Baloney. I defend anyone who I think is being maligned unfairly, and I don't care who they are. That's actually a fairly American thing to do, and I have no objection whatsoever to anyone who wants to issue a legitimate complaint against our government or our way of life. In many cases, I will probably agree with them. And if you'd actually read my post rather than simply calling me rude, you'd have understood that: I made my position very clear. Yes, I agree, there are dangerous trends in our society, and if you'd read any of my other posts you would understand that I'm very much aware of them. HOWEVER I, like the vast majority of Americans, do not in any way resemble the original posters depiction.
Put it this way: one of the most common complaints I receive from people of other nationalities (and I personally know a lot of them from since my company operates globally, and my fiancee is Nigerian) is that Americans don't make enough fine distinctions between said people. We're not real sensitive to individual variations (hell, how many Americans could tell a Cherokee from a Hopi, an Indian from a Pakistani?) so I'll buy that, it's a legitimate complaint. But keep in mind that if you want us to make the effort to get to know you as individual peoples, don't want us to judge you from stereotypes and surface impressions... don't do the same to us. It works both ways, which was what I was trying to get across to the dipstick who started this nonsense.
Just for the record, I never said that America was a shining beacon of anything (you were definitely putting words in my mouth there), but if you try to deny that our military has kept a lot of trouble in check since World War II you'd be lying or misinformed. How far do you think the Soviet Empire would have advanced if the United States wasn't there to oppose it? Regardless, my point there was that, in the not-too-distant future that military is going to be withdrawing from world affairs (since we'll no longer be able to afford it) and that the stability and protection that afforded many nations is going to go away. They'd best start planning for that. Also, you can figure that our foreign aid dollars are going to be cut significantly as well, so any countries that have been depending a little too much on that might want to rethink their own economic policies.
Here's what the poster that I was actually replying to said:
Fuck 'em.
Bunch of flat-earther pricks that won't last long.
Only Americans would buy into that shit, because they believe everything they see on the TV and are incapable of thinking for themselves.
Sooner the world "sanctions" the US the better, know what I mean?
So, yes, he did say something about Americans being stupid. And that's okay, he's entitled to his opinion. My point is that there's a certain hypocrisy in complaining about ALL Americans as being lazy, or stupid, or violent, or whatever other negative attribute you like, when many of those countries whose citizens are making those comments are even more fucked up than we are.
Sour grapes, when you get right down to it. My other point is that America did provide a lot of valuable services to the quote-unquote "free world" that will disappear when our economy collapses completely. All those who have been benefiting from our largesse, ranging from trillions in foreign aid to military defense, had best look to their own futures, a future without the United States in it.
Will they be better off? Some would say so... personally I don't care to speculate. I do think they'll be very surprised when their crutch falls out from under them.
3 - The rational process of assessing risk and making choices about how to safely run a society is not a democratic process, and it should depend in no way on assuaging the fears of individuals, or the assertions from the lay public.
Risk/benefit analysis is a cold-blooded business but it's the only way to make the right decisions. Too many people get upset over this, when they read memos which explain that "this technology will result in x premature deaths over the next y years." What they simply do not understand is that the implementation and use of industrial-scale power systems has costs that can and must be calculated in terms of human life. The American public has proven itself, time and again, to be unable to properly assess the risks of nuclear vs. conventional power, and that inability has paralyzed our power-production industry for forty years. The truth is, the best you can do is pick from the least of multiple evils. That much it is possible, but you have to accept some risk.
Unfortunately, here in the U.S., Congress controls how our infrastructure dollars are spent, and they are way too sensitive to the wrong aspects of our mass psychology/psychoses. Worse, they exploit the general ignorance of our population with regards to numerical, scientific or technological issues, staying in power by convincing us that there is a boogeyman in every closet, whipping us into a frenzy over non-issues such as nuclear energy. It's become a twisted system, and I don't see any way out.
that a group such as the BSA would model its own campaign upon an unsuccessful campaign waged by a similar organization? Well, unsuccessful in achieving its stated purpose, but very successful in extorting wads of cash.
