given Apple's complete dominance in the portable music player market, the potential market for music in Apple Lossless format is gigantic.
I own 4 portable digital music players. None were made by Apple. There are 3 more that I can see sitting around the developer pit on peoples desks. None were made by Apple.
I think the results are terrible. They upheld the ideological basis for the laws, while reserving the right to selectively enforce. So you can't make a business model around helping make cultural works more accessible to the masses, and pretty much every citizen of China is guilty of violating them, so anyone can be picked up off the street for offending a public official and charged with violating copyright.
Wouldn't we need to build a global power grid first? Secondly, why should we entrust our energy infrastructure to a set of countries that aren't exactly known for their political stability and lack of corruption?
We should place them there because you can't put a geostationary satellite anywhere but over the equator. We're talking about a global energy infrastructure, the petty politics of mankind are an obstacle that we will deal with because the rewards are great enough to justify it.
If it's going to scale out, it should have solar energy collectors in a solar orbit. They should beam the energy to one of three geostationary satellite floating above the Earth. Those satellites should beam the energy to receiving stations in Brazil, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Indonesia, at which point they should be fed into the global power grid.
This would allow us to increase production for hundreds of generations of mankind, simply by adding additional solar energy collectors.
It won't be easy, but it only has to be done once.
It's pretty apparent that you're an idiot who chooses not to understand.
Even more so. Since IE is free, I didn't pay for it.
Windows wasn't free. IE came bundled with Windows. Therefore, you paid for it and it wasn't free.
Even if it takes up a couple of hundred megs of disk space, that's a trivial amount seeing as I can't easily buy a disk that's less than 300G anymore so it's not the same as a car taking up space in my driveway.
Affordable parking doesn't break the analogy.
As for others causing damage and me being responsible, how does that work? Can you point to a single case in which someone utilized an unutilized IE on someone else's machine and that second person had to provide restitution to some third party?
Together, IE and ActiveX have provided the foundation for countless examples of viruses, spyware and identity theft. Inasmuch as those have consequences to be faced, they are faced by the individual, not by Microsoft.
BTW, if someone steals my car and does damage with it, I'm not responsible. Know how I know? Happened to my stepfather a few years back. Someone stole his car, and during the high speed chase slowed down, jumped out and allowed the car to continue down a busy street where it pretty much managed to hit or swipe every parked car for three blocks. So, you'll have to come up with an analogy that closely mirrors reality in order for it to work.
This isn't a literal car. It's an analogy. The fact that your stepfather didn't have to take responsibility for the car that was stolen from him is irrelevant, and doesn't change the fact that if your computer is hacked, you will have to take responsibility for the consequences. If your identity is stolen, you will have to take responsibility for the consequences. If you are unable to get your work done on time, you will have to take responsibility for the consequences.
As opposed to offloading the costs onto the ISPs, I'd like to see that same department offer to host mirrors for other repos such as Gentoo and Ubuntu. These help boost productivity for workers all over Europe, and is where I'd like to see some of my hard earned taxes going to!
Allowing ISPs to mirror the content rather than fetch it from another ISPs network doesn't offload costs onto ISPs, it allows them to significantly save on bandwidth costs because it keeps the traffic inside their internal network.
If ISPs were able to mirror MS update servers tomorrow, they would save a fortune.
How is anyone forced to use IE, then? Since I can install any browser I want on my copy of Windows, I'm certainly not forced to use IE (excepting the times when FF doesn't work properly with a website), I can use my browser of choice. Just because it's installed in the OS doesn't mean I have to use it.
No one is forcing you to drive the car. But you WILL pay for the car, and you WILL keep it in your driveway. If someone picks the locks and causes damage with it, you WILL be held responsible.
That's an analogy to the manner in which they're forced to use IE. Still confused?
Or Opera and the various others could just bone up and market there product so people know it exist? I can't recall last time I saw an advert anywhere for opera that wasn't on slashdot about it being updated to whatever new release. Hell, I know about and have ran it in the past and forget it exist every other year or so. the problem isn't that MS bundles it. Hell, MS bundles a file manager and a window manager and no one yells foul from say litestep or the 2xplorer fronts.
