No, you're only creating a demand if you're paying for the item.
Which you are (or, more accurately, we are, in the aggregate) by buying products from the advertisers who pay for the content. Ok, war, arson, murder and genocide might have only tenuous links at best (but don't forget about Bread & Circuses), but how many American flags get burned when there are no TV cameras around? I have no doubt that there is a subtle but powerful feedback mechanism between what we choose watch, the Nielsen ratings, corporate advertising dollars, and what kind of society we make for ourselves every day when we leave the house.
The poorer people will be spending 100% of their income (or close to it), while the more wealthy you are, the more you will save, which means you spend vastly less.
First, while this is true, it is also probably a good idea to work into your tax system an incentive to work hard and innovate. Placing a heavy tax burden on extra income makes people ask themselves, "Why bother?"
Second, it doesn't matter how much people spend (even "vastly less") as long as total spending results in a healthy & comfortable flow of goods and services. In the United States today, for example, spending is too high, resulting in massive personal and national debt, as well as the over-production of goods we don't need, wouldn't really enjoy if we knew how to do much else but consume, and which are actually making us fat, sick and lonely. On the average -- not you or me, of course!
Last but not least, save as they might, the rich will eventually have to spend. Otherwise, their money is worthless. They will either spend it on goods and services eventually, or they will invest it in new production capacity (and, therefore, without savings the economy cannot grow), or it will be taxed upon their deaths.
As far as I am aware, the economies of the European Union nations have been consistently growing over the past few years, albeit at a slow rate. Of course, given that their populations are stable -- or even declining in some member states -- this implies increasing per-capita productivity and prosperity.
As for taxation and welfare, being assured of health services and medical treatment, as well as a reasonably comfortable retirement, are benefits that have to be paid for. The Europeans pay for them through their taxes. At the moment, most Americans aren't paying for them (or are paying for something they've already been told they're not going to receive) and won't receive them. There is more to economics than Hummers, wide-screen TVs and massive personal (not to mention national) debt.
Um, am I the only one that doesn't want the government preparing my tax return to itself? You don't see any possibility for abuse here?
They do it anyway, and compare their results to those you submit. If they don't like the way you've computed it, they'll let you know how you SHOULD have done it and tell you that they've made the change for you. They don't need your agreement. It appears to me that making us file our returns is mostly an exercise in obedience (and honesty).
Also, in the US there are is a huge, recordless cash economy that I think is rare in rich countries. The current IRS methods put the burden and legal responsibility on the taxpayer to report ALL income. If the IRS made the calculations based just on what records have been submitted to them by 3rd parties (employers et al) and just let you say "Yeah, cool, sounds good to me", they would be depriving themselves of a huge revenue stream, not to mention an aresenal of income-tax-evasion charges they may one day find it convenient to prosecute.
The IRS website offers PDF versions of their forms and instructions for you to fill out on-screen and print. If I recall correctly, if you use a recent version of Acrobat Reader, you can even save your filled-in PDF to complete or print later. It's not as simple as e-filing, but there's no reason to fill them out "by hand"... unless you consider typing "by hand", which I don't.
Also, in my opinion, geeks should strive to have a good understanding of finance, economics and taxation. It's just another machine/system, and one which is especially to your benefit to understand. You can learn a lot from filing your own taxes, and it's not very hard. I've had to deal with some "advanced features" of our tax rules -- income earned outside the US, capital gains and losses, carry-forward capital loss, next year: participation in a partnership -- and I've always done my own filing and have never had a complaint from the IRS, knock on wood.
With Linux, there are what... a hundred or so? I have no idea what the others do, how they work, they vary in appearance and capabilites and offer so many "in-depth" tools that the common user won't know what the hell they're looking at!
And? Ignore what you don't need. What's wrong with choice? Also, given that GNU/Linux is and always was open-source software, how was "Linux" going to limit the number of available distributions?
According to Wikipedia, the French are taller, on average, than Americans (67.15" vs. 66.85", assuming a 50/50 male/female split). You're right about the Japanese, though: At 5'9", I never felt like a big person until I spent some time on Tokyo trains. I never felt that way in France.
For bigger planes, we'd be better off having them designed by the Dutch. Whatever happened to Fokker, anyway?
