A lot of what we know about adult stem cells we only know because we learned it first in embryonic stem cells. If this works, it's fruit of the ESC research tree. If you're not okay with ESC research but want treatments from it, you're still going to have to answer some ethical questions for yourself.
Much of that seminal ESC research was animal, not necessarily human.
For another example, much of what we know today about the effects and treatment of hypothermia is taken from Nazi human experimentation (see ref.). These ethical questions surround us -- it's not limited to ESCs.
And none of you guys seem to realize that ESC research is done on embryos that were headed for the incincerator anyway.
If ESC treatments become viable, IVF leftovers do not provide a sufficient supply for more than a tiny fraction of the people who would request treatment
Besides, many people will still have ethical problems with forcibly "harvesting" parts / cells from people, even if they are headed for the incinerator. Didn't we just have this same debate a few years ago with harvesting condemned criminals for organs? "And none of you guys seem to realize that these organs are being taken from people who were headed for the electric chair anyway."
All I mean is that the ethics of ESC are severe -- and even amplified when humans are in play. If your argument for "research only -- no treatments expected" holds, then would using animal ESCs sidestep any of this for you, while still gaining many of the research benefits?
On the funding issue too, I'm wary of the uninformed public making choices as to what needs to be spent where when they rarely have the context or understanding of what the research is supposed to accomplish.
I suppose I think that when I give the government money, I am hiring them to provide a service for me. If I don't want my car mechanic adding a spoiler onto my car, I don't intend to pay him for it. I may not understand the implications of the performance and whatnot, but if I would rather it be spent on something like better roads or schools, why shouldn't I have a say in where my money goes? Yes, I'm sure that these research dollars will have paid off in the future for our children and their children, but if my child is flunking basic math right now because their school can't afford good teachers, I think it's a bit unfair to call them an ignorant hick just because they don't place quite the priority on stem cell research as you do, and would rather see the government shuttle that money elsewhere.
In a word, if you want it, spend your own money on it, and don't just get upset and call people ignorant when they don't share your priorities. Other people have legitimate needs for this cash, and there's only so much of it to go around.
It shouldn't be a democratic process because then we'd end up spending half our money on "Does prayer heal?" and we'd all be smoking like chimneys wondering why we were dropping dead.
Well it's good that we're not a democracy here -- we're a republic. Sadly, it seems that we're trending ever and ever closer to a democracy though, which has never been a stable (or productive) form of government.
I don't mean to sound elitist, I think most people are -capable- of learning enough to make good decisions on funding of stem cells, but they clearly haven't.
Then if people aren't willing to give you their money, then in the meantime, spend your own. Again, you seem upset that people aren't willing to just give you their limited funds for your priorities. Noone's stopping you from spending your own -- they're just not happy when you try to reach into their pockets for your interests. Plenty of disease research groups (such as March of Dimes, etc) evangelize and raise awareness and gather donations for a cause or for research. It's a bit awkward when such evangelism is skipped and the conclusion is mandated through legislation on the federal level. Yes, fundraising is work -- but at least you're respecting people and their basic liberties. I know it's tempting to want Big Brother to handle all of this for us, but when the government looks like a hammer, all of our little problems start looking like nails.
Disclaimer: I shop local, walk to the grocery store with my cloth shopping bag, I recycle, and keep driving to a minimum -- I fill up my tank maybe once or twice a month. My family's energy usage is very low. While I'm an advocate for a personally responsible lifestyle, I have many many reservations about the "Green" movement and the scientific rigor used to arrive at such a consensus, and especially many of the illogical financial programs derived so that people can profit from it ("cap and trade"? "carbon offsets"???)
"It seems that the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes."
That almost seems to be a call to scientific elitism. I.E. "You disagree, so you don't understand the nuances of climate change like I do, so you're out of the club." -- to my unlearned and cro-magnon mind it seems like Climate Change is an extremely inexact science. We don't have accurate test points, we don't understand all of the factors that go into this, we don't know the causes of previous cooling/warming cycles (even during human existence, much less before), nor can we isolate human factors in real-world experiments, nor do we have remotely representative simulations to perform isolated tests.
