Oh, really. Allow me to retort: Too bad people don't judge on actual merits than on imagined hobgoblins.
The bad reputation of ARI (which I guess you're making some reference to as ReasonOnline is an objectivist magazine, and ARI being the "official" objectivist organization (with a earned bad rep)) needn't spill over to ReasonOnline. Personally I have always found their articles very well written.
Capitalism Magazine on the other hand...
As a Swede, I'm supposed to trust someone calling himself Palme?
How about we got a link to the submitters profile so that we can value the content of his story in perspective of what he has written in the comments previously?
Not that I wouldn't trust a story like this normally, but I'm having some major trust issues with anyone _choosing_ a screen name that in any part contains the word "palme".
(For everyone to whom the word "palme" means nothing, Palme was the socialist prime minister of Sweden between 1969-1976 and 1982 to his assasination in 1986.)
Altruism is a code of ethics which hold the welfare of others as the standard of "good", and self-sacrifice as the only moral action. The unstated premise of the doctrine of altruism is that all relationships among men involve sacrifice. This leaves one with the false choice between maliciously exploiting the other person (forcing them to be sacrificed) or being "moral" and offering oneself up as the sacrificial victim. Why is the second considered good? Apparently because Jesus said so.
But the dichotomy of sacrifice or exploit is false. Between rational people, there should never be any sacrifice involved nor conflict of interest. The true moral interaction between two people should be an interaction as traders - trading value for value in a mutually agreed on and beneficial manner.
This is not to say that benevolence and good will are immoral. It is only sacrifice that is immoral, and being generally benevolent is not a sacrifice but a benefit and a virtue. The difference is that to be "good" according to Altruism, one must hand out blank checks to all who claim a need; while according to Egoism, ones own life is one's ultimate standard of value against which all acts must be analyzed.
--Importance of Philosophy.com
The irony of e-cash is that the only way to anonymize it is to pay for the e-cash with regular cash... and then what's the point?
The black market is the answer to the success
on
Cashless Society
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
The database part sounds an awful lot like it could be used to trace transactions - thus not making it ideal when you want to pay off illegal labour, buy a car under the table to get away from state tax, or convert those drug millions you made on the street into something mroe useful than an e-card to you (i.e. a house, gold, bearer bonds).
e-cash will never take off until people can be 100% sure they can use it in dubious (viewed more or less illegal by the state) activities - like tax evasion, black labour, illegal gambling, drugs, etc.
Money still seems like a safer bet since it can't be backtracked - for a system like this to work they need to be able to see and check the transaction history (lest a Slashdotter will crack the card and start making his own money - thus they need to be able to check and verify all transactions so no "creative" money has arrived on the card).
But it still doesn't remove the need for content creators to get paid - bringing in what the ISPs charge into the argumentation is redundant as the discussion seems to be about wether content should be free or not - and in that line of reasoning what the ISPs charge is irrelevant.
So when I produce some valuable content I'm expected to be happy with "this guy already pays AOL for access". So from where do I get money for my rent, bill AOL?
Instant gratification generation. Don't you just hate it?
I'd submit a longer reply to this, but I'm busy creating some more of that quality content that you expect to get for free.
Why is it so hard for contemporary people to fathom that people actually need, deserve, and expect some payment for their work if you find it valuable? What this ultra leftist-inspired generation of Napster-heads are proposing, and expecting (everything is free, no one owns anything, yadda yadda), are just as bad as what the stalinists had - and just in spirit it's just as far removed from a free market.
Seems like open software and its conscequences has become a buzz/compliance-word for all the nerds of the world?
Don't buy in to it.
A free market != free stuff.
Go capitalism!
(PS - Get a cheaper connection if your bandwith is costing too much, you shouldn't expect getting people's content for free just because you can't afford it)
Maybe it's time for a new topic for mods to vote on "How appropriate, in the slashdot tradition, do you think this article/news item is?"
Meaningless and/or uninteressting stuff are more and more frequent on the slashdot frontpage (or maybe I should change my profile to display less entries?).
