I think it was explained to you in an earlier reply. No one smokes because they think it's a great way to commit a slow suicide. In fact even in our enlightened age it's possible (in some countries) to not even be aware that smoking is deadly. Pleasure from smoking is the primary effect and whatever danger comes from it is accidental. Cigarette manufacturers certainly have a moral dilemma of selling a dangerous product on their hands but even in that case I dare to say it's still not their primary intention to kill their customers.
It's STILL redistribution of wealth. Let's suppose that my income is so high that I'm paying 10 times as much income tax as you. So you really think that I use and benifit proportionally more from:
The Interstate Highway System. - Because rich people just love to take those extra-long road trips.
The Internet. - Don't see how rich ppl use 10 times more. It's mostly poor who sit on their asses all day checking out classmates, youtube anf flickr.
Public Education. - actually most likely my kids are in private school. So I'm paying for you child education. So it's redistribution of wealth again.
Law Enforcement System - Do I call 911 10 times as often? More likely I'm living in a low-crime gated community that employs private security. So, paying for your security again.
Cute, but what does it have to do with enrolling to study math and cs? Do you think that becoming a mathematician requires more dominance/agressiveness than becoming a doctor or lawyer, both programs with far greater gender parity.
It's a valid hypothesis however there are too many counterexamples for it to be rue. Not too long ago the majority of doctors were male. You could've said back then that women weren't wired for that sort of thing. Now the situation has reversed. What is it hyper-evolution in action or something else? Second, if biology was the cause then you would expect to see a similar situation in other countries. I'm a mathematician and here in Russia we see 60/40 male to female ratio in first year math majors and closer to 50/50 in math graduates. We are mostly white Caucasian people and yet we see all these girls taking and passing some very hard abstract math classes. I don't think it's biology, I think i has more to do with rigid gender roles, and professional stereotypes.
Since English is not my native language, maybe I didn't articulate my point well enough in my original message. It doesn't have anything to with some altruistic quest for @the good of humanity". There must be a balance between the wishes of a huge majority of content users who want to practice a natural act of copying and a tiny minority of content creators who want to maximize their profits by introducing artificial scarcity. Personally I think in a free market copyright is not necessary. Imagine that in January Obama issues an executive order requiring all works to be released under GPL. Do you really think that all content creation will cease that very moment? Programs and books will no longer be written, music wont be composed, movies will stop being filmed? Absurd. There will still be supply and demand, and the market will find a way to work with GPL. In an earlier post I gave examples of successful companies paying people to write code that their competitors can learn from and selling software that anyone can download. And they are competing against giants like Microsoft that supposedly have the huge advantage of being able to hide the source to their jewels away. Imagine if everyone had to play buy the same rules, I think we would see a lot of healthy competition.
Im not talking about some BDSM sissy slave fantasy. You can pretend being a slave, but your "owner" sure can't exercise the same rights over you as if he was really the owner, without getting into serious trouble with the law. You cannot give you legal equality away, clear and simple.
The TVs and Radios my parents bought came with complete electronics schematics. The TVs of my generation are filled with epoxy covered blobs. So I don't like where the world is going. But on the other hand we now have affordable tech like FPGA and amazing sites like opencores. I think there is a future somewhere with open hardware running Free Software from the ground up. At least an option for choosing such a platform.
1) Users outnumber developers by several orders of magnitude. It's only reasonable that RMS(even tho he is formerly a genius level developer - just read about the amazing stuff he did during the "Multics War") cares more about FREEDOMS of users.
2) Copying a book or a program is a perfectly natural act, while having to buy a separate copy of a program for every computer in your house and for everyone in your family is unnatural and in general fucked up. Sometime ago content producers were given a temporary ability to restrict our natural behavior in the form of copyright. You know how it went, they completely abused it (some more than others). Now it's time for the privilege to be taken from them.
Something must be wrong with your argument because counterexamples are plentiful. People ARE being paid right now to work GPL code that anyone can download and resell. (Linux kernel, Apache. Mysql, QT, and more). And despite exact copies of RedHat enterprise offerings being available for anyone to download, the original RedHat approved expensive version is still being sold.
If you were correct, I would just download the source to Apache, Linux, Mysql and QT and start undercutting them, I'll be RICH soon. Now somehow I get a feeling that it wouldn't work.
This is so sad it makes me cry. Comparing Wesnoth to FarCry2 or even Civilization4?
I'm all for open source but for now it seems like the open source community is not yet at the stage where they can bring together hundreds of programmers,artists,musicians,managers,and a huge variety of support personnel (drivers,security,cooks,etc) required to make a modern game.