First of all, and I apologize for being pedantic, cryptographic systems are not unbreakable, just (very) difficult to break. As far as I know, only random, one-time pads are unbreakable, but impractical because of the key-exchange problem (ie, how do you securely transport the key?)
I think the space in which the NSA is operating, in addition to the one you mention, is the space between the time one needs to transmit a secure message, and the time when it no longer matters if someone intercepts that message. For example, it wouldn't have done the Germans a bit of good to decode certain pieces of Allied communications the day after D-Day. In terms of practical cryptography, there's an important difference between "this can't be broken" and "YOU can't break this, at least not NOW."
In these terms, staying "just out of reach" is all that's necessary. When the United States is no longer in a position to stay just slightly ahead of the competition, the NSA's mission, like that of the entire nation's, will have dramatically changed.
I agree, and have always also been annoyed at Microsoft's insistence on creating a "My XYZ" folder under "My Documents" for every kind of XYZ data, ignoring the possiblity that I might like some say in where my data is stored, or how it is named. Very presumptuous.
On the other hand, during the Windows setup registration phase, I have always enjoyed providing a first name of "you" and a blank last name, so that software-licensing messages are displayed as: "This software is licensed to you".
Many ISVs grab this string for their own licensing messages, and I never failed to find comfort in being told "This software is licensed to you"... especially if it wasn't.
I set up a lot of other people's Windows installations this way, as well. Some of them noticed and enjoyed it, getting the joke; others probably took it at its word. I always hoped it would shape, in whatever subtle way, their worldview and ideas about software, "intellectual property", etc. That's probably asking too much, of course...
I'd be more concerned with the US becoming like the UK, a country burying itself in surveillance cameras (and soon, audio devices). That's the real Big Brother scenario to me
It's on its way. The May issue of Wired has an article about Chicago's implementation. So, when that has arrived and you're back here making apologies for it, I wonder what the real Big Brother scenario will be to you then...
Thank you for the "broken window" link. I had no idea that this phenomenon, whose operation in public life I've been aware of for a long time and have given a lot of thought to, had a name and such a concise parable to illustrate it. I'll have to read up on how it has been debated in the past. It seems to be very pertinent to a lot of things going on now -- the war in Iraq, privitazation of social security in the US, etc. -- although this has probably been true at any given time in the past, as well.
I haven't checked my facts on this, but I believe that under current copyright law, copyrights held by natural person (i.e., not corporations) are granted for the life of the author + 50 years. So, "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" already applies here, in answer to your question.
But why should society, or even individuals, give up their interest in a strong and growing public domain to ensure that your heirs -- who didn't create a damn thing in relation to your copyright -- be given a a perpetual monopoly license on your creation? "You scratch my great-grandchildren's backs and my great-grandchildren will scratch theirs" is a much more tenuous social contract. And by cutting off the public domain, we risk preventing the creation of new derivative works and innovation that could mean wealth, jobs, growth, tax revenue, etc. through people who would actually create something new, rather than potentially idle heirs who would live off a granted monopoly.
Businesses, too, have a vested interest in a strong public domain. Lessig points, in his book, to Disney: The majority of their blockbuster animated films are based on works that had fallen into the public domain. Name the first 10 Disney cartoon films you think of, and I'll bet at least 7 of them are based on public domain works. I'll admit that it is possible for a rich company to buy the rights to a book to turn it into a movie, but what about new, small businesses? That's what Disney was once, and if they'd had to pay millions for rights to "The Jungle Book" or "Cinderella", those films probably would never have been made. That's historical speculation, but I hope you see what I mean.
As for individuals, they probably don't realize how much they benefit from the public domain, and well-financed efforts by media companies to obscure the point (like programs they have funded in public schools to indoctrinate children on the sanctity of copyright) only add to the difficulty.