There are economic issues here that have apparently completely escaped you. The biggest one is that you have a middleman stuck squarely between the producer of a good or service, and the consumer of said service. By the way, in general parlance the term middleman is the semantic equivalent to "leech". That's true with doctors (we call the leeches "insurance companies" in that case") as well as musicians. What invariably happens when you divorce the cost of production from what consumers are willing to pay is that prices go up, and some people get extremely rich, because as middlemen they have the power to pick off a good chunk of the revenue stream for themselves. If you happen to be an engineer, think of it in terms of an open feedback loop. With music, it means that the people making the money aren't the content creators, the artists, but other people whose actual value to the process is questionable.
There's massive graft and overhead involved in the traditional production and delivery of musical content, and what's at issue here is whether our artists should continue to be subject to it. The answer, in the Internet age, is no. With content delivery costs now approaching zero there's little justification for the vast publishing organizations we currently have, little reason for the cost of music to remain where it has been... other than that some people (not, oddly enough, the musicians in most cases) want it that way. The only thing (the ONLY thing) that keeps that gravy train moving is the assignation of, and extension of, copyright. They coerce artists into giving up distribution rights to their own creative works, bribe Congress into restricting the public domain, and then upcharge the rest of us to gain access to those works. It's a sleazy business any way you look at it, and if you really examine the history of what the RIAA and the studios have done over the past century or so, you wouldn't be so ready to defend them.
Furthermore, If you look at this with a slightly less jaundiced eye, you'd realize that there would be more resources available for paying actual composers and performers, if we could eliminate the tremendous waste that goes on in that industry. Better yet, if we could remove the control the studio executives have over the quality of recorded music, the consumer would be far better off. Yes, that would mean a lot of people would have to look for other jobs, but that is the nature of progress.
Face it, getting musicians together with the people who enjoy their works is no longer a complicated affair... the only middleman required is an active Internet connection. Apple proved that fact rather conclusively.
Do you have even the slightest idea what you're talking about? No? I thought not.
The attitude that comes across from so many non-American posters on Slashdot is interesting. They feel perfectly free to lump ALL Americans into some arbitrary (usually negative) category, criticize us, and call us names (even though we built the largest industrial economy and military on the planet, not something usually accomplished by Flat Earthers.) On the other hand, if an American says anything remotely similar you take umbrage. ALL French are cowards. ALL British are stuck-up. ALL Arabs are terrorists. ALL {insert nationality here} are {insert favorite racial epithet here.} You can talk about Americans not being able to think for ourselves, but we're the ones with all the "intellectual property" that bootstrapped China and India into the industrial age.
Ten to one the Chinese aren't too interested in what your country has to offer, except maybe target practice. For your sakes, you'd better hope we don't collapse too soon, before you've had a chance to build up your own defenses. Russia and China are going to be on the world scene in a major way, sooner or later. Mark my words. When that happens, you'll be wondering why you were complaining so loudly about us.
If you had even bothered to read any of the posts left here by politically-aware Americans (and there are many) you'd find out that A LOT OF US OBJECT TO THE SAME THINGS YOU DO. But nope... always the same thing. ALL Americans are useless, stupid people that want nothing better than to watch their big-screen TV sets and take over the world.
You, sir, are an ignorant, hypocritical prick. Don't bother replying, I've wasted enough keystrokes for the evening.
Well, Harvard has been around since the pre-industrial days... what I want to know is, are the attorneys still hand-assembled, or is the process more automated nowadays?
You have the opportunity to read the body of the email before deciding to load them.
Thunderbird does that too, and I find that I rarely need to see embedded graphics. Sometimes when I get an emailed receipt from an online order I'll click the "Load Images" button, so I can print it properly. Usually though, the graphics are superfluous and I just want to read the text.
They have all the resources to take the RIAA's campaign down.
That would make a good senior project: "Students, your assignment this year is to put the kibosh on the Recording Industry Association of America's lawsuit mill."
The connotation of tasers with the phrase "non-lethal" needs to be done away with, as well. Calling tasers non-lethal is like calling being hit to the skull with an aluminum baseball bat "non-lethal". Sure, you *might* not die from it -- but there is also a significant chance that you *might*.