It seems that any climate scientist whose employment and financial well-being is tied to the results of his research is naturally suspect -- whether an oil company or an alternative energy company or a lobbyist group.
It feels like a bunch of self-congratulatory people who puff themselves up and call themselves experts in a field, where they have financial motivations for proving their case. Just as climatologists in the employ of oil companies are naturally suspect, it seems that political fat cats who work for environmental agencies are somehow immune to such criticism, because they're the ruling oligarchy. Al Gore isn't the only one who stands to get even richer from the "Green" movement, but somehow people view him flying-his-private-jet-to-collect-carbon-emissions-awards as somehow "altruistic". I call BS.
There are many groups of "experts" that I have innate distrust for, because their fields lack scientific rigor, and this fact is not acknowledged by its chief advocates. Psychiatrists and climate scientists would certainly be two of them.
Perhaps you misunderstood me -- I was attempting to engage in friendly discussion, though maybe you took my remarks for stupidity.
I'm not redefining anything. "Faith" is a word with many meanings. One such meaning is "belief and trust", another such meaning is "blind trust". While MW certainly lists "blind trust" as a culturally understood meaning of "faith", it is not necessarily the meaning of the word.
Also, many engineers (which I'm assuming you are?) have trouble with language, because they tend to view things with rigid definition. They believe that a words definition is what gives it meaning, when linguists understand that how a word is used is what creates definition. Dictionaries are descriptive, not prescriptive -- this is why words like "muggle" and "xerox" enter our dictionaries.
Even so, this doesn't give everyone license to be Humpty Dumpties that use words any way we see fit -- we should try our best to communicate in ways that other people understand.
I was describing the common use of the word "faith" in the Christian cultural parlance that I am familiar with, while recognizing the use of the word in a "secular" cultural context.
The intent of the post was not to argue for the validity of either definition -- the intent of my post was to seek a common ground for communication between the two cultures, so that we could accurately and effectively communicate ideas.
As another possible source of misunderstanding, you may also be mixing me up with other people who have posted in this thread.
Regardless, your hostility is puzzlingly out of place.
"Belief" doesn't communicate everything that I would use "Faith" to communicate -- "Trust" and "Belief" are two (related but) separate things.
Many people believe that airplanes can fly, but they do not trust the planes enough to walk onto them. Until you walk onto the plane, you're not a "flight denier" -- you're just afraid, and not trusting in the evidence, and you're letting your fear override what you have concluded must be true.
I had been hoping for a single word to communicate both the rational and the emotional. You can believe without trusting, and you can place your trust without believing (though it's a resigned, cynical sort of trust), but that belief + trust (even though it may be scary -- like walking onto an airplane for the first time) is what I'm talking about when I say "Faith".
I agree with you -- it's a word that carries a lot of negative baggage. I'm still looking for a better word -- I'd hate to settle for "belief", since it's only half of the intended meaning. It communicates intellectual assent, and seems to lack the visceral aspect of actual, active "trust" of actually stepping out, and literally betting your life on it.
When you use the word "faith", you mean believing and trusting something in spite of the evidence.
When I use the word "faith", I mean believing and trusting something because of the evidence.
What would be better words for us to use so that we can have productive dialogue, rather than just arguing about semantics? I don't really care what word we use, so much as I would like to communicate ideas.
You seem rather attached to your definition of what "faith" must mean -- what word would you prefer that I use in order to communicate my intended meaning to you?
It's a question of how cost effective it would be -- you can look at this from the perspective of dollars, or of watt-hours.
We already have access to mountains of plastic trash, and even with consumers faithfully sorting them out into bins numbered #1 thru #x, it's still often just not worth the energy that it takes to process it.
So if we already have these barrels of sorted trash at home, why would we build a boat to travel to the middle of nowhere to sift degraded, unsorted plastic where the effective yield is one thumbnail sized piece for every cubic meter of water?