Also, when you talk about "quite a few people", let's remember that corporations are the primary copyright holders of commercially-viable works. And if you consider a back-scratching agreement between a bunch of mega-corps and consider their influence on the American political process, the situation becomes much more complicated. I think we need to draw a line (as copyright law does) between the copyright protections granted to real, individual people (and their heirs, for a limited time) and those granted to corporations. It is not too far-fetched to imagine a point in the future at which it will be very difficult to create or market anything new because copyrights (and, potentially, patents) will be held almost exclusively by corporations who protect their "intellectual property" portfolio by suing you at a level at which you cannot afford to defend yourself, and it will become impossible for individuals to innovate, start their own businesses, etc. because almost anything new will be a "derivative work". This would break the back of the American dream, and of the open and competitive environment that has served us so well.
Last but not least, and back to your question, I do believe that there is a corrupting influence, both in individuals and in society, in unlimited inheritence. Taken to its logical extreme, unlimited inheritence will solidify an American aristocracy that will be able to live above the law (with the tort reform some have in mind, they will just decide whether they feel like paying the capped award limit and simply disregard the law if they decide they can afford it) and stifle any competition. And these will not be self-made people, mind you, but people who might well have done nothing at all to deserve their position and wealth except, as Warren Buffet has said, to have been born from the right womb.
Do you really want to live under a new form of feudalism, where you don't have a chance because you didn't inherit a piece of the pie? The rich of today have a huge head start, and if they succeed in tying up the lo
Lawrence Lessig's recent book Free Culture deals with these issues very well. To crib two points from his book:
The physical part, as you say, is key: If I steal a book from Barnes & Noble's shelves, they have one less book to sell. But if I make a digital copy of your CD after it has fallen into the public domain (yeah, right!) you still have yours and no harm is done. This is the crucial distinction between material and non-material "property".
And, of course, there is the legal side. If an "intellectual property" holder seeks to infringe on my freedom to do as I please (e.g. make a digital copy of a CD), he must rely on the rest of society (e.g. taxpayers, police, courts, jails, etc.) to control and/or punish me. Why should society bother? What does society get out of it? The Constitution, which is the source of Congress' authority to grant and enforce copyrights, says that this is only for the purpose of promoting science and the useful arts, as a benefit to society, and for a limited time. Society benefits from novel works immediately (paying for them, of course, under the limited-term monopoly granted to the creator) and society eventually gets the work free and clear to adapt and to subject to competitive pressures. So, at least from the de facto legal perspective, there is a big difference between physical and non-physical "property"!
As for the grandparent's question as to why physical and non-physical property should be treated differently, well... You don't own property after you're dead, and trying to enforce your will in a world you are no longer a part of seems ludicrous to me, so I'll ignore that part of the question. As to passing ownership on, this article on the topic of unlimited inheritence interesting. I think it can be argued persuasively that unlimited inheritence corrupts both individuals and societies, and will undermine the meritocracy system in America.
But the real point is, society grants copyrights because there is an implicit promise that society (the public domain) gets something back later. So, even if the grandparent "would like to be able to copyright my work and not let anyone ever reproduce and/or distribute it without a specific permission either from me, or from my will", I'd like to see him enforce that without cooperation from me and my fellow citizens, both as taxpayers and public servants. So, you want us to help you? What's in it for us?
I just discovered that Google has a feature that returns a list of links to a given site. This feature returns valid results for any "real" sites I try. However, searching for the sites linking to these webcams (all those I tried, at least) comes up empty, even using the FQDNs of those that have them. Can you explain this?
Brain sergury, Rockets, the Boy Scouts and about a million other things
The Boy Scouts of America were incorporated in 1910. The Nazi party founded the Hitler Youth group in 1926. How are the Scouts part of Hitler's legacy?
I don't think you were wrong to state that, on average, people are eating too much salt. I think you were wrong to make an unsupported assertion that there is a connection between Gandhi and this trend. Your Google search supports this: No link in the first five pages of returned results makes any mention whatsoever of him. A more precise search returns links mentioning both Gandhi and salt, but none I read makes any attempt to link him to current overconsumption trends. So, if you have a case linking the two, you haven't made it yet.
I'm willing to be proved wrong (not simply shouted down) and would find it very interesting to see a real connection demonstrated.
Spelling has something in common with facts and logical argument: One either exercises the intellectual discipline to get it right, or one doesn't. Laziness, inaccuracy and imprecision always count against one, as do obviously absurd attacks like "Then you know nothing."