Heck, in that context a.38 cal Police special is a non-lethal weapon, I mean, you might survive being shot in the chest. That hardly qualifies a handgun as non-lethal.
If a device is truly a "weapon" then it carries the potential of causing serious injury or death. If it doesn't, then it's not a weapon... it's at best a tool. That also is no guarantee of safety: many tools are at least as dangerous as a gun or knife.
If you are a cop, and you are using force upon someone, you are depending upon that person's ability to survive that application. Furthermore, you have no way to discern, in advance, how hardy a given individual is. That big guy with all the muscles might also have a heart condition, or be on the verge of a ruptured brain aneurysm. How can you tell?
This is true whether it be purely mechanical force, as in the case of the aforementioned baseball bat, or electrical as with a Taser. There will always be a certain percentage of any population that will die or become seriously compromised no matter what variety of "non lethal" technology you employ.
There is no panacea here, the manufacturer's claims to the contrary notwithstanding (that is extraordinary it it's own right.) The only thing that is keeping us from more civilian deaths is proper police training and oversight. The Taser is not a solution, in and of it self, even though it is being sold as such.
True enough, and when push comes to shove most bullies back off. That's been my experience too, and history is replete with examples of big bullies that eventually got taken down. This is just one more... my only concern is the amount of damage it will do along the way.
The way I see it, as bad as these lawsuits are, they will eventually come to an end. The content companies are going to have to reach some accommodation with modern technology whether they like it or not, however hard they try to turn back the clock. That's always happened, in spite of their near-continuous spewing forth of "end of the industry" scenarios, since the invention of the tape recorder. Why anyone, especially Congress, would continue to pay attention to such an incredible group of congenital liars is beyond me. Seriously, you don't even need to see their lips move.
What concerns me more is that the legacy of bad law they have left us will still be there, and will continue to cause harm long after the studios themselves have been brought to heel.
No, Mr. Beckerman, you misunderstand me. My comment was not meant to be in support of the media companies. I haven't bought anything from those people since 1981, because a little research convinced me that they were an overtly amoral operation that I couldn't, in good conscience, continue to support. They still are, and I still feel the same way. Most people don't even want to know who they're dealing when they buy their music, because then they might have to wonder where the cash from that last CD they bought actually went.
I just meant that it takes a certain degree of intestinal fortitude to keep doing what they do, for as long as they've been doing it, and not become violently ill from a sense of self-loathing.
Well, it's certainly not bravery, but there's no question the media companies have cojones made of alternating layers of graphite composite and titanium alloy. I mean, they've been pulling the same scam for over a century, and they keep getting away with it.
Oh, I agree. Frankly, that's why I avoid using such systems as much as possible.
Oh sure, I use Google, but I can't see myself ever posting anything consequential to a site like Facebook. Nevertheless, the Googles and Facebooks of the world are accumulating a truly astounding quantity of information about individual activities, and such knowledge is power. In that regard, they are no less dangerous than outfits like ChoicePoint or the credit bureaus. I have no choice but to end up in ChoicePoint's database, but I can and do choose to opt the hell out of Facebook's. The risk/benefit ratio isn't sufficient to interest me.
Personally, I've never used Facebook or any social-networking site, and I only know what little I read here on Slashdot. Even so, it does seem like hardly a week goes by without Facebook implementing some controversial, poorly thought out feature that pisses a lot of people off. As with any large-scale data aggregator (for that is, in effect, what Facebook has become) there's the potential to screw up and hurt people. There's a need to make money, I know, but sometimes Facebook's management seems to err on the wrong side of privacy.
Slashdot Mirror
The Good Steve giveth, and the Good Steve taketh away.
You put an extra 'o' in God.
Insightful? Where the hell did that moderation come from?
Apparently, some people with mod points can actually read. You, I'm not so sure about.
Baloney. I defend anyone who I think is being maligned unfairly, and I don't care who they are. That's actually a fairly American thing to do, and I have no objection whatsoever to anyone who wants to issue a legitimate complaint against our government or our way of life. In many cases, I will probably agree with them. And if you'd actually read my post rather than simply calling me rude, you'd have understood that: I made my position very clear. Yes, I agree, there are dangerous trends in our society, and if you'd read any of my other posts you would understand that I'm very much aware of them. HOWEVER I, like the vast majority of Americans, do not in any way resemble the original posters depiction.
