Sure. But I'm not sure that endangering others on a whim should be enshrined as a right.
I never said it should be. I said 'endangering myself...' not 'endangering others....' Now I do realize that you could argue that anytime I endanger myself I am endangering others in an extremely attenuated way, such as not wearing a motorcycle helmet creates a bloody mess on the pavement that could cause someone to slip and fall. I don't see that as valid.
As for modern medicine, etc, that's completely different. Nobody decides to get sick on purpose. I'm talking about people who, through their own desires and actions, would remove themselves from the gene pool were it not for obeying the law in question. "Social Darwinism" has a racist overtone to it, and I'm not advocating treating one race differently from another even in the slightest bit.
There is no freedom to not be harmed by the negligence of others. There is the freedom to sue them or the executor of their estate for damages. There is also no such thing as a law that supports/fosters/preserves individual freedoms. Any time a law is passed, we collectively lose a little bit of freedom [note: the First Amendment is not a law, it is a restraint on the laws the government can make]. If I want to endanger myself I should have that right.
But, most importantly, it is irresponsible to pass laws that keep genes in the gene pool that would otherwise be removed therefrom. Seatbelt laws and helmet laws for motorcycles/bikes are just two prime examples of laws that work against natural selection and cause the devolution of our species. I have always argued that such laws are against public policy, but the easiest way for a politician to get votes is to pass a law that shows he "cares" about the safety of his constituents. Individual freedoms and the sanctity of the gene pool go right out the window when re-election comes into the picture.
I think (and this may be a bad analogy but I'll spew it forth anyway) that would be like saying seatbelts are not a successful strategy because lots of people don't use them. Or do greater than 50% ("most") of the people have to not use it for it to be deemed unsuccessful? As long as spam filters/seatbelts/motorcycle helmets/etc are freely available and functional, that is the best we can do. Well, I suppose we could mandate by law that all people use seatbelts and spam filters, but I don't feel that forcing all the people to conform by threat of punishment in order to help the lowest common denominator is a legitimate government action. JMHO.
I'd agree with that. The media as a whole is a waste of energy. Much like spam, it only exists because advertising, for some stupid reason, does actually work. The press nowadays justifies its worthless coverage by saying "we're just covering the stuff the people say they want to hear about." That's bullshit, because the media has a duty to tell the people what they want to hear about. If the media doesn't tell them, they'll never know. The media has a duty to put the Liberia stuff on the front page, even if it means less people will buy today's paper. Unfortunately freedom of speech means freedom to spew pabulum.
Stupid little chickenshit problems that both republicans and democrats can agree on (spam is bad, kiddie porn is bad, drugs are bad, etc.) get solved, or at least addressed, very quickly because it's easy and requires no political capital to be spent. That's not a bad thing, it's better to get little chickenshit things done than nothing at all. You presume only one problem can be addressed at a time.
Blame the press for sticking the Libera/Charles Taylor stuff at the bottom of the front page. What was at the top? Kobe Bryant being arrested for assraping a girl? Surely, in the mind of the average american, that is more important than the resignation of a dictator "down there" in afro land.
Who says it inevitably stops feeling good? You might build up a tolerance so you need more and more, but I'm quite sure shooting heroin doesn't inevitably start to hurt (not because I know first-hand, mind you).
as long as filters are available and there is a uniform spam identifier to filter out, the fact that some people will be too dumb/uneducated/lazy to use such a filter is not society's problem. If MS wants to charge hotmail users for a spam-free hotmail (excluding MS spam, of course), then that's just fine so long as hotmail is not the only way human beings can receive email.
Because there are problems more serious than X is not a valid reason not to address X. Bad, bad fallacy. And, FWIW, spam is ruining the internet, has already made email useless, and is costing our economy $10 billion a year (or so they say).