Which is all a shame, because your main point -- that any historical figure, hero or villain, can be both honored and criticized -- is a good one. Gandhi had his bad points, to be sure, but you weakened your general case by using this specific example.
If you knew much about Ghandi you wouldn't have even picked me up on salt, if the GP knew anything about Bush or Hitler then he wouldn't have said I was wrong.
I know enough about Gandhi to know that what you said about him vis-a-vis salt was ludicrous. You don't even seem to know how to spell his name.
An AC Troll, how original. And your fifth sentence is a gem of opaque incoherence. I can't even begin to guess what idea you're trying to say. So much for my intellectual superiority, I guess.
That's a straw man, since we're not talking about the government here. We're talking about individuals intellectual creations, and the restrictions placed ont those creations by those that inspired them.
We are talking about the government here, because you can only restrict someone's natural right to act (e.g. copy something) freely by threatening them with punishment. There are no restrictions in the abstract sense. The rubber hits the road somewhere, and you have to call in the sheriff to arrest and/or kill the rule-breaker. So the question is: How we can best reward the creative while imposing as few conditions as possible under which we will have to imprison and/or kill other human beings?
I see free software providing a model for this, in which the "intellectual property" itself is not the thing of value, but the skilled implementation of it. So, the value accrues to the service, rather than to the commodity. You pay for the carpenter, not for his hammer.
re: freedom 2, is access to the source code actually a precondition for this, or simply a very helpful aid? I mean, the binary form of the program IS the program and, though it might be very difficult to understand how the program works, it's not impossible. That is, access to source code makes the job a lot easier, but is there anything represented in the source code that isn't represented in the binary? Is it just laziness (or lack of proper tools) that makes source code access a "necessity"? With smart enough reverse-engineering / decompilation tools, wouldn't freedoms 1 and 3 fall into place, assuming of course that no legal barriers exist?
I'm asking for someone to explain to me why I should believe that its ok to throw away my freedoms for those.
I think the idea is that the world would be a better place, in some possibly slight degree, if the freedoms the FSF champions were more universally recognized and codified in licenses like the GPL. It's something you have to think through fully and balance in your own mind. You're asking someone to explain it to you, but it's already been fully explained. It's ok for you to come to a different conclusion, but the information is out there, so I suppose you just haven't taken the time to think it through. If you had, you wouldn't be asking for someone to explain it to you.
However show me the rights that those freedoms are based upon.
Show me what any rights are based on. If you are an American, you have "rights" which are protected by the Constitution. But when push comes to shove your rights are protected by some show of violence, either by yourself (2nd Ammendment), or by the police. Is that the kind of right you mean? In that case, there are certainly no "rights" backing up the "freedoms" the FSF promotes. In fact, the "right" backing up copyright and "intellectual property", which makes the FSF, the GPL, etc. necessary in the first place, also derives (in the US) from the Constitution. So, all these rights and freedoms pretty much boil down to a public understanding that we will hurt or kill you if you fuck with us along the lines that we have laid out. Nice, huh?
I know it is an extreme metaphor, but here it is: Owning slaves used to be a right, a sacred property right. It was a right because it was accepted as one, because people believed that the world was a better place with slavery in it. People later decided this wasn't so, and a different set of "rights" and "freedoms" ascended. Why? Because people thought that the world would be a better place, in some possibly slight degree.
All rights and freedoms derive from consensus. Consensus can change. The law can change. The Constitution can change. There is nothing immutable here. It's just a question of which set of "rights" and "freedoms" you think will lead to a better future. Either just for yourself, if that's as far as you can see, or for human society in general.
How does he try to enforce his beliefs on others? By submitting to an interview and answering the questions posed to him based on his own beliefs? By being involved with the GPL, use of which is absolutely voluntary on the part of a software author (unless they're trying to steal code released under the GPL)? What do you mean enforce? Do you mean "persuade"? Do you mean "explain"? "Reason"?
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No, you're only creating a demand if you're paying for the item.