... don't do the same to us. It works both ways, which was what I was trying to get across to the dipstick who started this nonsense.
Put it this way: one of the most common complaints I receive from people of other nationalities (and I personally know a lot of them from since my company operates globally, and my fiancee is Nigerian) is that Americans don't make enough fine distinctions between said people. We're not real sensitive to individual variations (hell, how many Americans could tell a Cherokee from a Hopi, an Indian from a Pakistani?) so I'll buy that, it's a legitimate complaint. But keep in mind that if you want us to make the effort to get to know you as individual peoples, don't want us to judge you from stereotypes and surface impressions
Just for the record, I never said that America was a shining beacon of anything (you were definitely putting words in my mouth there), but if you try to deny that our military has kept a lot of trouble in check since World War II you'd be lying or misinformed. How far do you think the Soviet Empire would have advanced if the United States wasn't there to oppose it? Regardless, my point there was that, in the not-too-distant future that military is going to be withdrawing from world affairs (since we'll no longer be able to afford it) and that the stability and protection that afforded many nations is going to go away. They'd best start planning for that. Also, you can figure that our foreign aid dollars are going to be cut significantly as well, so any countries that have been depending a little too much on that might want to rethink their own economic policies.
Here's what the poster that I was actually replying to said:
... personally I don't care to speculate. I do think they'll be very surprised when their crutch falls out from under them.
Fuck 'em.
Bunch of flat-earther pricks that won't last long.
Only Americans would buy into that shit, because they believe everything they see on the TV and are incapable of thinking for themselves.
Sooner the world "sanctions" the US the better, know what I mean?
So, yes, he did say something about Americans being stupid. And that's okay, he's entitled to his opinion. My point is that there's a certain hypocrisy in complaining about ALL Americans as being lazy, or stupid, or violent, or whatever other negative attribute you like, when many of those countries whose citizens are making those comments are even more fucked up than we are.
Sour grapes, when you get right down to it. My other point is that America did provide a lot of valuable services to the quote-unquote "free world" that will disappear when our economy collapses completely. All those who have been benefiting from our largesse, ranging from trillions in foreign aid to military defense, had best look to their own futures, a future without the United States in it.
Will they be better off? Some would say so
3 - The rational process of assessing risk and making choices about how to safely run a society is not a democratic process, and it should depend in no way on assuaging the fears of individuals, or the assertions from the lay public.
Risk/benefit analysis is a cold-blooded business but it's the only way to make the right decisions. Too many people get upset over this, when they read memos which explain that "this technology will result in x premature deaths over the next y years." What they simply do not understand is that the implementation and use of industrial-scale power systems has costs that can and must be calculated in terms of human life. The American public has proven itself, time and again, to be unable to properly assess the risks of nuclear vs. conventional power, and that inability has paralyzed our power-production industry for forty years. The truth is, the best you can do is pick from the least of multiple evils. That much it is possible, but you have to accept some risk.
Unfortunately, here in the U.S., Congress controls how our infrastructure dollars are spent, and they are way too sensitive to the wrong aspects of our mass psychology/psychoses. Worse, they exploit the general ignorance of our population with regards to numerical, scientific or technological issues, staying in power by convincing us that there is a boogeyman in every closet, whipping us into a frenzy over non-issues such as nuclear energy. It's become a twisted system, and I don't see any way out.
that a group such as the BSA would model its own campaign upon an unsuccessful campaign waged by a similar organization? Well, unsuccessful in achieving its stated purpose, but very successful in extorting wads of cash.
or is going to try and create the change?