The real question is then - Should one be able to voluntarily, of their own free will sell themselves into slavery? Actually, it turns out that when it comes to people you can't do that.
Maybe you think it violates freedom of will on some plane, but the rest of the world calls it human rights. What RMS believes is that Freedom to use software in any way should be an inalienable right as well.
I understand why the bank was doing, but it is still a scary concept that some bank thinks they know better what I should do with my money that I temporarily put in their box.
I'm not American. but if I was, I would have voted for McCain. It's sad to see how your great nation has fallen for bits of leftist propaganda (And yes, I'm talking about "spreading the wealth around", can't take these words back) and unsupported promises of change.
This is an interesting question. If one lives in a desert should he buy flood insurance? If one is healthy and leads a healthy lifestyle why should he need health insurance? I don't have insurance, a FREE choice I made after evaluating my risks. Sure, decease can still strike suddenly, but it's not like I live hand-to-mouth, if necessary I'll pay in cash or take out a loan.
And I haven't seen the insides of a hospital in 17 years. In your country I would have been robbed by the nanny government of thousands of dollars (more, if invested wisely).
I simply don't understand this freeloader logic. I like to have the freedom to access my risks myself. I believe that I'm not likely to get into a car accident or get cancer, so I don't want to pay every month for service that I don't need. But if it does happen, I'll pay for the ambulance with cash, just like I would do for any other service.
+1
This is why I don't understand folks who go out of the way to help people in Africa and Asia
or save Amazonian rainforests when we are up to our neck in problems at home.
And what is wrong with that? The market (supply and demand) will decide the fair price for the water. The person owning the water will realize that he can maximize his income if he makes the price low enough that everyone can afford it. What you wrote is just another socialist scare tactic. What is next? Nationalize the farming land because the farmers might hike up the prices and everybody starves to death?
Large scale industrial production of meth and other synthetic drugs will certainly be cheaper than shit produced in somebody's kitchen. The only reason meth labs even exist is the stupid drugs prohibition.
Why should someone pay for your child's taxi. Why not be responsible and move closer to the school or move to a different area or homeschool your child? Or pay for the taxis yourself?
Slashdot Mirror
I think it was explained to you in an earlier reply. No one smokes because they think it's a great way to commit a slow suicide. In fact even in our enlightened age it's possible (in some countries) to not even be aware that smoking is deadly. Pleasure from smoking is the primary effect and whatever danger comes from it is accidental. Cigarette manufacturers certainly have a moral dilemma of selling a dangerous product on their hands but even in that case I dare to say it's still not their primary intention to kill their customers.
The Interstate Highway System. - Because rich people just love to take those extra-long road trips.
The Internet. - Don't see how rich ppl use 10 times more. It's mostly poor who sit on their asses all day checking out classmates, youtube anf flickr.
Public Education. - actually most likely my kids are in private school. So I'm paying for you child education. So it's redistribution of wealth again.
Law Enforcement System - Do I call 911 10 times as often? More likely I'm living in a low-crime gated community that employs private security. So, paying for your security again.
Poor Reiser, I finally understand him now!
Cute, but what does it have to do with enrolling to study math and cs? Do you think that becoming a mathematician requires more dominance/agressiveness than becoming a doctor or lawyer, both programs with far greater gender parity.
It's a valid hypothesis however there are too many counterexamples for it to be rue. Not too long ago the majority of doctors were male. You could've said back then that women weren't wired for that sort of thing. Now the situation has reversed. What is it hyper-evolution in action or something else? Second, if biology was the cause then you would expect to see a similar situation in other countries. I'm a mathematician and here in Russia we see 60/40 male to female ratio in first year math majors and closer to 50/50 in math graduates. We are mostly white Caucasian people and yet we see all these girls taking and passing some very hard abstract math classes. I don't think it's biology, I think i has more to do with rigid gender roles, and professional stereotypes.
According to Wikipedia, at least one technician was killed during the construction of LHC. So, yeah - LHC kills.
Since English is not my native language, maybe I didn't articulate my point well enough in my original message. It doesn't have anything to with some altruistic quest for @the good of humanity". There must be a balance between the wishes of a huge majority of content users who want to practice a natural act of copying and a tiny minority of content creators who want to maximize their profits by introducing artificial scarcity. Personally I think in a free market copyright is not necessary. Imagine that in January Obama issues an executive order requiring all works to be released under GPL. Do you really think that all content creation will cease that very moment? Programs and books will no longer be written, music wont be composed, movies will stop being filmed? Absurd. There will still be supply and demand, and the market will find a way to work with GPL. In an earlier post I gave examples of successful companies paying people to write code that their competitors can learn from and selling software that anyone can download. And they are competing against giants like Microsoft that supposedly have the huge advantage of being able to hide the source to their jewels away. Imagine if everyone had to play buy the same rules, I think we would see a lot of healthy competition.