Which you are (or, more accurately, we are, in the aggregate) by buying products from the advertisers who pay for the content. Ok, war, arson, murder and genocide might have only tenuous links at best (but don't forget about Bread & Circuses), but how many American flags get burned when there are no TV cameras around? I have no doubt that there is a subtle but powerful feedback mechanism between what we choose watch, the Nielsen ratings, corporate advertising dollars, and what kind of society we make for ourselves every day when we leave the house.
You can make reasonable efforts to keep your bag in sight at all times so someone doesn't get the opportunity.
Like, demand to fly in the cargo bay of the aircraft with your bag, so the baggage handlers don't have a chance to interfere with it?
The poorer people will be spending 100% of their income (or close to it), while the more wealthy you are, the more you will save, which means you spend vastly less.
First, while this is true, it is also probably a good idea to work into your tax system an incentive to work hard and innovate. Placing a heavy tax burden on extra income makes people ask themselves, "Why bother?"
Second, it doesn't matter how much people spend (even "vastly less") as long as total spending results in a healthy & comfortable flow of goods and services. In the United States today, for example, spending is too high, resulting in massive personal and national debt, as well as the over-production of goods we don't need, wouldn't really enjoy if we knew how to do much else but consume, and which are actually making us fat, sick and lonely. On the average -- not you or me, of course!
Last but not least, save as they might, the rich will eventually have to spend. Otherwise, their money is worthless. They will either spend it on goods and services eventually, or they will invest it in new production capacity (and, therefore, without savings the economy cannot grow), or it will be taxed upon their deaths.
Kind of fucked, isn't it?
Is that your technical analysis?
As far as I am aware, the economies of the European Union nations have been consistently growing over the past few years, albeit at a slow rate. Of course, given that their populations are stable -- or even declining in some member states -- this implies increasing per-capita productivity and prosperity.
As for taxation and welfare, being assured of health services and medical treatment, as well as a reasonably comfortable retirement, are benefits that have to be paid for. The Europeans pay for them through their taxes. At the moment, most Americans aren't paying for them (or are paying for something they've already been told they're not going to receive) and won't receive them. There is more to economics than Hummers, wide-screen TVs and massive personal (not to mention national) debt.
So, define "fucked".
Um, am I the only one that doesn't want the government preparing my tax return to itself? You don't see any possibility for abuse here?
They do it anyway, and compare their results to those you submit. If they don't like the way you've computed it, they'll let you know how you SHOULD have done it and tell you that they've made the change for you. They don't need your agreement. It appears to me that making us file our returns is mostly an exercise in obedience (and honesty).
Also, in the US there are is a huge, recordless cash economy that I think is rare in rich countries. The current IRS methods put the burden and legal responsibility on the taxpayer to report ALL income. If the IRS made the calculations based just on what records have been submitted to them by 3rd parties (employers et al) and just let you say "Yeah, cool, sounds good to me", they would be depriving themselves of a huge revenue stream, not to mention an aresenal of income-tax-evasion charges they may one day find it convenient to prosecute.
The IRS website offers PDF versions of their forms and instructions for you to fill out on-screen and print. If I recall correctly, if you use a recent version of Acrobat Reader, you can even save your filled-in PDF to complete or print later. It's not as simple as e-filing, but there's no reason to fill them out "by hand" ... unless you consider typing "by hand", which I don't.
Also, in my opinion, geeks should strive to have a good understanding of finance, economics and taxation. It's just another machine/system, and one which is especially to your benefit to understand. You can learn a lot from filing your own taxes, and it's not very hard. I've had to deal with some "advanced features" of our tax rules -- income earned outside the US, capital gains and losses, carry-forward capital loss, next year: participation in a partnership -- and I've always done my own filing and have never had a complaint from the IRS, knock on wood.
If I fly into Bali and find someone has sneaked 4.1Kg of marijuana into my boogie bag without my knowledge, am I guilty of illegal importation?
Clearly not. Even if you are convicted, you will not be guilty.
With Linux, there are what... a hundred or so? I have no idea what the others do, how they work, they vary in appearance and capabilites and offer so many "in-depth" tools that the common user won't know what the hell they're looking at!
And? Ignore what you don't need. What's wrong with choice? Also, given that GNU/Linux is and always was open-source software, how was "Linux" going to limit the number of available distributions?
Toshiba? What a loser...
