring out a way to profit from that cure, even though they will receive precisely zero return for the reproduction, distribution and use of the product, correct?
What's your solution? What's your solution for that company to profit?
It's extremely easy to criticize, but very difficult to create. That doesn't mean for a second that you should be discouraged EVER from criticizing, but it does mean that a good critic is able to point in the right direction, at least, so that his criticisms amount to more than "fuck you, loser".
I'm not asking for a huge amount of government intervention, but contrariwise I'm not asking for zero intervention either. I just posted a few minutes ago a lengthy discussion of that (in this thread), so I wont repeat myself. Suffice to say this: neither 100% or 0% intervention by government in an economy involving our sort of technological progress is even theoretically capable of succeeding, short of the invention of a perfect and cheap (or rather, free) replication system that eliminates the concept of "limited supply". I do not, personally, have an ideal solution to how much government intervention is precisely required, but at the same time I don't go around saying that other people's theories are bunk without providing constructive criticism.
I was once in the Guggenheim (my spelling may be off, there...) and overheard a rather zealous instructor explaining to her teenage students that the artist (some painter with whom I wasn't familiar) had made 'this' mistake and 'that' mistake. These were art students (all were sketching, etc.), and this was a teacher of art. Yet she made no constructive comments: she didn't talk about how to make the peices better, or how the students should avoid those mistakes. She - who ironically should have been building these children up into something - was merely tearing down. I fear, my fellor
I know I just posted a lengthy reply, but I missed this one comment and I simply must respond to it:
"The person would get satisfaction not from money or credits, but from noteriety and philanthropy (like bill gates)."
Bill Gates is able, as in "posseses the appropriate resources to" be so charitable because of his phenomenal wealth. How would he - a person who has sold only intellectual property - have ever acquired his wealth if there had always been a way to acquire perfect duplicates of his IP without any risk or difficulty?
" People will innovate for a need and or to better mankind."
I don't want to misunderstand you: are you stating that in the absence of any monetary rewards (but NOT in the absence of monetary needs, i.e. money to acquire non-microscopic goods in my hypo such as a car or food) innovation wouldn't be stifled?
If that is your opinion, I have to respectfully disagree. Granted, if some replicator technology existed which eliminated ALL needs (i.e. it could so cheaply reproduce both micro- and macro-scopic products that no one suffered for poverty) then I believe it is possible that innovation would survive. The problem is that if person A needs macroscopic goods, but there are only replicators for microscopic goods, then A has zero incentive to invest his time/money in researching new microscopic products since those products will be unable to recoup him costs, much less provide the profits needed to purchase those macroscopic goods.
"In your example, the companies labs and resources would be offered up free to anyone with apropriate backgrounds. They would then use the facilities to do research and release the end product into the public domain."
Why would the companies do any of this? Your answer seems to be altruism (or, altenately, a self-satisfying desire to create without the need for external gratification), correct? My problem with such an answer is that it doesn't agree at all with history. There is no record of any civilization, ever, sustaining such motivations. As noted earlier in my post, I do not believe those motivations can exert the proper pressure against the society as a whole (as opposed to a handful of possible individuals) unless the technology for duplication applies to ALL goods.
Bringing it back to focus: right now, I can digitally copy most intellectual property, but I cannot copy any real-world property (ignore the overlap, e.g. books, for the moment). If there is no profit-incentive to produce that intellectual property, why would any person who still needed to pay for real-world goods enter the intellectual-property production market? Some, of course, will be so driven by the artistic/altruistic drive, but do you honestly believe that is even a significant minority, much less the majority of the population? Such a market crash hasn't occured yet, because it is too difficult for most users to actually obtain copies of most intellectual property (MPAA/RIAA concerns aside, most people in this country obtain their music, video and video games legally), but what happens which it is easy enough for your arthritic grandma with no eyeballs to do so? Why would most people - at such a point - spend his time doing the unexciting parts of intellectual property creation?
Wrapping up a long post: it seems to me that, in the absence of universal replicator technology, your theory relies on the presence of a large number of artists and altruists, correct? If so, does your experience with humanity seem to validate that theory? I'm asking you, personally, whether you think there are a sufficient number of altruists and artists in our species to fulfill the innovative needs of our world without economic (or possibly even social) compensation?
"By "purely capitalist," I am assuming you mean "no state invervention in the market.""
Yes, I should have mentioned that. You're correct.
"In such a system, DRM backed by legislation would not be an issue, since there could be none. I would see two results from this scenario: the development of "perfect" DRM; or a change in the present business model."
per se, but rather an indirect criticism of outright dismissal of DRM. I believe DRM to be a flawed but properly-intended attempt to protect innovation. If you're rejecting DRM, which is a valid perspective to take, I was just asking what your ideal solution to the problem would be.
