The only thing that is bad is causing/allowing pain things to be felt. Killing does not *necessarily* cause pain. Stem cell research does involve killing (not of a human being), but might result in progress which will protect someone from feeling pain. It is therefore justified.
Murder is only unjustified killing. Please do not call it that (like meat is not murder, and paper is not murder - though you did kill for it).
> The price of Kuwaiti and Saudi and Iraqi oil is > set by OPEC.
That price is influenced by supply. Any oil producer can alter supply.
> Did you hear me?
Yes. Thanks.
> It's set by OPEC.
But the US is instrumental in determining supply (and demand, obviously). It allies with, or threatens (through war, proxy war, terrorism, coups and assassination attempts), oil producing nations. The more influence the US has over oil producing nations, the more power it has over oil prices.
> Why is this so hard for people to understand?
I can comprehend it just fine, but thanks for asking.
> We currently only import about 2% of our total > oil from Iraq, compared to about half that 20 > years ago.
That may be, but Iraq has some influence over oil prices. When the US can install a friendly dictator (like Saddam Hussein was) Iraq will do to oil prices (as far as it is able to) what America (American oil companies) wants it to. I would be surprised to see an imporvement in the human rights situation (of course, the sanctions will be lifted, which will reduce hunger in Iraq, but dictatorship and torure will most likely not stop).
> Tell me, how is this about oil?
Bush is *not* about to go to war because of the oil issue. Bush *has* chosen Iraq because of oil. Precious little else distinguishes Iraq from other human rights violator states, which have weapons of mass destruction and which support terrorism.
> there would be no economic benefit from the oil > for over 6 years
You know that. I know that. Does Bush? The position taken publicly by the US government is not well thought out. If they are not lying, then I am *really* worried.
Anyway, the war is not primarily about oil, but it is the reason why Iraq has been chosen rather than another country whose government mistreats people and who has weapons of mass destruction (can you name a country which doesn't fit this description?). By the criterion of supporting terrorism, there ar emany worse than Iraq.
> Someone will then patent a "patent trial" and then > put an end to it all. (And not a good thing either > - it'll be the end of innovation in America)
The end of patent trials will not be an end to inovation in America. Patents are merely to encourage the publishing of innovations, so many new innovations will be kept secret. There may be some reduction in progress because of this, because it will be difficult to get hold of technology to build on.
> Even if that person got on the boat because they > were running away from a charge of rape and murder ?
What does it matter where rapists and murderers are? They have to be somewhere. The real solution to this is to have a sensible method for detecting and dealing with people who are harmful to others, which can be implemented in every country. Treating foreign criminals worse than domestic criminals is not the solution, and neither is harassing all who cross borders, just in case they are criminals.
To look at it another way, how does a rapist moving across a border differ from a rapist moving within a country? It is not the rapist who is at fault (not for migrating anyway), but the governments which cannot agree extradition treaties, consisent laws, etc. (which would obviously not be an issue if the rapist were moving within a country).
Direct Connect has many times more content than Kazaa, but that doesn't mean that it's right for everyone. In much the same way, Gnutella might be more useful to some people despite having less content.
Personally though, I find that none of the protocols can be truely useful until it is possible to search them all at once (or if people all chose to you the same one). Where p2p really comes into its own is finding stuff that I can't get elsewhere (if I really want something that is in the shops, I can buy it). If I have to try OpenNap, Gnutella, Fast Track, Direct Connect, IRC, Usenet, etc. every time I want a rare recording, then I don't get very much.
Actually, the Europeans who migrated to America were far more likely to get scurvy than Europeans who never went to sea, so those scurvy-ridden Brits are now called Americans.
> but seriously, why would france want to attack its > best oil supplier?
Also, US oil companies stand to gain from this war. If it is acceptable for the US to act in its own commercial interests, then why is it not acceptable for France to protect its business? (I am not saying the right course of action will not coincide with anyone's business interests, just that the parties involved have too much of a conflict of interest to be trusted).
> they aren't chickens, they're > smart business men who just happen to deal with > tryannical dictators.
Much like US governments who have illegally overthrown democratically elected governments in the name of democracy, supported Saddam Hussein when it suited them to, funded Al Qaeda, backed Isreal's war of aggression against Palestine, permitted its citizens to fund terrorism against Britain, supported dictators in Saudi Arabia and human rights violations in Turkey and imposed poverty on Cuba through unwarranted sanctions. All done in accordance with US business interests.