There are economic issues here that have apparently completely escaped you. The biggest one is that you have a middleman stuck squarely between the producer of a good or service, and the consumer of said service. By the way, in general parlance the term middleman is the semantic equivalent to "leech". That's true with doctors (we call the leeches "insurance companies" in that case") as well as musicians. What invariably happens when you divorce the cost of production from what consumers are willing to pay is that prices go up, and some people get extremely rich, because as middlemen they have the power to pick off a good chunk of the revenue stream for themselves. If you happen to be an engineer, think of it in terms of an open feedback loop. With music, it means that the people making the money aren't the content creators, the artists, but other people whose actual value to the process is questionable.
... other than that some people (not, oddly enough, the musicians in most cases) want it that way. The only thing (the ONLY thing) that keeps that gravy train moving is the assignation of, and extension of, copyright. They coerce artists into giving up distribution rights to their own creative works, bribe Congress into restricting the public domain, and then upcharge the rest of us to gain access to those works. It's a sleazy business any way you look at it, and if you really examine the history of what the RIAA and the studios have done over the past century or so, you wouldn't be so ready to defend them.
... the only middleman required is an active Internet connection. Apple proved that fact rather conclusively.
There's massive graft and overhead involved in the traditional production and delivery of musical content, and what's at issue here is whether our artists should continue to be subject to it. The answer, in the Internet age, is no. With content delivery costs now approaching zero there's little justification for the vast publishing organizations we currently have, little reason for the cost of music to remain where it has been
Furthermore, If you look at this with a slightly less jaundiced eye, you'd realize that there would be more resources available for paying actual composers and performers, if we could eliminate the tremendous waste that goes on in that industry. Better yet, if we could remove the control the studio executives have over the quality of recorded music, the consumer would be far better off. Yes, that would mean a lot of people would have to look for other jobs, but that is the nature of progress.
Face it, getting musicians together with the people who enjoy their works is no longer a complicated affair
Do you have even the slightest idea what you're talking about? No? I thought not.
... always the same thing. ALL Americans are useless, stupid people that want nothing better than to watch their big-screen TV sets and take over the world.
The attitude that comes across from so many non-American posters on Slashdot is interesting. They feel perfectly free to lump ALL Americans into some arbitrary (usually negative) category, criticize us, and call us names (even though we built the largest industrial economy and military on the planet, not something usually accomplished by Flat Earthers.) On the other hand, if an American says anything remotely similar you take umbrage. ALL French are cowards. ALL British are stuck-up. ALL Arabs are terrorists. ALL {insert nationality here} are {insert favorite racial epithet here.} You can talk about Americans not being able to think for ourselves, but we're the ones with all the "intellectual property" that bootstrapped China and India into the industrial age.
Ten to one the Chinese aren't too interested in what your country has to offer, except maybe target practice. For your sakes, you'd better hope we don't collapse too soon, before you've had a chance to build up your own defenses. Russia and China are going to be on the world scene in a major way, sooner or later. Mark my words. When that happens, you'll be wondering why you were complaining so loudly about us.
If you had even bothered to read any of the posts left here by politically-aware Americans (and there are many) you'd find out that A LOT OF US OBJECT TO THE SAME THINGS YOU DO. But nope
You, sir, are an ignorant, hypocritical prick. Don't bother replying, I've wasted enough keystrokes for the evening.
Just to clarify, I was referring to the RIAA's activities, not Mr. Beckerman's blog.
Well, Harvard has been around since the pre-industrial days ... what I want to know is, are the attorneys still hand-assembled, or is the process more automated nowadays?
You have the opportunity to read the body of the email before deciding to load them.
Thunderbird does that too, and I find that I rarely need to see embedded graphics. Sometimes when I get an emailed receipt from an online order I'll click the "Load Images" button, so I can print it properly. Usually though, the graphics are superfluous and I just want to read the text.
They have all the resources to take the RIAA's campaign down.
That would make a good senior project: "Students, your assignment this year is to put the kibosh on the Recording Industry Association of America's lawsuit mill."
There...fixed that for you
No, I am not a member of Yoda's species.
The connotation of tasers with the phrase "non-lethal" needs to be done away with, as well. Calling tasers non-lethal is like calling being hit to the skull with an aluminum baseball bat "non-lethal". Sure, you *might* not die from it -- but there is also a significant chance that you *might*.
.38 cal Police special is a non-lethal weapon, I mean, you might survive being shot in the chest. That hardly qualifies a handgun as non-lethal.