The problem with many "green" recycling programs is that they often just don't make sense, either monetarily, or from an energy efficiency standpoint, and a giant recycling barge would be a prime example of this.
Much of wind turbines are made of metal also. Most likely high tensile steel for the towers, aluminum for casings, and either aluminum or fiberglass for the turbines. If they use a lot of aluminum, then bauxite isn't exactly a friendly material to mine, and it takes a WHOLE lot of energy to process.
Don't get me wrong -- I still think wind energy is a fantastic technology, and I think it has many advantages, but I feel that overall, nukes should be used to sustain the primary load of America's energy needs -- it's the safest, the most efficient, the most cost effective, and especially with breeder reactors, they are incredibly clean and environmentally friendly (relatively speaking -- nothing is zero impact or zero waste).
How is nuclear better for the environment than wind?
For one, it kills fewer animals and people. Tower climbing is an extremely dangerous job (alongside bridge maintenance), and giant windmills are no exception. Among solar / wind / hydro / coal / nuke, wind power has one of the highest worker-deaths-per-kilowatt-hour ratios. I would have to double check to find the actual numbers, but I believe nukes are by far the lowest death rate (even including Chernobyl). More info.
Then of course there are the animal conservationists who are upset about wind turbines killing off eagles in places like Altamont. Pro-wind advocates often claim that wind turbines kill no fewer endangered animals than dirty coal plants, but they don't compare the technology to other low-emissions technology such as solar or nukes. Even if wind power annually only kills off a dozen or so endangered animals (compared to several dozen from coal), it's still more than nukes.
Nukes are also more efficient for the materials that it takes to construct the reactors, providing more energy value with fewer raw materials.
On the whole, nukes are cheaper and safer than wind, and just as good (if not better) for the environment. The biggest thing holding the public back from accepting this technology is fear out of ignorance.
James Thompson? The guy who had that fantastic fight against Kimbo Slice?
Oh, you mean James Thomson(No "p") Well yeah, so what if Time listed him as one of the 100 most influential people of 2008? Don't bother us while we're busy ignoring facts -- we'd much prefer to assume he was some Fox News talking head so that we can dismiss unrelated opinions of yours.
This is why you should only used a trusted escrow service. If that's not an option (or you're just extra paranoid), many credit card companies will let you register temporary credit card numbers that are only good for a limited amount of money (so you can restrict its use to a single $500 transaction).
As far as I can tell, you seem to be similar to a real estate housing "flipper", who shops around for low-priced houses, and immediately sells it for more, without providing the buyer any services other than a higher price.
In a word, you are not generating anything of value.
Is this illegal? No, by no means, and I don't think it should be. It's just a parasitical business model that is bad for the community overall. Real estate flipping is one of the (many) factors that contributed to artificially inflated the prices of houses during the last housing bubble.
Thankfully, it seems that this business model can only exist in the kind of market where the demand exceeds the supply, so opportunities for such parasitical non-productive business is limited.
I'm just glad that my current business lets me avoid having to deal with unwanted middle men like yourself.
If someone obtained pictures or blueprints of your grandfather's house, and wanted to build an exact copy of the house for themselves to enjoy or to profit from, there is nothing preventing them from doing so.
If someone took a picture of your grandmother's painting, and wanted to commission a painter to duplicate it for them to enjoy or to profit from, there is nothing preventing them from doing so.
If someone obtained prints to Steamboat Willie, and wanted to create an exact copy of the prints for themselves to enjoy or to profit from, they are legally prevented from doing so.
Nono -- you forget, it's::green:: to live in a disposable society, rather than trying to recycle or re-use old homes. Screw the older homes, we can throw those in the landfill -- this is PROGRESS!
These guys list the #1 specialty of their Entertainment and New Media group as file-sharing cases (including suits against both companies and "individual infringers"). They work very hard to build up a top-notch legal department that specializes in suing college students for $15k / song.