Im not talking about some BDSM sissy slave fantasy. You can pretend being a slave, but your "owner" sure can't exercise the same rights over you as if he was really the owner, without getting into serious trouble with the law. You cannot give you legal equality away, clear and simple.
The TVs and Radios my parents bought came with complete electronics schematics. The TVs of my generation are filled with epoxy covered blobs. So I don't like where the world is going. But on the other hand we now have affordable tech like FPGA and amazing sites like opencores. I think there is a future somewhere with open hardware running Free Software from the ground up. At least an option for choosing such a platform.
1) Users outnumber developers by several orders of magnitude. It's only reasonable that RMS(even tho he is formerly a genius level developer - just read about the amazing stuff he did during the "Multics War") cares more about FREEDOMS of users.
2) Copying a book or a program is a perfectly natural act, while having to buy a separate copy of a program for every computer in your house and for everyone in your family is unnatural and in general fucked up. Sometime ago content producers were given a temporary ability to restrict our natural behavior in the form of copyright. You know how it went, they completely abused it (some more than others). Now it's time for the privilege to be taken from them.
Something must be wrong with your argument because counterexamples are plentiful. People ARE being paid right now to work GPL code that anyone can download and resell. (Linux kernel, Apache. Mysql, QT, and more). And despite exact copies of RedHat enterprise offerings being available for anyone to download, the original RedHat approved expensive version is still being sold. If you were correct, I would just download the source to Apache, Linux, Mysql and QT and start undercutting them, I'll be RICH soon. Now somehow I get a feeling that it wouldn't work.
This is so sad it makes me cry. Comparing Wesnoth to FarCry2 or even Civilization4? I'm all for open source but for now it seems like the open source community is not yet at the stage where they can bring together hundreds of programmers,artists,musicians,managers,and a huge variety of support personnel (drivers,security,cooks,etc) required to make a modern game.
The real question is then - Should one be able to voluntarily, of their own free will sell themselves into slavery? Actually, it turns out that when it comes to people you can't do that. Maybe you think it violates freedom of will on some plane, but the rest of the world calls it human rights. What RMS believes is that Freedom to use software in any way should be an inalienable right as well.
You are right, but I see no pint. The GP specifically noted the assumption that ST and Fusion doesn't work in 50 years.
I understand why the bank was doing, but it is still a scary concept that some bank thinks they know better what I should do with my money that I temporarily put in their box.
I'm not American. but if I was, I would have voted for McCain. It's sad to see how your great nation has fallen for bits of leftist propaganda (And yes, I'm talking about "spreading the wealth around", can't take these words back) and unsupported promises of change.
This is an interesting question. If one lives in a desert should he buy flood insurance? If one is healthy and leads a healthy lifestyle why should he need health insurance? I don't have insurance, a FREE choice I made after evaluating my risks. Sure, decease can still strike suddenly, but it's not like I live hand-to-mouth, if necessary I'll pay in cash or take out a loan.
Can I ask you? Why do you want to retire at 55? You don't enjoy your job/profession?
And I haven't seen the insides of a hospital in 17 years. In your country I would have been robbed by the nanny government of thousands of dollars (more, if invested wisely).
I simply don't understand this freeloader logic. I like to have the freedom to access my risks myself. I believe that I'm not likely to get into a car accident or get cancer, so I don't want to pay every month for service that I don't need. But if it does happen, I'll pay for the ambulance with cash, just like I would do for any other service.
+1 This is why I don't understand folks who go out of the way to help people in Africa and Asia or save Amazonian rainforests when we are up to our neck in problems at home.
Are you trying to say that 3% of condoms fail?
And what is wrong with that? The market (supply and demand) will decide the fair price for the water. The person owning the water will realize that he can maximize his income if he makes the price low enough that everyone can afford it. What you wrote is just another socialist scare tactic. What is next? Nationalize the farming land because the farmers might hike up the prices and everybody starves to death?
Large scale industrial production of meth and other synthetic drugs will certainly be cheaper than shit produced in somebody's kitchen. The only reason meth labs even exist is the stupid drugs prohibition.
Why should someone pay for your child's taxi. Why not be responsible and move closer to the school or move to a different area or homeschool your child? Or pay for the taxis yourself?