> (socialism and communism) suck in that the > community exploits the individual
I don't think that this is true. The problem with Communism is that the community itself (i.e. the state) was put before members of the community. The mistake was to make a priority of community's interests, rather than the sum of the interests of the members of the community. It is not exploitation (or wrong in any way) to follow the goal of maximising the overall well-being of the community.
Community exploiting the individual is impossible (as a member of the community, the individual also benefits from his 'exploitation'). Removal of the 'right' to exploit others is not exploitation. There is no exploitation unless some individuals gain special privelidges from infringing the rights of others.
The only exploitation under Communism (as it was practiced, not true socialism) is a feudal style hierachy that also exists under capitalism and fascism.
We do because the aggregate of all conservatives has not stood up to the worst excesses of capitalism or government leaning towards fascism.
> be prepared to be judged by your socialist policies
Yes... why does nobody want to be judged by conservative policies?
> Isn't that why unemployment is 4-5% higher in Europe?
In communist eastern Europe there was full employment (not that that excuses the crimes against their own people of some communist regimes). In capitalist Europe, on the other hand unemployment is high.
What about unemployment among the very rich? It's only a problem if you're not getting paid, right?
There was another Dilbert comic in which Dilbert was confronted with a similar contract, and Dogbert suggested that he retyped it, with some changes, and signed that instead.
> Either we will end up in a big-brother like > situation, or there will be a major social > revolution and rebellion, an overthrow of the > existing order, and major reevaluation of the > thinking on intellectual property issues.
The powers that be have got avoiding revolution down to a fine art. They will act in our best interests... but only when it becomes apparant that that is the only option.
I don't think that there will be either of the scenarios that you describe. I think that business (and government that is against those whose interests do not coincide with those of business) will push us as far as we can be pushed and then make only the concessions they have to, while claiming that they are doing what they planned to do all along.
> physical terrorism being inflicted esp. on > Palestinian terrorists
Actually mostly on innocent Palestinians. Just living, through no choice of your own, near terrorists does not make you a terrorist. If it did, then US citizens would all be terrorists, what with both officially recognized terrorists and war-mongering politicians living amongst them.
> gruesome terrorism the Palestinians inflict on > anyone they can get to (that is, the problem of > the aptness of the "baby-killers" epithet seems to > recur indefinitely with them).
Here in Europe, we get told that that is how the Isreali forces behave. I guess one's view depends on who tells it to one.
> If... former Enron employees, service providers > (like banks), and government officials involved in > Enron's activities,... spent the rest of their > life behind bars
Actually there is something in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights requiring that suspects are (tried and, if appropriate) punished according to the law at the time that they (allegedly) committed their crime. This will only work for crimes committed after the law is fixed.
The exact words are found under Article 11(2): "No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed."
I don't think the issue is anti-piracy technology. I think the issue is technology that indiscriminately prevents *use*. Such measures promote unauthorised copying, because the best way to get corrupt cds to function is to make a(n analog, if necessary) copy of them and use that on your computer or portable mp3/ogg player.
> I think Google is the perfect Pyra buyer because > their user-driven mentality is right in line > with Evan [evhead.com]'s mentality.
I was under the impression that companies would only buy other companies if the target company was poorly managed. There is inevitably a premium (over current value, based in part on the competence of current management) to be paid in order to purchase a company. If Google and Pyra are managed in a similar way already, then how can this be good value for Google?
> "Note that only the engine is GPL'd, not the > artwork and data."
> 3D engines really aren't the time-consuming part > of creating a game. It would be nice to see some > 'open sourced' player models, motion captures, > sound effects, musics, etc, etc..
I thought that the important part from Slingshots's perspective was that now free software advocates can buy the game without having to use proprietary software (once it has been ported, which I assume they will not do themselves). People using the free version will, of course, still have to pay the full price if they want more than just the engine. It sounds like a pretty good business model to me, but I don't know how important free software users really are to commercial game developers.
> Other parties, Green, Reform, Libertarian have > hugely varied political goals that most Americans > never learn about.
Surely these are the same goals that the American people have. No?
While I think that Republican and Democrat policies (but not the people) are despicable, I think voters should take responsibility for making democracy function. You can't ever rely on partisan sources (like big media, which is inevitably pro-business at the expense of other policy goals) to give you the information you need to make your own decision.
> Ariel Sharon has his ground and air forces ready > to "secure" the oil derricks this time. And once > he gets his hands on them, the Jews will have them > forever.