They're not just accepting the RIAA as a client -- they're actively seeking them, and intentionally encouraging clients that they can get away with distorting the intent of the law on the books, as long as they get paid enough money.
The biggest loser here could indeed by the RIAA, since some of the best lawyers are no longer available and are now working in the interests of the federal government. I wouldn't be surprised if these now judges, formerly lawyers, are quite capable of turning the tables.
Jenner and Block's "Entertainment and New Media Law Practice" department are still in quite able hands. Remember, this isn't just some law firm that picked up a few jobs for the RIAA and have now moved on -- these guys have a whole department that advertises itself specifically to pick up anti-piracy jobs for clients just like the RIAA and MPAA, and specifically lists anti-file-sharing lawsuits as their #1 specialty in their Media department.
There are a lot of people in this thread who are wanting to exonerate Jenner & Block simply because they are doing the work of their clients, but they are failing to recognize who Jenner & Block advertise themselves as.
Even if you don't cast a ballot, it's impossible to not have helped one candidate or the other.
And besides, why would you not vote for your local politicians (who may have more bearing on your life) simply because you don't want to vote for one particular office?
Slashdot Mirror
A lot of what we know about adult stem cells we only know because we learned it first in embryonic stem cells. If this works, it's fruit of the ESC research tree. If you're not okay with ESC research but want treatments from it, you're still going to have to answer some ethical questions for yourself.
Much of that seminal ESC research was animal, not necessarily human.
For another example, much of what we know today about the effects and treatment of hypothermia is taken from Nazi human experimentation (see ref.). These ethical questions surround us -- it's not limited to ESCs.
Gee, here's a novel idea -- maybe this isn't the sort of thing we want to try to use the government for?
And none of you guys seem to realize that ESC research is done on embryos that were headed for the incincerator anyway.
If ESC treatments become viable, IVF leftovers do not provide a sufficient supply for more than a tiny fraction of the people who would request treatment
Besides, many people will still have ethical problems with forcibly "harvesting" parts / cells from people, even if they are headed for the incinerator. Didn't we just have this same debate a few years ago with harvesting condemned criminals for organs? "And none of you guys seem to realize that these organs are being taken from people who were headed for the electric chair anyway."
All I mean is that the ethics of ESC are severe -- and even amplified when humans are in play. If your argument for "research only -- no treatments expected" holds, then would using animal ESCs sidestep any of this for you, while still gaining many of the research benefits?
On the funding issue too, I'm wary of the uninformed public making choices as to what needs to be spent where when they rarely have the context or understanding of what the research is supposed to accomplish.
I suppose I think that when I give the government money, I am hiring them to provide a service for me. If I don't want my car mechanic adding a spoiler onto my car, I don't intend to pay him for it. I may not understand the implications of the performance and whatnot, but if I would rather it be spent on something like better roads or schools, why shouldn't I have a say in where my money goes? Yes, I'm sure that these research dollars will have paid off in the future for our children and their children, but if my child is flunking basic math right now because their school can't afford good teachers, I think it's a bit unfair to call them an ignorant hick just because they don't place quite the priority on stem cell research as you do, and would rather see the government shuttle that money elsewhere.
In a word, if you want it, spend your own money on it, and don't just get upset and call people ignorant when they don't share your priorities. Other people have legitimate needs for this cash, and there's only so much of it to go around.
It shouldn't be a democratic process because then we'd end up spending half our money on "Does prayer heal?" and we'd all be smoking like chimneys wondering why we were dropping dead.
Well it's good that we're not a democracy here -- we're a republic. Sadly, it seems that we're trending ever and ever closer to a democracy though, which has never been a stable (or productive) form of government.
I don't mean to sound elitist, I think most people are -capable- of learning enough to make good decisions on funding of stem cells, but they clearly haven't.