My feeling is this: in a purely capitalist state of that kind, it'd be impossible. That is why, much like a purely communist state, human nature precludes the long-term survival of a pure capitalist state. I define myself as a subclass of libertarian, an 'anarcho-capitalist'. The Wiki has a good article about it. My basic point though is that either complete intervention (communism) or the lack of any intervention (pure capitalism) inevitably result in the stifling of innovation (not to mention a variety of other flaws in either system). By simple logic, if either extreme leads to such an undesireable result, then the only possible solutions which may lead to a desireable result must lie somewhere in between the two extremes.
"You're right. It's not all the corporations, just the publicly traded ones that are legally obligated to take any legal action that will maximise shareholder profit without regards for how their actions affect others."
Except you're wrong. Corporations are required to maximize shareholder profit within reasonable parameters. It is entirely up to the corporation to refuse to act in a certain manner so as to reflect the ethos of its managers so long as that ethos is clear and not part of a deception of the shareholders.
You just sound like someone who isn't happy with how much money he makes, how much he spends on other products, etc. It happens. You just need to realize that what you think is "evil" is apparently the nature of the capitalist system. Maybe you ought to have the courage of your convictions: leave our system, and join a country like China.
"Except that DRM enforced by legislation is about as far from capitalist as you can get. Let us not make a habit of associating free market capitalism with pro-corporate authoritarianism, if that is indeed what you were doing. The two are polar opposites."
I'm curious: how exactly would you suggest, in a purely capitalist system, that the creator of a thing which can be copied (and thus re-sold without any money going to the creator) protect his product? Put differently, how would support the people who innovate?
Easy example: suppose the existence of a molecular replicator on a small level, i.e. a device capable of "reading" medicine and generating perfect (i.e. digitally perfect) duplicates of the original at a significantly reduced cost. Now, there is a disease (it doesn't matter of what type). A developer (a person or a corporation, it doesn't matter) spends a few billion dollars to develop a medicine that perfectly cures the disease. The process is highly complex, and the procedure for making it is patented (like currently). However, the existence of the replicator means that anyone who obtains a microscopic sample can easily and cheaply replicate countless amounts. How is the developer to recoup his costs? He cannot sell the medicine for any more than it would cost to replicate it (assume that one person bought it at full price, but then sold a ton of it at cost).
Basically, I'm curious as to what you think a capitalist system should contain to prevent this problem?
"DG: You're a jerk and a pedant. PG: Yes, but I'm still right. Neener neener neener."
Honestly, this gave me a great laugh. Not so much because of the "neener" part, but rather the fact that I actually heard someone [in a philosophy class about group ethics] call someone else, literally, 'a pedantic jerk' in class once for basically the same reason (the philosophical analogue was a debate about whether or not to use the author's given explanation or a third-party's interpretation).
Bastard of Subhumani wrote: "But you aren't, are you. Anyone want to take a guess at the reason for that?"
Ooh, ooh, can I guess? Is it because I'm in law school/grad school, and not currently available for a full-time position? Is it because were I available, I'd apply for jobs in my schools (i.e. law, philosophy, general liberal arts) instead of schools wherein I have no background (i.e. business school)? Is it because I've never applied?
Your type of ad-hominem attack, which was completely unfounded and unecessary, says more about you and your character than I think you realized.
Well, I know very little about Dutch (besides the fact that it's Germanic, and a little bit of the sound shifts it reflects from PIE), but I understand what you're saying about English.
The problem is that you need at least some restrictions on language. While it's fine for an artist to play with the language a bit (one of my author friends once wrote a line something like "He went sidewalking down the street...", etc.), we need a minimum level of commonality to engage in reasonable conversation. If you say every rule is completely variable, you're left in Babel.
To extend the biological analogy: if every individual in a species born in a given generation was so mutated as to prevent interbreeding, what happens to the species? It dies (strictly speaking, it dies creating an incredibly large number of mules, but still...), and leaves no one the better. Evolution must be slow (or, at worst, Punctuated) in order to preserve a semblance of continuity of discourse.
It's because of this fear of Babel that we need to require a certain stringency of langauge. Things like the data/datum or viruses/virii debate are healthy: they're words where the confusion causes no serious difficulty, and eventually common usage will win out. More dangerous are situations where people play loosely with core grammatical structures (coughleetspeakcough) or core phonetical structures (coughebonicscough). In those situations, the language runs a dangerous risk of becoming a full dialect, and eventually its own language-esque object. When such things are allowed to happen, entire groups - typically geographical or ethinc groups - can find themselves constructively excluded from the society. This can have terrifying implications: ask the poor working-class teenager who honestly doesn't know that "ask" isn't pronounce "axe" in educated society why he isn't getting the same respect as his suburbanite peers from adults? Ask the heavily-accented technician at a dentist's office why she is viewed as less intelligent than her better spoken peers? Better yet, ask President Bush why he's regarded as less intelligent by most than President Clinton? (okay, maybe that last one was a bit unfair...but his vocab is extremely low...).