According to Wikipedia, the French are taller, on average, than Americans (67.15" vs. 66.85", assuming a 50/50 male/female split). You're right about the Japanese, though: At 5'9", I never felt like a big person until I spent some time on Tokyo trains. I never felt that way in France.
For bigger planes, we'd be better off having them designed by the Dutch. Whatever happened to Fokker, anyway?
First of all, and I apologize for being pedantic, cryptographic systems are not unbreakable, just (very) difficult to break. As far as I know, only random, one-time pads are unbreakable, but impractical because of the key-exchange problem (ie, how do you securely transport the key?)
I think the space in which the NSA is operating, in addition to the one you mention, is the space between the time one needs to transmit a secure message, and the time when it no longer matters if someone intercepts that message. For example, it wouldn't have done the Germans a bit of good to decode certain pieces of Allied communications the day after D-Day. In terms of practical cryptography, there's an important difference between "this can't be broken" and "YOU can't break this, at least not NOW."
In these terms, staying "just out of reach" is all that's necessary. When the United States is no longer in a position to stay just slightly ahead of the competition, the NSA's mission, like that of the entire nation's, will have dramatically changed.
I agree, and have always also been annoyed at Microsoft's insistence on creating a "My XYZ" folder under "My Documents" for every kind of XYZ data, ignoring the possiblity that I might like some say in where my data is stored, or how it is named. Very presumptuous.
... especially if it wasn't.
On the other hand, during the Windows setup registration phase, I have always enjoyed providing a first name of "you" and a blank last name, so that software-licensing messages are displayed as: "This software is licensed to you".
Many ISVs grab this string for their own licensing messages, and I never failed to find comfort in being told "This software is licensed to you"
I set up a lot of other people's Windows installations this way, as well. Some of them noticed and enjoyed it, getting the joke; others probably took it at its word. I always hoped it would shape, in whatever subtle way, their worldview and ideas about software, "intellectual property", etc. That's probably asking too much, of course...
I'd be more concerned with the US becoming like the UK, a country burying itself in surveillance cameras (and soon, audio devices). That's the real Big Brother scenario to me
It's on its way. The May issue of Wired has an article about Chicago's implementation. So, when that has arrived and you're back here making apologies for it, I wonder what the real Big Brother scenario will be to you then...
Thank you for the "broken window" link. I had no idea that this phenomenon, whose operation in public life I've been aware of for a long time and have given a lot of thought to, had a name and such a concise parable to illustrate it. I'll have to read up on how it has been debated in the past. It seems to be very pertinent to a lot of things going on now -- the war in Iraq, privitazation of social security in the US, etc. -- although this has probably been true at any given time in the past, as well.
I haven't checked my facts on this, but I believe that under current copyright law, copyrights held by natural person (i.e., not corporations) are granted for the life of the author + 50 years. So, "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" already applies here, in answer to your question.
But why should society, or even individuals, give up their interest in a strong and growing public domain to ensure that your heirs -- who didn't create a damn thing in relation to your copyright -- be given a a perpetual monopoly license on your creation? "You scratch my great-grandchildren's backs and my great-grandchildren will scratch theirs" is a much more tenuous social contract. And by cutting off the public domain, we risk preventing the creation of new derivative works and innovation that could mean wealth, jobs, growth, tax revenue, etc. through people who would actually create something new, rather than potentially idle heirs who would live off a granted monopoly.
Businesses, too, have a vested interest in a strong public domain. Lessig points, in his book, to Disney: The majority of their blockbuster animated films are based on works that had fallen into the public domain. Name the first 10 Disney cartoon films you think of, and I'll bet at least 7 of them are based on public domain works. I'll admit that it is possible for a rich company to buy the rights to a book to turn it into a movie, but what about new, small businesses? That's what Disney was once, and if they'd had to pay millions for rights to "The Jungle Book" or "Cinderella", those films probably would never have been made. That's historical speculation, but I hope you see what I mean.
As for individuals, they probably don't realize how much they benefit from the public domain, and well-financed efforts by media companies to obscure the point (like programs they have funded in public schools to indoctrinate children on the sanctity of copyright) only add to the difficulty.