Don't know about Litestep, but I yelled foul long ago, when I decided to stop using MS technology and to stop helping people who choose to use it. My OS already comes with a repository such as I've described, which is the primary reason I chose it.
How does this action satisfy the Opera folks who requested it?
By forcing the users to make a choice, it allows Opera to attempt to sway users to choose them.
If the EU were wise, they would establish a repository that they fund, obligate MS to have their OS connect to this repo when offering the user the choice of browser, and allow browser creators to have their offering added to that repository. They could keep network costs low by allowing ISPs to mirror the repository, and they could offload administrative costs by requiring the browser creators to pay a reasonable fee when their browser is added.
The solution they're describing isn't really going far enough, because in a sense it transforms a monopoly into a cartel, with members chosen by the EU.
Books tend to self-regulate based on vocabulary as well - put complex words in your books and you're not likely to get many kids reading them, but put it in a film and it's accessible to loads of people who wouldn't have read a text version. Lord of the Rings is a great example - how many pre-teen kids would manage to read LotR and how many like the film?
Considering the project was begun by a professor of literature and mythology for the entertainment of his children, your example is not very good.
Good literature is challenging and expands the mind. Hollywood productions do the opposite. They overstimulate the external senses and close the mind. LotR: The Movie was a disservice to humanity, not unlike the rest of what comes out of Hollywood.
Yeah, that's called "realism." People in real life often rarely grow sufficiently large backbones to "do the right thing" either, particularly when they're threatened and running for their lives.
That's what they want you to think. That's what they want you to normalize. Except, of course, that it isn't true. If you don't think so, look at your national enemies. They grew a big enough backbone to stand up to you, despite the fact that you're war criminals who drop nukes on cities.
Maybe it's because your citizenry are morally bankrupt after being transfixed by Hollywood illusions...
"If you haven't been exposed to advertising, you get a dull look on your face because you don't have an answer and you need one and you don't want to exercise the effort,"
Answers to what?
What exactly are we talking about here? the meaning of life? Which catfood to buy? (hint, the one the cat likes wins)
What?
Because to me advertising is pretty much just noise.
We're talking about the cat food you grab off the shelf when you have no cat food at home, the one your cat likes is sold out, you don't know enough to tell the difference between the ones you see in front of you and you're late for supper so you grab the one with the logo you recognize because it's a symptom of the human condition that things that are familiar are deemed safer than things that are not familiar.
We're talking about making peoples decisions for them, so when they're psychologically vulnerable, as in the circumstances described above, they give themselves permission to not consider what they're doing before they do it.
Most purchases happen in this fashion, and the more people make decisions in this way, the more they train themselves not to be critical thinkers.
I don't believe that for a second. I'm the kinda guy that reads ingredients lists on everything from kitchen cleaners to pharmaceuticals. I am not under the control of advertisers or marketing fuckheads, thanks. If you are then I pity you.
If you believe that, more power to you. But everyone gets tired, everyone has moments of vulnerability where they don't want to exercise diligence. If you haven't been exposed to advertising, you get a dull look on your face because you don't have an answer and you need one and you don't want to exercise the effort, but eventually you do because you have no other option. If you have been exposed to advertising, you take the easy out because it's there. It's just part of being human.
You think you're some highly intelligent person who isn't vulnerable to these effects, and that the advertisers are preying on the sheep, who are all much stupider and less sophisticated than you are. But you're mistaken. The people the advertisers are preying on are just like you, and you're just like them.
Actually, I think pretty much all of us that have grown up with pervasive advertising have an internal trip switch these days. It's a sad fact, but the way to keep sane in the modern (urban) environment is to selectively ignore most of the world around you.
Advertisers look for ever more invasive ways to get our attention, and then wonder why advertising has less and less effect. it's because we hate you and have learned to ignore you to the extent we don't even realise you're there half the time.
You only believe that because they told you to. Advertisers fill your head with answers to questions you never asked, then when you are called on to make a decision and you're too lazy to do research or too tired to really think about what you want, you use the answers they gave you as your own.
I'd rather use technology to relieve myself of that. So, I'm building something like this: farmfountain.com
And what the fuck does money have to do with it? Money doesn't have a fucking thing to do with it. If those you rely on to meet your needs are irresponsible or malicious, you can be coerced to do anything, or simply allowed to die.