Then if people aren't willing to give you their money, then in the meantime, spend your own. Again, you seem upset that people aren't willing to just give you their limited funds for your priorities. Noone's stopping you from spending your own -- they're just not happy when you try to reach into their pockets for your interests. Plenty of disease research groups (such as March of Dimes, etc) evangelize and raise awareness and gather donations for a cause or for research. It's a bit awkward when such evangelism is skipped and the conclusion is mandated through legislation on the federal level. Yes, fundraising is work -- but at least you're respecting people and their basic liberties. I know it's tempting to want Big Brother to handle all of this for us, but when the government looks like a hammer, all of our little problems start looking like nails.
Disclaimer: I shop local, walk to the grocery store with my cloth shopping bag, I recycle, and keep driving to a minimum -- I fill up my tank maybe once or twice a month. My family's energy usage is very low. While I'm an advocate for a personally responsible lifestyle, I have many many reservations about the "Green" movement and the scientific rigor used to arrive at such a consensus, and especially many of the illogical financial programs derived so that people can profit from it ("cap and trade"? "carbon offsets"???)
"It seems that the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes."
That almost seems to be a call to scientific elitism. I.E. "You disagree, so you don't understand the nuances of climate change like I do, so you're out of the club." -- to my unlearned and cro-magnon mind it seems like Climate Change is an extremely inexact science. We don't have accurate test points, we don't understand all of the factors that go into this, we don't know the causes of previous cooling/warming cycles (even during human existence, much less before), nor can we isolate human factors in real-world experiments, nor do we have remotely representative simulations to perform isolated tests.
It seems that any climate scientist whose employment and financial well-being is tied to the results of his research is naturally suspect -- whether an oil company or an alternative energy company or a lobbyist group.
It feels like a bunch of self-congratulatory people who puff themselves up and call themselves experts in a field, where they have financial motivations for proving their case. Just as climatologists in the employ of oil companies are naturally suspect, it seems that political fat cats who work for environmental agencies are somehow immune to such criticism, because they're the ruling oligarchy. Al Gore isn't the only one who stands to get even richer from the "Green" movement, but somehow people view him flying-his-private-jet-to-collect-carbon-emissions-awards as somehow "altruistic". I call BS.
There are many groups of "experts" that I have innate distrust for, because their fields lack scientific rigor, and this fact is not acknowledged by its chief advocates. Psychiatrists and climate scientists would certainly be two of them.
+1 lol
Wait, _what_? This is a really absurdly ignorant non-sequitor.
Embryonic stem cells have nothing to do with this mouse experiment. These were adult stem cells.
Take your zealotry and anti-religious pogrom elsewhere -- it doesn't even apply here.
[citation needed]
Not necessarily doubting you -- just saying that your post is incredibly unhelpful.
Don't kid yourself.
You're trying to redefine faith.
That is simple Newspeak.
I wrote: "I don't really care what word we use, so much as I would like to communicate ideas."
It would appear that we aren't communicating. Either I'm not writing clearly, or you're not bothering to read what I wrote.
Find a better dictionary perhaps. However pulling definitions out of your nether regions is simply bogus.
I referenced MW, and I'm pretty sure I don't keep one of those parked anywhere in my person. :)
Maybe Maxume was right about nerd rage -- though it would be funnier if it weren't also so sad. :)
End of discussion.
Well said!
Perhaps you misunderstood me -- I was attempting to engage in friendly discussion, though maybe you took my remarks for stupidity.
I'm not redefining anything. "Faith" is a word with many meanings. One such meaning is "belief and trust", another such meaning is "blind trust". While MW certainly lists "blind trust" as a culturally understood meaning of "faith", it is not necessarily the meaning of the word.
Also, many engineers (which I'm assuming you are?) have trouble with language, because they tend to view things with rigid definition. They believe that a words definition is what gives it meaning, when linguists understand that how a word is used is what creates definition. Dictionaries are descriptive, not prescriptive -- this is why words like "muggle" and "xerox" enter our dictionaries.
Even so, this doesn't give everyone license to be Humpty Dumpties that use words any way we see fit -- we should try our best to communicate in ways that other people understand.