Also, when you talk about "quite a few people", let's remember that corporations are the primary copyright holders of commercially-viable works. And if you consider a back-scratching agreement between a bunch of mega-corps and consider their influence on the American political process, the situation becomes much more complicated. I think we need to draw a line (as copyright law does) between the copyright protections granted to real, individual people (and their heirs, for a limited time) and those granted to corporations. It is not too far-fetched to imagine a point in the future at which it will be very difficult to create or market anything new because copyrights (and, potentially, patents) will be held almost exclusively by corporations who protect their "intellectual property" portfolio by suing you at a level at which you cannot afford to defend yourself, and it will become impossible for individuals to innovate, start their own businesses, etc. because almost anything new will be a "derivative work". This would break the back of the American dream, and of the open and competitive environment that has served us so well.
Last but not least, and back to your question, I do believe that there is a corrupting influence, both in individuals and in society, in unlimited inheritence. Taken to its logical extreme, unlimited inheritence will solidify an American aristocracy that will be able to live above the law (with the tort reform some have in mind, they will just decide whether they feel like paying the capped award limit and simply disregard the law if they decide they can afford it) and stifle any competition. And these will not be self-made people, mind you, but people who might well have done nothing at all to deserve their position and wealth except, as Warren Buffet has said, to have been born from the right womb.
Do you really want to live under a new form of feudalism, where you don't have a chance because you didn't inherit a piece of the pie? The rich of today have a huge head start, and if they succeed in tying up the lo
Lawrence Lessig's recent book Free Culture deals with these issues very well. To crib two points from his book:
The physical part, as you say, is key: If I steal a book from Barnes & Noble's shelves, they have one less book to sell. But if I make a digital copy of your CD after it has fallen into the public domain (yeah, right!) you still have yours and no harm is done. This is the crucial distinction between material and non-material "property".
And, of course, there is the legal side. If an "intellectual property" holder seeks to infringe on my freedom to do as I please (e.g. make a digital copy of a CD), he must rely on the rest of society (e.g. taxpayers, police, courts, jails, etc.) to control and/or punish me. Why should society bother? What does society get out of it? The Constitution, which is the source of Congress' authority to grant and enforce copyrights, says that this is only for the purpose of promoting science and the useful arts, as a benefit to society, and for a limited time. Society benefits from novel works immediately (paying for them, of course, under the limited-term monopoly granted to the creator) and society eventually gets the work free and clear to adapt and to subject to competitive pressures. So, at least from the de facto legal perspective, there is a big difference between physical and non-physical "property"!
As for the grandparent's question as to why physical and non-physical property should be treated differently, well... You don't own property after you're dead, and trying to enforce your will in a world you are no longer a part of seems ludicrous to me, so I'll ignore that part of the question. As to passing ownership on, this article on the topic of unlimited inheritence interesting. I think it can be argued persuasively that unlimited inheritence corrupts both individuals and societies, and will undermine the meritocracy system in America.
But the real point is, society grants copyrights because there is an implicit promise that society (the public domain) gets something back later. So, even if the grandparent "would like to be able to copyright my work and not let anyone ever reproduce and/or distribute it without a specific permission either from me, or from my will", I'd like to see him enforce that without cooperation from me and my fellow citizens, both as taxpayers and public servants. So, you want us to help you? What's in it for us?
I just discovered that Google has a feature that returns a list of links to a given site. This feature returns valid results for any "real" sites I try. However, searching for the sites linking to these webcams (all those I tried, at least) comes up empty, even using the FQDNs of those that have them. Can you explain this?
Brain sergury, Rockets, the Boy Scouts and about a million other things
The Boy Scouts of America were incorporated in 1910. The Nazi party founded the Hitler Youth group in 1926. How are the Scouts part of Hitler's legacy?
I don't think you were wrong to state that, on average, people are eating too much salt. I think you were wrong to make an unsupported assertion that there is a connection between Gandhi and this trend. Your Google search supports this: No link in the first five pages of returned results makes any mention whatsoever of him. A more precise search returns links mentioning both Gandhi and salt, but none I read makes any attempt to link him to current overconsumption trends. So, if you have a case linking the two, you haven't made it yet.
I'm willing to be proved wrong (not simply shouted down) and would find it very interesting to see a real connection demonstrated.