Like I said... I'm going to relieve myself of the need for others to take care of me. First step is local, in home fresh food production. Another step is manufacturing. There's no technological reason that every person can't have their own custom fab. So, I'm going to get a RepRap. reprap.org And I'm going to give them away to as many people as I can, and build tools to allow people to share things they design and browse designs others have created. Like ebay, except you don't have to pay, because you manufacture the object yourself.
I'm also working on decentralized communications infrastructure and infrastructure to support a new system of voting I've concieved that will be so responsive and effective that it will blur the line between state and citizen and be fit to serve as an utter replacement for money and banking, party politics and professional politicians. Once that's in place, we the people will use it to create a new system of self-government, and we'll nationalize all the common infrastructure that has been usurped by private interests. Inasmuch as the concept of taxation continues to exist, it will be paid in labour, and will be confined to the maintenance of common infrastructure for the benefit of everyone.
GPL? What the fuck does the GPL have to do with your ranting? You going to trade some GPL software to some guy busy scraping a living out of the soil in exchange for some of the food he grows?
My post was prompted by a snarky comment about how the GPL is full of restrictions and not about freedom. How it ties into all this is, the GPL protects my right to serve myself rather than having to engage in trade. The freedom it removes from you is the freedom to lead me astray so I can no longer continue to care for myself but must rely on you. That's intentional.
You honestly take the cake for being stupid. Actually you took like 40 cakes for being stupid. That makes you like the criminal mastermind of stupid.
Unfortunately for me, I'm not stupid. I'm a genius and a visionary, which means I get to dread what's coming down the pipe while you get to sit there blissfully ignorant until the very last minute. The fact that my fate is intertwined with yours means my vision will not allow me to escape what I see unless I can enlighten your sorry ass. Lucky for me.
Nice thing is, I can further my goals by developing tools that facilitate living in this fashion and give them away as gifts. The only way to oppose this strategy is to refuse to accept or use the gifts, and while those who are at the top of the pyramid will never, ever ideologically agree with me, it doesn't matter. If the vast number of people who make up the bottom of the pyramid do agree, and do govern their affairs with the tools I create, there will no longer be a pyramid. Then the people who grew accustomed to a lifestyle where desperate people scrambled to serve their every need will wake up one morning and discover that there are no desperate people, and no one will do their bidding ever again.
Unlike a totalitarian-communistic society, there will still be competition and mobility. But it will be a competition to gain and keep the esteem of your fellow citizens, rather than a competition to trap them forever in exploitative systems, and therefore, it will be more effective than what we have currently. There will be more wealth and less scarcity, more personal involvement and less fear.
Going to do terrible things to any nation whose primary industry is the maintenance, administration and exploitation of Empire though...
Freedom means you're not forcibly insulated from participating in the mechanisms by which your natural means are met, and you're not forcibly required to engage in actions which are arbitrary in nature and unrelated to your needs.
If you need to eat, but you're not permitted to farm land and eat what grows, you're not free. If you work like a slave, 40 hours a week forever, creating things that no one actually needs in the hopes that someone who has food will find your creation titillating and feed you, you're not free.
If you need money, for anything, you're not free. You're the opposite of free. You're bound. If those you rely on to meet your needs in exchange for money are irresponsible or malicious, you can be coerced to do anything, or simply allowed to die.
The GPL assures freedom because it protects your capacity to take care of yourself from those who would lead you to circumstances where you're bound.
The only thing you lose is legal recognition of your "right" to bind others to you.
Sounds like the only freedom they're interested in is the freedom to keep slaves.
therefore we have the war of the sexes still raging today, getting worse and worse until the women win. Do not kid yourself -- they will win.
Seems to me the power women have over men is the power to get a group of men to single out and attack an individual man. If men ever became so jaded that they decided it wasn't worth sticking up for women, the war would immediately be over.
Did you somehow miss the complete economic collapse of the USSR due to communism?
I wholeheartedly disagree with your conclusion that the USSR collapsed because their economy was communist.
Did you somehow miss the fact that China is the home of much manufacturing because it has the lowest wages of anywhere that has the rule of law?