I was describing the common use of the word "faith" in the Christian cultural parlance that I am familiar with, while recognizing the use of the word in a "secular" cultural context.
The intent of the post was not to argue for the validity of either definition -- the intent of my post was to seek a common ground for communication between the two cultures, so that we could accurately and effectively communicate ideas.
As another possible source of misunderstanding, you may also be mixing me up with other people who have posted in this thread.
Regardless, your hostility is puzzlingly out of place.
Hmm, okay.
"Belief" doesn't communicate everything that I would use "Faith" to communicate -- "Trust" and "Belief" are two (related but) separate things.
Many people believe that airplanes can fly, but they do not trust the planes enough to walk onto them. Until you walk onto the plane, you're not a "flight denier" -- you're just afraid, and not trusting in the evidence, and you're letting your fear override what you have concluded must be true.
I had been hoping for a single word to communicate both the rational and the emotional. You can believe without trusting, and you can place your trust without believing (though it's a resigned, cynical sort of trust), but that belief + trust (even though it may be scary -- like walking onto an airplane for the first time) is what I'm talking about when I say "Faith".
I agree with you -- it's a word that carries a lot of negative baggage. I'm still looking for a better word -- I'd hate to settle for "belief", since it's only half of the intended meaning. It communicates intellectual assent, and seems to lack the visceral aspect of actual, active "trust" of actually stepping out, and literally betting your life on it.
When you use the word "faith", you mean believing and trusting something in spite of the evidence.
When I use the word "faith", I mean believing and trusting something because of the evidence.
What would be better words for us to use so that we can have productive dialogue, rather than just arguing about semantics? I don't really care what word we use, so much as I would like to communicate ideas.
You seem rather attached to your definition of what "faith" must mean -- what word would you prefer that I use in order to communicate my intended meaning to you?
It's not a question of how hard.
It's a question of how cost effective it would be -- you can look at this from the perspective of dollars, or of watt-hours.
We already have access to mountains of plastic trash, and even with consumers faithfully sorting them out into bins numbered #1 thru #x, it's still often just not worth the energy that it takes to process it.
So if we already have these barrels of sorted trash at home, why would we build a boat to travel to the middle of nowhere to sift degraded, unsorted plastic where the effective yield is one thumbnail sized piece for every cubic meter of water?
The problem with many "green" recycling programs is that they often just don't make sense, either monetarily, or from an energy efficiency standpoint, and a giant recycling barge would be a prime example of this.
Nice to see another Sluggy reader. :)
Regarding changing the landscape, it seems that some MMOs definitely do this -- EVE Online comes to mind.
It seems that with paid live in-game "actors" in the role of Agents and whatnot, that a real story could be weaved.
Lots of potential here, but it sounds like they fell down on the actualization of it.
Much of wind turbines are made of metal also. Most likely high tensile steel for the towers, aluminum for casings, and either aluminum or fiberglass for the turbines. If they use a lot of aluminum, then bauxite isn't exactly a friendly material to mine, and it takes a WHOLE lot of energy to process.
Don't get me wrong -- I still think wind energy is a fantastic technology, and I think it has many advantages, but I feel that overall, nukes should be used to sustain the primary load of America's energy needs -- it's the safest, the most efficient, the most cost effective, and especially with breeder reactors, they are incredibly clean and environmentally friendly (relatively speaking -- nothing is zero impact or zero waste).
How is nuclear better for the environment than wind?
For one, it kills fewer animals and people. Tower climbing is an extremely dangerous job (alongside bridge maintenance), and giant windmills are no exception. Among solar / wind / hydro / coal / nuke, wind power has one of the highest worker-deaths-per-kilowatt-hour ratios. I would have to double check to find the actual numbers, but I believe nukes are by far the lowest death rate (even including Chernobyl). More info.
Then of course there are the animal conservationists who are upset about wind turbines killing off eagles in places like Altamont. Pro-wind advocates often claim that wind turbines kill no fewer endangered animals than dirty coal plants, but they don't compare the technology to other low-emissions technology such as solar or nukes. Even if wind power annually only kills off a dozen or so endangered animals (compared to several dozen from coal), it's still more than nukes.