There's no other way to see it. It is grossly negligent for any agency involved in national security (NSA, CIA, NRO, FBI, etc.) to outsource software. Any "budget" or "manpower" excuse is unacceptable. Frankly, the US should have a "National Coding Office" to make all government software. Nothing should be purchased from Microsoft, and it sure as hell shouldn't be purchased from the Chinese communists (i.e. the enemy). Would we have outsourced to the Soviets during the Cold War? Apparently so.
If they don't know initially, I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to figure out. Especially given the nature of the program (I assume security is a major focus of whatever the NSA has ordered). I'm pretty sure the chinese gov't could and would figure it out and make sure there are backdoors in place.
Agreed. Hopefully sometime in the near future copyright will simply not apply to any work fixed in a completely electronic form (deem it not to be fixed in a tangible medium so copyright doesn't apply). It's impracticable to enforce any other way. This means it would be illegal to make copies of DVDs and sell them, but it would not be illegal to upload a DVD to a friend. Anything less just isn't going to work in a world where every single person has what amounts to a "replicator" in their house. If we could replicate our cars, it would not be the same as going into a car dealership and stealing a car from the lot.
Watch Fox News and you'll see commercials for CNN ("Tonight on Larry King Live..."). Time Warner sticks on whatever commercials it wants to. I'm sure there are Fox News commercials on CNN ("Tonight on Hannity and Colmes...").
Yeh, I've read that. It's just a bunch of "Just say no" crap. My outline sums it up without the anti-drug spin. It's much simpler than that. You can argue that addiction is a disease, virus, bacterial infection, genetic mutation, or whatever you want, but the bottom line is people like to do that which induces pleasure, and they don't like to do that which doesn't. Thus forms the habit. Those Harvard guys can "study" addiction all they want to try to "understand it" (read: justify their grants), but don't think for a second addiction is more complicated than fucking because it feels good.
That's what it all boils down to. If it gives you pleasure or enjoyment, it is per se addictive. There is a direct correlation between the amount of pleasure X gives and the addictiveness of X. Getting information is enjoyable. Watching TV, eating twinkies, shooting heroin, and sex are all enjoyable, thus addictive. Some things (drugs) have physical means of causing addiction as well as the psychological one based on enjoyment, but the only difference is those things are harder to quit. Addiction is addiction. And there's nothing innately wrong with it, either. Problems only start when you can't get access to the addictor anymore.
I don't see other drives being able to read these discs. This would reduce the portability of these giga-rec discs, as you'd have to use them on your computer or find another computer with the plextor drive.
So are the MPAA and the DMA. They should all be taken down by the Patriot Act, RICO, and every other law aimed at putting away such criminal enterprises.
no, but requiring guns (and that's exactly what they'll do) to have fingerprint sensors so only the owner can use them in order to save the lives of 100 kids who should probably be dead anyway (sorry, but natural selection ain't pretty sometimes) is not a good idea.
After watching Terminator last night, had all the guns had fingerprint sensors, Reese wouldn't have been able to use the shotgun he took to stop Arnold from killing Sarah in the club. That would mean no John Connor, which would mean either the machines win the war, or a time paradox destroys the universe. See why this is a bad idea?:)
The whole point is to save our precious children. Crippling household guns will prevent stupid little kids from taking themselves out of the gene pool, thus further ensuring the demise of our species.
No it's not. He'll get the patent. Nobody doesn't get a patent. "Patent pending" just means "waiting for the rubber stamp." As long as you pay the filing fee, you'll get the patent. Even if it an unpatentable type of creation, even if it's already been done, even if it's already been patented, and even if it violates the laws of thermodynamics. The patent office will take the money, hand out a patent, and let the federal courts handle the lawsuits that result. If a court throws out a patent, the patent office doesn't have to give the money back. Everyone wins except those not in the government.
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Sure. But I'm not sure that endangering others on a whim should be enshrined as a right.
I never said it should be. I said 'endangering myself...' not 'endangering others....' Now I do realize that you could argue that anytime I endanger myself I am endangering others in an extremely attenuated way, such as not wearing a motorcycle helmet creates a bloody mess on the pavement that could cause someone to slip and fall. I don't see that as valid.