That is a pretty common argument against communism. But it ignores a very important question: If everything you need is provided to you because you're participating in a communist economy, what do you need a wage for in the first place?
People only care about wages when their country is poor, life is hard and things are scarce.
Post WWII, capatalism (to the extent it exists in America) has produced 4% growth per year, socialism 2%, and communism negative growth. Relative to socalism, capitalism doubles your standard of living every 35 years or so. Yes, socialism has some short-term advantages, but how much do you think it increases you standard of living? Twice as much? Four times? You're still fucking over your great grandchildren to make things better today.
I attribute American growth to the fact that it is the center of an oppressive global economic empire with a history of making, selling and using terrible weapons to intimidate and massacre any group that does not submit to their system and be exploited.
They've got one of if not the largest gap between rich and poor of any nation on earth, so it's self evident from that fact that most of their citizenry is poor.
They've also got a higher criminal/citizen ratio than most of not all the nations on earth, which means their citizenry are oppressed enough and desperate enough to violate the law more frequently than any other place on earth.
The US is basically an oppressive society ruled by group of dynasties, where many people attempt to buck the system and end up in jail or executed and unless you're one of the people on top, you're a poor, hard working slave, life sucks, and you've most likely been too heavily brainwashed by your masters to even comprehend the realities of your situation, so you're pretty much fucked.
Slashdot Mirror
given Apple's complete dominance in the portable music player market, the potential market for music in Apple Lossless format is gigantic.
I own 4 portable digital music players. None were made by Apple. There are 3 more that I can see sitting around the developer pit on peoples desks. None were made by Apple.
I'm sorry, what were we talking about?
I think the results are terrible. They upheld the ideological basis for the laws, while reserving the right to selectively enforce. So you can't make a business model around helping make cultural works more accessible to the masses, and pretty much every citizen of China is guilty of violating them, so anyone can be picked up off the street for offending a public official and charged with violating copyright.
I'm ashamed to live in the western world today...
I can't see solar panels of the SPS magnitude being as maintenance-free as you suggest.
Never meant to imply that maintenance would not be required, just that once you have a working process, you can re-implement the process indefinitely.
Wouldn't we need to build a global power grid first? Secondly, why should we entrust our energy infrastructure to a set of countries that aren't exactly known for their political stability and lack of corruption?
We should place them there because you can't put a geostationary satellite anywhere but over the equator. We're talking about a global energy infrastructure, the petty politics of mankind are an obstacle that we will deal with because the rewards are great enough to justify it.
I really thought Ogg went the way of the dinosaur. Let's hope Mozilla can help it to succeed in the real world. It will be hard to beat mp3.
You thought wrong.
This should be the number one objective of ALL space programs on earth:
http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/070919_sps_airforce.html
If it's going to scale out, it should have solar energy collectors in a solar orbit. They should beam the energy to one of three geostationary satellite floating above the Earth. Those satellites should beam the energy to receiving stations in Brazil, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Indonesia, at which point they should be fed into the global power grid.
This would allow us to increase production for hundreds of generations of mankind, simply by adding additional solar energy collectors.
It won't be easy, but it only has to be done once.
Check out the High Seas add on. It's like Sid Meyer's Pirates! meets Wesnoth.
It's pretty apparent that you're an idiot who chooses not to understand.
Even more so. Since IE is free, I didn't pay for it.
Windows wasn't free. IE came bundled with Windows. Therefore, you paid for it and it wasn't free.
Even if it takes up a couple of hundred megs of disk space, that's a trivial amount seeing as I can't easily buy a disk that's less than 300G anymore so it's not the same as a car taking up space in my driveway.
Affordable parking doesn't break the analogy.
As for others causing damage and me being responsible, how does that work? Can you point to a single case in which someone utilized an unutilized IE on someone else's machine and that second person had to provide restitution to some third party?
Together, IE and ActiveX have provided the foundation for countless examples of viruses, spyware and identity theft. Inasmuch as those have consequences to be faced, they are faced by the individual, not by Microsoft.