Nukes are also more efficient for the materials that it takes to construct the reactors, providing more energy value with fewer raw materials.
On the whole, nukes are cheaper and safer than wind, and just as good (if not better) for the environment. The biggest thing holding the public back from accepting this technology is fear out of ignorance.
James Thompson? The guy who had that fantastic fight against Kimbo Slice?
Oh, you mean James Thomson (No "p") Well yeah, so what if Time listed him as one of the 100 most influential people of 2008? Don't bother us while we're busy ignoring facts -- we'd much prefer to assume he was some Fox News talking head so that we can dismiss unrelated opinions of yours.
This is why you should only used a trusted escrow service. If that's not an option (or you're just extra paranoid), many credit card companies will let you register temporary credit card numbers that are only good for a limited amount of money (so you can restrict its use to a single $500 transaction).
What benefits are you providing to the customer?
As far as I can tell, you seem to be similar to a real estate housing "flipper", who shops around for low-priced houses, and immediately sells it for more, without providing the buyer any services other than a higher price.
In a word, you are not generating anything of value.
Is this illegal? No, by no means, and I don't think it should be. It's just a parasitical business model that is bad for the community overall. Real estate flipping is one of the (many) factors that contributed to artificially inflated the prices of houses during the last housing bubble.
Thankfully, it seems that this business model can only exist in the kind of market where the demand exceeds the supply, so opportunities for such parasitical non-productive business is limited.
I'm just glad that my current business lets me avoid having to deal with unwanted middle men like yourself.
Good point. IIRC, gmail hides these IP addresses, so it is better for anonymous web mail than Hotmail or Yahoo.
Surely digital data is more portable than physical rolls of film?
From the MPAA "theft perspective", the ease of portability might be part of the problem.
On top of that, keep in mind that a theater-quality digital print of a movie is significantly larger than your standard 4 gb DVD.
If someone obtained pictures or blueprints of your grandfather's house, and wanted to build an exact copy of the house for themselves to enjoy or to profit from, there is nothing preventing them from doing so.
If someone took a picture of your grandmother's painting, and wanted to commission a painter to duplicate it for them to enjoy or to profit from, there is nothing preventing them from doing so.
If someone obtained prints to Steamboat Willie, and wanted to create an exact copy of the prints for themselves to enjoy or to profit from, they are legally prevented from doing so.
Nono -- you forget, it's ::green:: to live in a disposable society, rather than trying to recycle or re-use old homes. Screw the older homes, we can throw those in the landfill -- this is PROGRESS!
These guys list the #1 specialty of their Entertainment and New Media group as file-sharing cases (including suits against both companies and "individual infringers"). They work very hard to build up a top-notch legal department that specializes in suing college students for $15k / song.
They're not just accepting the RIAA as a client -- they're actively seeking them, and intentionally encouraging clients that they can get away with distorting the intent of the law on the books, as long as they get paid enough money.
The biggest loser here could indeed by the RIAA, since some of the best lawyers are no longer available and are now working in the interests of the federal government. I wouldn't be surprised if these now judges, formerly lawyers, are quite capable of turning the tables.
Jenner and Block's "Entertainment and New Media Law Practice" department are still in quite able hands. Remember, this isn't just some law firm that picked up a few jobs for the RIAA and have now moved on -- these guys have a whole department that advertises itself specifically to pick up anti-piracy jobs for clients just like the RIAA and MPAA, and specifically lists anti-file-sharing lawsuits as their #1 specialty in their Media department.
There are a lot of people in this thread who are wanting to exonerate Jenner & Block simply because they are doing the work of their clients, but they are failing to recognize who Jenner & Block advertise themselves as.
Even if you don't cast a ballot, it's impossible to not have helped one candidate or the other.
And besides, why would you not vote for your local politicians (who may have more bearing on your life) simply because you don't want to vote for one particular office?