... it's at best a tool. That also is no guarantee of safety: many tools are at least as dangerous as a gun or knife.
Heck, in that context a
If a device is truly a "weapon" then it carries the potential of causing serious injury or death. If it doesn't, then it's not a weapon
If you are a cop, and you are using force upon someone, you are depending upon that person's ability to survive that application. Furthermore, you have no way to discern, in advance, how hardy a given individual is. That big guy with all the muscles might also have a heart condition, or be on the verge of a ruptured brain aneurysm. How can you tell?
This is true whether it be purely mechanical force, as in the case of the aforementioned baseball bat, or electrical as with a Taser. There will always be a certain percentage of any population that will die or become seriously compromised no matter what variety of "non lethal" technology you employ.
There is no panacea here, the manufacturer's claims to the contrary notwithstanding (that is extraordinary it it's own right.) The only thing that is keeping us from more civilian deaths is proper police training and oversight. The Taser is not a solution, in and of it self, even though it is being sold as such.
True enough, and when push comes to shove most bullies back off. That's been my experience too, and history is replete with examples of big bullies that eventually got taken down. This is just one more ... my only concern is the amount of damage it will do along the way.
The way I see it, as bad as these lawsuits are, they will eventually come to an end. The content companies are going to have to reach some accommodation with modern technology whether they like it or not, however hard they try to turn back the clock. That's always happened, in spite of their near-continuous spewing forth of "end of the industry" scenarios, since the invention of the tape recorder. Why anyone, especially Congress, would continue to pay attention to such an incredible group of congenital liars is beyond me. Seriously, you don't even need to see their lips move.
What concerns me more is that the legacy of bad law they have left us will still be there, and will continue to cause harm long after the studios themselves have been brought to heel.
The GP's tagline is particularly appropriate, I think: WARNING: If accidentally read, induce vomiting.
Why would you need an anonymous network when you're only sharing files licensed under Creative Commons and the like?
Well, here's one good reason:
1. You've correctly realized that the media companies don't really care if you're sharing files legally or not.
I'm sure the rest of you can add to this list.
No, Mr. Beckerman, you misunderstand me. My comment was not meant to be in support of the media companies. I haven't bought anything from those people since 1981, because a little research convinced me that they were an overtly amoral operation that I couldn't, in good conscience, continue to support. They still are, and I still feel the same way. Most people don't even want to know who they're dealing when they buy their music, because then they might have to wonder where the cash from that last CD they bought actually went.
I just meant that it takes a certain degree of intestinal fortitude to keep doing what they do, for as long as they've been doing it, and not become violently ill from a sense of self-loathing.
Well, it's certainly not bravery, but there's no question the media companies have cojones made of alternating layers of graphite composite and titanium alloy. I mean, they've been pulling the same scam for over a century, and they keep getting away with it.
Oh, I agree. Frankly, that's why I avoid using such systems as much as possible.
Oh sure, I use Google, but I can't see myself ever posting anything consequential to a site like Facebook. Nevertheless, the Googles and Facebooks of the world are accumulating a truly astounding quantity of information about individual activities, and such knowledge is power. In that regard, they are no less dangerous than outfits like ChoicePoint or the credit bureaus. I have no choice but to end up in ChoicePoint's database, but I can and do choose to opt the hell out of Facebook's. The risk/benefit ratio isn't sufficient to interest me.
Rarely loses the master against his padawan. So to challenge him, a fool you must be.
Thank youuuu Yoda.
I use Privoxy on my network. Presumably it could be configured to do a lot of the same things, although I've never really dug that far into it.
Let me tell you something, buddy. Once you go black ... you never go back.
Personally, I've never used Facebook or any social-networking site, and I only know what little I read here on Slashdot. Even so, it does seem like hardly a week goes by without Facebook implementing some controversial, poorly thought out feature that pisses a lot of people off. As with any large-scale data aggregator (for that is, in effect, what Facebook has become) there's the potential to screw up and hurt people. There's a need to make money, I know, but sometimes Facebook's management seems to err on the wrong side of privacy.