BTW, if someone steals my car and does damage with it, I'm not responsible. Know how I know? Happened to my stepfather a few years back. Someone stole his car, and during the high speed chase slowed down, jumped out and allowed the car to continue down a busy street where it pretty much managed to hit or swipe every parked car for three blocks. So, you'll have to come up with an analogy that closely mirrors reality in order for it to work.
This isn't a literal car. It's an analogy. The fact that your stepfather didn't have to take responsibility for the car that was stolen from him is irrelevant, and doesn't change the fact that if your computer is hacked, you will have to take responsibility for the consequences. If your identity is stolen, you will have to take responsibility for the consequences. If you are unable to get your work done on time, you will have to take responsibility for the consequences.
Fucking idiot...
As opposed to offloading the costs onto the ISPs, I'd like to see that same department offer to host mirrors for other repos such as Gentoo and Ubuntu. These help boost productivity for workers all over Europe, and is where I'd like to see some of my hard earned taxes going to!
Allowing ISPs to mirror the content rather than fetch it from another ISPs network doesn't offload costs onto ISPs, it allows them to significantly save on bandwidth costs because it keeps the traffic inside their internal network.
If ISPs were able to mirror MS update servers tomorrow, they would save a fortune.
How is anyone forced to use IE, then? Since I can install any browser I want on my copy of Windows, I'm certainly not forced to use IE (excepting the times when FF doesn't work properly with a website), I can use my browser of choice. Just because it's installed in the OS doesn't mean I have to use it.
No one is forcing you to drive the car. But you WILL pay for the car, and you WILL keep it in your driveway. If someone picks the locks and causes damage with it, you WILL be held responsible.
That's an analogy to the manner in which they're forced to use IE. Still confused?
Or Opera and the various others could just bone up and market there product so people know it exist? I can't recall last time I saw an advert anywhere for opera that wasn't on slashdot about it being updated to whatever new release. Hell, I know about and have ran it in the past and forget it exist every other year or so. the problem isn't that MS bundles it. Hell, MS bundles a file manager and a window manager and no one yells foul from say litestep or the 2xplorer fronts.
Don't know about Litestep, but I yelled foul long ago, when I decided to stop using MS technology and to stop helping people who choose to use it. My OS already comes with a repository such as I've described, which is the primary reason I chose it.
How does this action satisfy the Opera folks who requested it?
By forcing the users to make a choice, it allows Opera to attempt to sway users to choose them.
If the EU were wise, they would establish a repository that they fund, obligate MS to have their OS connect to this repo when offering the user the choice of browser, and allow browser creators to have their offering added to that repository. They could keep network costs low by allowing ISPs to mirror the repository, and they could offload administrative costs by requiring the browser creators to pay a reasonable fee when their browser is added.
The solution they're describing isn't really going far enough, because in a sense it transforms a monopoly into a cartel, with members chosen by the EU.
I chose it because it's a commonly censored book. Personally, I think I'd rather play "9/11: Jihad Warrior"
Books tend to self-regulate based on vocabulary as well - put complex words in your books and you're not likely to get many kids reading them, but put it in a film and it's accessible to loads of people who wouldn't have read a text version. Lord of the Rings is a great example - how many pre-teen kids would manage to read LotR and how many like the film?
Considering the project was begun by a professor of literature and mythology for the entertainment of his children, your example is not very good.
Good literature is challenging and expands the mind. Hollywood productions do the opposite. They overstimulate the external senses and close the mind. LotR: The Movie was a disservice to humanity, not unlike the rest of what comes out of Hollywood.
I don't see why they should regulate video games any more than they regulate the content of books.
Do you think they should regulate movies any more than they regulate the content of books?
No, I don't.
Would you be interested in a copy of Mein Kampf: The Game?
Uhhh, a billion+ installations over the decades, I think they're liked pretty well, thxbie.
I ate at least that many boiled potatoes when I was a kid. Didn't like a single one of them.
I've met one person in my life who actually likes Windows. Her ex husband hated it. That's why she likes it.
Yeah, that's called "realism." People in real life often rarely grow sufficiently large backbones to "do the right thing" either, particularly when they're threatened and running for their lives.
That's what they want you to think. That's what they want you to normalize. Except, of course, that it isn't true. If you don't think so, look at your national enemies. They grew a big enough backbone to stand up to you, despite the fact that you're war criminals who drop nukes on cities.