As for modern medicine, etc, that's completely different. Nobody decides to get sick on purpose. I'm talking about people who, through their own desires and actions, would remove themselves from the gene pool were it not for obeying the law in question. "Social Darwinism" has a racist overtone to it, and I'm not advocating treating one race differently from another even in the slightest bit.
There is no freedom to not be harmed by the negligence of others. There is the freedom to sue them or the executor of their estate for damages. There is also no such thing as a law that supports/fosters/preserves individual freedoms. Any time a law is passed, we collectively lose a little bit of freedom [note: the First Amendment is not a law, it is a restraint on the laws the government can make]. If I want to endanger myself I should have that right.
But, most importantly, it is irresponsible to pass laws that keep genes in the gene pool that would otherwise be removed therefrom. Seatbelt laws and helmet laws for motorcycles/bikes are just two prime examples of laws that work against natural selection and cause the devolution of our species. I have always argued that such laws are against public policy, but the easiest way for a politician to get votes is to pass a law that shows he "cares" about the safety of his constituents. Individual freedoms and the sanctity of the gene pool go right out the window when re-election comes into the picture.
I think (and this may be a bad analogy but I'll spew it forth anyway) that would be like saying seatbelts are not a successful strategy because lots of people don't use them. Or do greater than 50% ("most") of the people have to not use it for it to be deemed unsuccessful? As long as spam filters/seatbelts/motorcycle helmets/etc are freely available and functional, that is the best we can do. Well, I suppose we could mandate by law that all people use seatbelts and spam filters, but I don't feel that forcing all the people to conform by threat of punishment in order to help the lowest common denominator is a legitimate government action. JMHO.
I'd agree with that. The media as a whole is a waste of energy. Much like spam, it only exists because advertising, for some stupid reason, does actually work. The press nowadays justifies its worthless coverage by saying "we're just covering the stuff the people say they want to hear about." That's bullshit, because the media has a duty to tell the people what they want to hear about. If the media doesn't tell them, they'll never know. The media has a duty to put the Liberia stuff on the front page, even if it means less people will buy today's paper. Unfortunately freedom of speech means freedom to spew pabulum.
Stupid little chickenshit problems that both republicans and democrats can agree on (spam is bad, kiddie porn is bad, drugs are bad, etc.) get solved, or at least addressed, very quickly because it's easy and requires no political capital to be spent. That's not a bad thing, it's better to get little chickenshit things done than nothing at all. You presume only one problem can be addressed at a time.
Blame the press for sticking the Libera/Charles Taylor stuff at the bottom of the front page. What was at the top? Kobe Bryant being arrested for assraping a girl? Surely, in the mind of the average american, that is more important than the resignation of a dictator "down there" in afro land.
Who says it inevitably stops feeling good? You might build up a tolerance so you need more and more, but I'm quite sure shooting heroin doesn't inevitably start to hurt (not because I know first-hand, mind you).
as long as filters are available and there is a uniform spam identifier to filter out, the fact that some people will be too dumb/uneducated/lazy to use such a filter is not society's problem. If MS wants to charge hotmail users for a spam-free hotmail (excluding MS spam, of course), then that's just fine so long as hotmail is not the only way human beings can receive email.
Because there are problems more serious than X is not a valid reason not to address X. Bad, bad fallacy. And, FWIW, spam is ruining the internet, has already made email useless, and is costing our economy $10 billion a year (or so they say).
Yep. The opinion that was withdrawn (and replaced by this one) is no longer binding precedent.
There's no other way to see it. It is grossly negligent for any agency involved in national security (NSA, CIA, NRO, FBI, etc.) to outsource software. Any "budget" or "manpower" excuse is unacceptable. Frankly, the US should have a "National Coding Office" to make all government software. Nothing should be purchased from Microsoft, and it sure as hell shouldn't be purchased from the Chinese communists (i.e. the enemy). Would we have outsourced to the Soviets during the Cold War? Apparently so.