True.:) But it's the OR that is faltering in the reality of europe today... so I'd rather take the money myself in order to ensure that they are used in a sensible manner.
So a valid point about american business is a "flamebait", while a snideful, untrue and uneducated remark about the Euro currency (first post) being worth 25 cents and not worthy of being compared to the mighty dollar is "funny"?
The spreading american jealousy I find more funny.
Gendou, you're the worst kind of person (Hayek would probably have called you a 'useful idiot'). Someone who takes something good, i.e. objectivism, and then doesn't even make an effort to understand it.
And then what do you do?
Naturally you just *have* to go out and tell the world about that which you haven't understood, and in the process make all of us capitalists and objectivists look like fools in the eyes of other people (if they aren't smart enough to realize that you're as dense as they come).
Read about objectivism and capitalism for a couple of years more, and discuss alot with your friends, because it's obvious you are a long way from understanding the foundations on which it rests.
[i]Theft implies that the owner was deprived of his property.[/i]
Ever heard of Intellectual Property? It may be a novel thing to you, but I assure you there is such a thing (yeah, I'm sure you could have written Beethoven's 9th, MS Word and Quake III Arena if you'd wanted to).
I'm the first one to admit though that it's a faulty business model (especially for games and music, programs used in offices rather gains than loses from illegal copying by individuals), but that really doesn't change that it's immoral.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, really. Allow me to retort: Too bad people don't judge on actual merits than on imagined hobgoblins. The bad reputation of ARI (which I guess you're making some reference to as ReasonOnline is an objectivist magazine, and ARI being the "official" objectivist organization (with a earned bad rep)) needn't spill over to ReasonOnline. Personally I have always found their articles very well written. Capitalism Magazine on the other hand...
As a Swede, I'm supposed to trust someone calling himself Palme?
How about we got a link to the submitters profile so that we can value the content of his story in perspective of what he has written in the comments previously?
Not that I wouldn't trust a story like this normally, but I'm having some major trust issues with anyone _choosing_ a screen name that in any part contains the word "palme".
(For everyone to whom the word "palme" means nothing, Palme was the socialist prime minister of Sweden between 1969-1976 and 1982 to his assasination in 1986.)
Altruism is a code of ethics which hold the welfare of others as the standard of "good", and self-sacrifice as the only moral action. The unstated premise of the doctrine of altruism is that all relationships among men involve sacrifice. This leaves one with the false choice between maliciously exploiting the other person (forcing them to be sacrificed) or being "moral" and offering oneself up as the sacrificial victim. Why is the second considered good? Apparently because Jesus said so.
But the dichotomy of sacrifice or exploit is false. Between rational people, there should never be any sacrifice involved nor conflict of interest. The true moral interaction between two people should be an interaction as traders - trading value for value in a mutually agreed on and beneficial manner.
This is not to say that benevolence and good will are immoral. It is only sacrifice that is immoral, and being generally benevolent is not a sacrifice but a benefit and a virtue. The difference is that to be "good" according to Altruism, one must hand out blank checks to all who claim a need; while according to Egoism, ones own life is one's ultimate standard of value against which all acts must be analyzed.
--Importance of Philosophy.com
The irony of e-cash is that the only way to anonymize it is to pay for the e-cash with regular cash... and then what's the point?
The database part sounds an awful lot like it could be used to trace transactions - thus not making it ideal when you want to pay off illegal labour, buy a car under the table to get away from state tax, or convert those drug millions you made on the street into something mroe useful than an e-card to you (i.e. a house, gold, bearer bonds).
e-cash will never take off until people can be 100% sure they can use it in dubious (viewed more or less illegal by the state) activities - like tax evasion, black labour, illegal gambling, drugs, etc.
Money still seems like a safer bet since it can't be backtracked - for a system like this to work they need to be able to see and check the transaction history (lest a Slashdotter will crack the card and start making his own money - thus they need to be able to check and verify all transactions so no "creative" money has arrived on the card).