Maybe it's because your citizenry are morally bankrupt after being transfixed by Hollywood illusions...
"If you haven't been exposed to advertising, you get a dull look on your face because you don't have an answer and you need one and you don't want to exercise the effort," Answers to what? What exactly are we talking about here? the meaning of life? Which catfood to buy? (hint, the one the cat likes wins) What? Because to me advertising is pretty much just noise.
We're talking about the cat food you grab off the shelf when you have no cat food at home, the one your cat likes is sold out, you don't know enough to tell the difference between the ones you see in front of you and you're late for supper so you grab the one with the logo you recognize because it's a symptom of the human condition that things that are familiar are deemed safer than things that are not familiar.
We're talking about making peoples decisions for them, so when they're psychologically vulnerable, as in the circumstances described above, they give themselves permission to not consider what they're doing before they do it.
Most purchases happen in this fashion, and the more people make decisions in this way, the more they train themselves not to be critical thinkers.
I don't believe that for a second. I'm the kinda guy that reads ingredients lists on everything from kitchen cleaners to pharmaceuticals. I am not under the control of advertisers or marketing fuckheads, thanks. If you are then I pity you.
If you believe that, more power to you. But everyone gets tired, everyone has moments of vulnerability where they don't want to exercise diligence. If you haven't been exposed to advertising, you get a dull look on your face because you don't have an answer and you need one and you don't want to exercise the effort, but eventually you do because you have no other option. If you have been exposed to advertising, you take the easy out because it's there. It's just part of being human.
You think you're some highly intelligent person who isn't vulnerable to these effects, and that the advertisers are preying on the sheep, who are all much stupider and less sophisticated than you are. But you're mistaken. The people the advertisers are preying on are just like you, and you're just like them.
Actually, I think pretty much all of us that have grown up with pervasive advertising have an internal trip switch these days. It's a sad fact, but the way to keep sane in the modern (urban) environment is to selectively ignore most of the world around you.
Advertisers look for ever more invasive ways to get our attention, and then wonder why advertising has less and less effect. it's because we hate you and have learned to ignore you to the extent we don't even realise you're there half the time.
You only believe that because they told you to. Advertisers fill your head with answers to questions you never asked, then when you are called on to make a decision and you're too lazy to do research or too tired to really think about what you want, you use the answers they gave you as your own.
What the fuck are you babbling about?
Have fun subsistence farming you moron.
I'd rather use technology to relieve myself of that. So, I'm building something like this: farmfountain.com
And what the fuck does money have to do with it? Money doesn't have a fucking thing to do with it. If those you rely on to meet your needs are irresponsible or malicious, you can be coerced to do anything, or simply allowed to die.
Like I said... I'm going to relieve myself of the need for others to take care of me. First step is local, in home fresh food production. Another step is manufacturing. There's no technological reason that every person can't have their own custom fab. So, I'm going to get a RepRap. reprap.org And I'm going to give them away to as many people as I can, and build tools to allow people to share things they design and browse designs others have created. Like ebay, except you don't have to pay, because you manufacture the object yourself.
I'm also working on decentralized communications infrastructure and infrastructure to support a new system of voting I've concieved that will be so responsive and effective that it will blur the line between state and citizen and be fit to serve as an utter replacement for money and banking, party politics and professional politicians. Once that's in place, we the people will use it to create a new system of self-government, and we'll nationalize all the common infrastructure that has been usurped by private interests. Inasmuch as the concept of taxation continues to exist, it will be paid in labour, and will be confined to the maintenance of common infrastructure for the benefit of everyone.
GPL? What the fuck does the GPL have to do with your ranting? You going to trade some GPL software to some guy busy scraping a living out of the soil in exchange for some of the food he grows?
My post was prompted by a snarky comment about how the GPL is full of restrictions and not about freedom. How it ties into all this is, the GPL protects my right to serve myself rather than having to engage in trade. The freedom it removes from you is the freedom to lead me astray so I can no longer continue to care for myself but must rely on you. That's intentional.
You honestly take the cake for being stupid. Actually you took like 40 cakes for being stupid. That makes you like the criminal mastermind of stupid.