Spelling has something in common with facts and logical argument: One either exercises the intellectual discipline to get it right, or one doesn't. Laziness, inaccuracy and imprecision always count against one, as do obviously absurd attacks like "Then you know nothing."
Which is all a shame, because your main point -- that any historical figure, hero or villain, can be both honored and criticized -- is a good one. Gandhi had his bad points, to be sure, but you weakened your general case by using this specific example.
If you knew much about Ghandi you wouldn't have even picked me up on salt, if the GP knew anything about Bush or Hitler then he wouldn't have said I was wrong.
I know enough about Gandhi to know that what you said about him vis-a-vis salt was ludicrous. You don't even seem to know how to spell his name.
An AC Troll, how original. And your fifth sentence is a gem of opaque incoherence. I can't even begin to guess what idea you're trying to say. So much for my intellectual superiority, I guess.
That's a straw man, since we're not talking about the government here. We're talking about individuals intellectual creations, and the restrictions placed ont those creations by those that inspired them.
We are talking about the government here, because you can only restrict someone's natural right to act (e.g. copy something) freely by threatening them with punishment. There are no restrictions in the abstract sense. The rubber hits the road somewhere, and you have to call in the sheriff to arrest and/or kill the rule-breaker. So the question is: How we can best reward the creative while imposing as few conditions as possible under which we will have to imprison and/or kill other human beings?
I see free software providing a model for this, in which the "intellectual property" itself is not the thing of value, but the skilled implementation of it. So, the value accrues to the service, rather than to the commodity. You pay for the carpenter, not for his hammer.
re: freedom 2, is access to the source code actually a precondition for this, or simply a very helpful aid? I mean, the binary form of the program IS the program and, though it might be very difficult to understand how the program works, it's not impossible. That is, access to source code makes the job a lot easier, but is there anything represented in the source code that isn't represented in the binary? Is it just laziness (or lack of proper tools) that makes source code access a "necessity"? With smart enough reverse-engineering / decompilation tools, wouldn't freedoms 1 and 3 fall into place, assuming of course that no legal barriers exist?
I'm asking for someone to explain to me why I should believe that its ok to throw away my freedoms for those.
I think the idea is that the world would be a better place, in some possibly slight degree, if the freedoms the FSF champions were more universally recognized and codified in licenses like the GPL. It's something you have to think through fully and balance in your own mind. You're asking someone to explain it to you, but it's already been fully explained. It's ok for you to come to a different conclusion, but the information is out there, so I suppose you just haven't taken the time to think it through. If you had, you wouldn't be asking for someone to explain it to you.
However show me the rights that those freedoms are based upon.
Show me what any rights are based on. If you are an American, you have "rights" which are protected by the Constitution. But when push comes to shove your rights are protected by some show of violence, either by yourself (2nd Ammendment), or by the police. Is that the kind of right you mean? In that case, there are certainly no "rights" backing up the "freedoms" the FSF promotes. In fact, the "right" backing up copyright and "intellectual property", which makes the FSF, the GPL, etc. necessary in the first place, also derives (in the US) from the Constitution. So, all these rights and freedoms pretty much boil down to a public understanding that we will hurt or kill you if you fuck with us along the lines that we have laid out. Nice, huh?
I know it is an extreme metaphor, but here it is: Owning slaves used to be a right, a sacred property right. It was a right because it was accepted as one, because people believed that the world was a better place with slavery in it. People later decided this wasn't so, and a different set of "rights" and "freedoms" ascended. Why? Because people thought that the world would be a better place, in some possibly slight degree.
All rights and freedoms derive from consensus. Consensus can change. The law can change. The Constitution can change. There is nothing immutable here. It's just a question of which set of "rights" and "freedoms" you think will lead to a better future. Either just for yourself, if that's as far as you can see, or for human society in general.
How does he try to enforce his beliefs on others? By submitting to an interview and answering the questions posed to him based on his own beliefs? By being involved with the GPL, use of which is absolutely voluntary on the part of a software author (unless they're trying to steal code released under the GPL)? What do you mean enforce? Do you mean "persuade"? Do you mean "explain"? "Reason"?