Not only anonymous coward, but stupid aswell as you missed the point of the discussion. Useful idiots, everywhere... *sigh*
Fair enough.
But it still doesn't remove the need for content creators to get paid - bringing in what the ISPs charge into the argumentation is redundant as the discussion seems to be about wether content should be free or not - and in that line of reasoning what the ISPs charge is irrelevant.
For all the bozos that think everything in life ought be free: Information wants to be free. As in speech. Not beer.
That some content costs money is a prerequisite for its creation.
Who cares if and what you pay for access?
So when I produce some valuable content I'm expected to be happy with "this guy already pays AOL for access". So from where do I get money for my rent, bill AOL?
Instant gratification generation. Don't you just hate it?
I'd submit a longer reply to this, but I'm busy creating some more of that quality content that you expect to get for free.
Why is it so hard for contemporary people to fathom that people actually need, deserve, and expect some payment for their work if you find it valuable? What this ultra leftist-inspired generation of Napster-heads are proposing, and expecting (everything is free, no one owns anything, yadda yadda), are just as bad as what the stalinists had - and just in spirit it's just as far removed from a free market.
Seems like open software and its conscequences has become a buzz/compliance-word for all the nerds of the world?
Don't buy in to it.
A free market != free stuff.
Go capitalism!
(PS - Get a cheaper connection if your bandwith is costing too much, you shouldn't expect getting people's content for free just because you can't afford it)
Slackware has the answer to most of life's problems.
...you could also try Debian or Gentoo.
Maybe it's time for a new topic for mods to vote on "How appropriate, in the slashdot tradition, do you think this article/news item is?" Meaningless and/or uninteressting stuff are more and more frequent on the slashdot frontpage (or maybe I should change my profile to display less entries?).
That was a nasty thing of you to do.
"(This is taken from slashdot comments from awhile ago.)" I was about to bash you, but it seems you can back up your claims. I'm sincerely sorry!
Read what I wrote one more time... moron... (sorry, I meant "kid").
Hey, dimwit - free as in beer doesn't mean free as in integration, as in development, as in all supporting software being free, as in support.
I'm pretty sure he did more than being just paranoid.
If your presidents start act unconstitutional then beware, luckily you (americans) did - however You don't seem to have learned much from it.
Pucko!
True. :) But it's the OR that is faltering in the reality of europe today... so I'd rather take the money myself in order to ensure that they are used in a sensible manner.
As a European I would gladly have the saved money returned to me instead of reallocated to further improve the public health care and transportation.
So a valid point about american business is a "flamebait", while a snideful, untrue and uneducated remark about the Euro currency (first post) being worth 25 cents and not worthy of being compared to the mighty dollar is "funny"?
The spreading american jealousy I find more funny.
They're sacking your stealing ass?
And what do you call this?
The computers will be linked by the Internet, but involve a simple networking system, Lu said. Keeping the linkage as simple as possible was the goal.
Read the article the next time, will you?
Gendou, you're the worst kind of person (Hayek would probably have called you a 'useful idiot'). Someone who takes something good, i.e. objectivism, and then doesn't even make an effort to understand it.
And then what do you do?
Naturally you just *have* to go out and tell the world about that which you haven't understood, and in the process make all of us capitalists and objectivists look like fools in the eyes of other people (if they aren't smart enough to realize that you're as dense as they come).
Read about objectivism and capitalism for a couple of years more, and discuss alot with your friends, because it's obvious you are a long way from understanding the foundations on which it rests.
--
[i]Theft implies that the owner was deprived of his property.[/i] Ever heard of Intellectual Property? It may be a novel thing to you, but I assure you there is such a thing (yeah, I'm sure you could have written Beethoven's 9th, MS Word and Quake III Arena if you'd wanted to). I'm the first one to admit though that it's a faulty business model (especially for games and music, programs used in offices rather gains than loses from illegal copying by individuals), but that really doesn't change that it's immoral.
Damn. Why'd you have to go and do that for?! Now I WANT one. BADLY. Thanks alot!!! =)