Unfortunately for me, I'm not stupid. I'm a genius and a visionary, which means I get to dread what's coming down the pipe while you get to sit there blissfully ignorant until the very last minute. The fact that my fate is intertwined with yours means my vision will not allow me to escape what I see unless I can enlighten your sorry ass. Lucky for me.
Nice thing is, I can further my goals by developing tools that facilitate living in this fashion and give them away as gifts. The only way to oppose this strategy is to refuse to accept or use the gifts, and while those who are at the top of the pyramid will never, ever ideologically agree with me, it doesn't matter. If the vast number of people who make up the bottom of the pyramid do agree, and do govern their affairs with the tools I create, there will no longer be a pyramid. Then the people who grew accustomed to a lifestyle where desperate people scrambled to serve their every need will wake up one morning and discover that there are no desperate people, and no one will do their bidding ever again.
Unlike a totalitarian-communistic society, there will still be competition and mobility. But it will be a competition to gain and keep the esteem of your fellow citizens, rather than a competition to trap them forever in exploitative systems, and therefore, it will be more effective than what we have currently. There will be more wealth and less scarcity, more personal involvement and less fear.
Going to do terrible things to any nation whose primary industry is the maintenance, administration and exploitation of Empire though...
Freedom means you're not forcibly insulated from participating in the mechanisms by which your natural means are met, and you're not forcibly required to engage in actions which are arbitrary in nature and unrelated to your needs.
If you need to eat, but you're not permitted to farm land and eat what grows, you're not free. If you work like a slave, 40 hours a week forever, creating things that no one actually needs in the hopes that someone who has food will find your creation titillating and feed you, you're not free.
If you need money, for anything, you're not free. You're the opposite of free. You're bound. If those you rely on to meet your needs in exchange for money are irresponsible or malicious, you can be coerced to do anything, or simply allowed to die.
The GPL assures freedom because it protects your capacity to take care of yourself from those who would lead you to circumstances where you're bound.
The only thing you lose is legal recognition of your "right" to bind others to you.
Sounds like the only freedom they're interested in is the freedom to keep slaves.
I'm already in this don't-give-a-shit army. Where were you at our last drill? You missed out on all the good beer!
Sorry dude, you're way beyond me. I'm still caught in that hate-the-bitches-but-love-my-mom psychological thing...
therefore we have the war of the sexes still raging today, getting worse and worse until the women win. Do not kid yourself -- they will win.
Seems to me the power women have over men is the power to get a group of men to single out and attack an individual man. If men ever became so jaded that they decided it wasn't worth sticking up for women, the war would immediately be over.
Did you somehow miss the complete economic collapse of the USSR due to communism?
I wholeheartedly disagree with your conclusion that the USSR collapsed because their economy was communist.
Did you somehow miss the fact that China is the home of much manufacturing because it has the lowest wages of anywhere that has the rule of law?
That is a pretty common argument against communism. But it ignores a very important question: If everything you need is provided to you because you're participating in a communist economy, what do you need a wage for in the first place?
People only care about wages when their country is poor, life is hard and things are scarce.
Post WWII, capatalism (to the extent it exists in America) has produced 4% growth per year, socialism 2%, and communism negative growth. Relative to socalism, capitalism doubles your standard of living every 35 years or so. Yes, socialism has some short-term advantages, but how much do you think it increases you standard of living? Twice as much? Four times? You're still fucking over your great grandchildren to make things better today.
I attribute American growth to the fact that it is the center of an oppressive global economic empire with a history of making, selling and using terrible weapons to intimidate and massacre any group that does not submit to their system and be exploited.
They've got one of if not the largest gap between rich and poor of any nation on earth, so it's self evident from that fact that most of their citizenry is poor.
They've also got a higher criminal/citizen ratio than most of not all the nations on earth, which means their citizenry are oppressed enough and desperate enough to violate the law more frequently than any other place on earth.
The US is basically an oppressive society ruled by group of dynasties, where many people attempt to buck the system and end up in jail or executed and unless you're one of the people on top, you're a poor, hard working slave, life sucks, and you've most likely been too heavily brainwashed by your masters to even comprehend the realities of your situation, so you're pretty much fucked.