"And to what extend did they indeed know they were violating security measures ?"
Think about it this way: if they thought they could get there legitimately, why would they have needed to alter the account information in the URL? I don't think they could reasonably believe this wasn't a violation of security measures.
"It could easily be mistaken for something very innocent, like guessing each other's hotmail passwords and such... i know a lot of kids who do that, is that unethical enough to deny them from a school application too ?"
If I were on the board, yes. Perhaps this is where you and I differ, but I take a hard-line on the ethical issue of breaking security measures for the sole purpose of extracting information that doesn't belong to you. If my friends figured out my password to some account and violated my privacy, I'd seriously reconsider their status as my friend because it is so offensive. You may have different boundaries with your friends.
"Comparing an url modification with getting busted for drug posession really removed a lot of credibility from your post, I'm sorry..."
I understand your concern: did I, in comparing a minor ethical infraction which isn't a crime to a minor ethical infraction which is a crime, in fact create a strawman? You apparently think I did, but I disagree. The reason is that you homed in on the wrong aspect of the argument. My comment was in response to the concern that these students were already going to be accepted, and their otherwise acceptable applications were being dismissed out of hand. My reply was that there are plenty of reasons the schools provide that otherwise valid applications may be rejected, one of them being ethical violations, one of them being criminal violations, etc. Perhaps I was too glib and succint, and in doing so invited a misunderstanding such as yours. I hope I clarified it properly.
I'm not a linguist, but I have a limited background in historical linguistics so take this with an appropriate grain of salt. My study of language is primarily rooted in my philosophical work (philosophy of language, by the way, is insanely esoteric...please never ever study it if you're not sure about being a philosophy major...).
My feeling is that there's no such thing as an "invalid" evolution of language, any more than there is an invalid evolution of a species (sorry, Creationists). Language is a living thing, in the sense that it simply cannot remain static without a strictly controlling body. Consider the emergence of a word like "bad" as meaning "good" (yes, I know I'm dating myself a bit here). Arguably it perhaps first arose as an extension of sarcasm, but it certainly seperated itself enough that when people said "Man, that's bad!" they didn't think of themselves as being sarcastic. Were they wrong to consider the word as having seperated from its original use? I can't believe they were wrong.
As to data/datum/dataset specifically, I think the point is that until the last ten, twenty years or so, no living speaker used data, datum or dataset excent in the most jargonistic fashion. It was a peice of argot, with an extremely narrowly defined meaning. I think it is arguable that as data grew into common use, it appropriated the former meanings of datum and dataset, so that the current English word (as opposed to the Latin word) has fully subsumed those other meanings.
I posted nearby that I fully agree that the company these schools contracted with (not Stanford, HBS etc. themselves) did indeed make mistakes, and should indeed be punished. Their wrongdoing however does nothing to eliminate the students' wrongdoing (although, also as I noted elsewhere, it does reduce it to some degree albeit not enough to merit permitting their acceptance).
I forgot this last line:
"So, since these schools by definition hadn't yet given the acceptance to these students (since, if they'd already received the acceptance, they wouldn't have checked out this site), there cant have been any obligation on the school's part. While it's true that once you mail an offer, you're obligated to honor that offer, it has never been interpreted that the posting of an offer without notifying the receiving party of the posting qualifies."
"Therefore, the university has no legal right/obligation to deny these students admission into the program, regardless of whether it was a setup or not."
Completely wrong. Universities have no legal obligation to accept anyone, so long as their reason for refusing entry isn't unconstitutionally discriminatory (remember, some discrimination is by definition constitutional). In fact, a university could easily (although this would be an immensely dumb thing to do) announce one year that it was just going to accept a randomly selected group from its pool as opposed to making any qualitative decisions. The only legal obligation the school has is to - having given an acceptance - to honor the acceptance so long as the student abides by the conditions of the acceptance.
"although not the best thing to do, especially if getting caught in the act may make you look like a thief, you personally haven't committed any crime. maybe attempted to, but not yet."
Wrong. Wrong for several reasons. (A) "Attempt" of a specific crime is, itself, a crime. (B) Attemptingt to circumvent a lock begins when you first contact the lock with your tool with the expectation that you may be able to unlock it (according to almost every jurisdiction with specific discussion of lockpicking within their breaking-and-entering laws and case law). (C) You've trespassed onto private property. Putting a key into a lock is considered trespassing. It's almost never been an issue except in the very case you suggest: someone trying their key on your lock to attempt to open it illicitly.