If they don't know initially, I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to figure out. Especially given the nature of the program (I assume security is a major focus of whatever the NSA has ordered). I'm pretty sure the chinese gov't could and would figure it out and make sure there are backdoors in place.
Agreed. Hopefully sometime in the near future copyright will simply not apply to any work fixed in a completely electronic form (deem it not to be fixed in a tangible medium so copyright doesn't apply). It's impracticable to enforce any other way. This means it would be illegal to make copies of DVDs and sell them, but it would not be illegal to upload a DVD to a friend. Anything less just isn't going to work in a world where every single person has what amounts to a "replicator" in their house. If we could replicate our cars, it would not be the same as going into a car dealership and stealing a car from the lot.
Watch Fox News and you'll see commercials for CNN ("Tonight on Larry King Live..."). Time Warner sticks on whatever commercials it wants to. I'm sure there are Fox News commercials on CNN ("Tonight on Hannity and Colmes...").
Close, it's a zombie flick.
Yeh, I've read that. It's just a bunch of "Just say no" crap. My outline sums it up without the anti-drug spin. It's much simpler than that. You can argue that addiction is a disease, virus, bacterial infection, genetic mutation, or whatever you want, but the bottom line is people like to do that which induces pleasure, and they don't like to do that which doesn't. Thus forms the habit. Those Harvard guys can "study" addiction all they want to try to "understand it" (read: justify their grants), but don't think for a second addiction is more complicated than fucking because it feels good.
That's what it all boils down to. If it gives you pleasure or enjoyment, it is per se addictive. There is a direct correlation between the amount of pleasure X gives and the addictiveness of X. Getting information is enjoyable. Watching TV, eating twinkies, shooting heroin, and sex are all enjoyable, thus addictive. Some things (drugs) have physical means of causing addiction as well as the psychological one based on enjoyment, but the only difference is those things are harder to quit. Addiction is addiction. And there's nothing innately wrong with it, either. Problems only start when you can't get access to the addictor anymore.
"Must burn all information in order to protect our precious children and preserve the family unit."
I don't see other drives being able to read these discs. This would reduce the portability of these giga-rec discs, as you'd have to use them on your computer or find another computer with the plextor drive.
for playing online at work? Americans with Disabilities Act protects us, eh? Kickass.
So are the MPAA and the DMA. They should all be taken down by the Patriot Act, RICO, and every other law aimed at putting away such criminal enterprises.
no, but requiring guns (and that's exactly what they'll do) to have fingerprint sensors so only the owner can use them in order to save the lives of 100 kids who should probably be dead anyway (sorry, but natural selection ain't pretty sometimes) is not a good idea.
:)
After watching Terminator last night, had all the guns had fingerprint sensors, Reese wouldn't have been able to use the shotgun he took to stop Arnold from killing Sarah in the club. That would mean no John Connor, which would mean either the machines win the war, or a time paradox destroys the universe. See why this is a bad idea?
The whole point is to save our precious children. Crippling household guns will prevent stupid little kids from taking themselves out of the gene pool, thus further ensuring the demise of our species.
They have to pretend to be trying in order to justify their existence. Enjoy your patent.
no, someone on slashdot a few weeks ago linked to a patent for a perpetual motion machine. I wish i could find it. 100% serious.
No it's not. He'll get the patent. Nobody doesn't get a patent. "Patent pending" just means "waiting for the rubber stamp." As long as you pay the filing fee, you'll get the patent. Even if it an unpatentable type of creation, even if it's already been done, even if it's already been patented, and even if it violates the laws of thermodynamics. The patent office will take the money, hand out a patent, and let the federal courts handle the lawsuits that result. If a court throws out a patent, the patent office doesn't have to give the money back. Everyone wins except those not in the government.