This is not a racial or religious issue. It is a national and class issue.
The idea that Jews are all bad is nonsense. It is just the Israeli government (like Bush, Blair, Hussein, Bin Laden, the Palestinian suicide bombers and others who use violence inappropriately) who are at fault.
> By legislating standards by which fair-use > impaired proudcts are created, aren't we then > giving fair-use impaired products our blessing?
But they already exist, and have substantial legal protection. Having already tried to prevent the DMCA, this is our next line of defense.
Supporting the DMCRA doesn't undermine your anti-copy-protection stance, because you've already spoken up against copy-protection. What this is about is how things ought to be if the DMCA is allowed to persist.
More than seven people have suffered horrible deaths this week. As a non-American, I won't be attatching any particular significance to such a small number of deaths.
If you cared about people other than astronauts, then you would find that tragedy occurred so often that we would have to mourn constantly and we wouldn't have any time to avert future tragedies.
> Snyder's arguments about growth in other media > don't prove his point; rather they show that the > decline in record sales can't be blamed on the > slowing economy.
Perhaps the slowing economy has made competition between media more intense.
You might be right that it is because music is getting boring that music is falling behind.
> I hope in 200 years people will not point to us as > the persons that left them unreadable culture.
If we carry on making these mistakes, then I hope hope they do. That will mean that they understand what we did wrong and they won't make the same mistakes.
I can't see light at the end of the tunnel. I think that the best that we can hope for is that people pay attention when loss of culture and knowledge is widespread.
Slashdot Mirror
The only thing that is bad is causing/allowing pain things to be felt. Killing does not *necessarily* cause pain. Stem cell research does involve killing (not of a human being), but might result in progress which will protect someone from feeling pain. It is therefore justified.
Murder is only unjustified killing. Please do not call it that (like meat is not murder, and paper is not murder - though you did kill for it).
> The price of Kuwaiti and Saudi and Iraqi oil is
> set by OPEC.
That price is influenced by supply. Any oil producer can alter supply.
> Did you hear me?
Yes. Thanks.
> It's set by OPEC.
But the US is instrumental in determining supply (and demand, obviously). It allies with, or threatens (through war, proxy war, terrorism, coups and assassination attempts), oil producing nations. The more influence the US has over oil producing nations, the more power it has over oil prices.
> Why is this so hard for people to understand?
I can comprehend it just fine, but thanks for asking.
> We currently only import about 2% of our total
> oil from Iraq, compared to about half that 20
> years ago.
That may be, but Iraq has some influence over oil prices. When the US can install a friendly dictator (like Saddam Hussein was) Iraq will do to oil prices (as far as it is able to) what America (American oil companies) wants it to. I would be surprised to see an imporvement in the human rights situation (of course, the sanctions will be lifted, which will reduce hunger in Iraq, but dictatorship and torure will most likely not stop).
> Tell me, how is this about oil?
Bush is *not* about to go to war because of the oil issue. Bush *has* chosen Iraq because of oil. Precious little else distinguishes Iraq from other human rights violator states, which have weapons of mass destruction and which support terrorism.
> there would be no economic benefit from the oil
> for over 6 years
You know that. I know that. Does Bush? The position taken publicly by the US government is not well thought out. If they are not lying, then I am *really* worried.
Anyway, the war is not primarily about oil, but it is the reason why Iraq has been chosen rather than another country whose government mistreats people and who has weapons of mass destruction (can you name a country which doesn't fit this description?). By the criterion of supporting terrorism, there ar emany worse than Iraq.
> Someone will then patent a "patent trial" and then
> put an end to it all. (And not a good thing either
> - it'll be the end of innovation in America)
The end of patent trials will not be an end to inovation in America. Patents are merely to encourage the publishing of innovations, so many new innovations will be kept secret. There may be some reduction in progress because of this, because it will be difficult to get hold of technology to build on.
> Even if that person got on the boat because they
> were running away from a charge of rape and murder ?
What does it matter where rapists and murderers are? They have to be somewhere. The real solution to this is to have a sensible method for detecting and dealing with people who are harmful to others, which can be implemented in every country. Treating foreign criminals worse than domestic criminals is not the solution, and neither is harassing all who cross borders, just in case they are criminals.
To look at it another way, how does a rapist moving across a border differ from a rapist moving within a country? It is not the rapist who is at fault (not for migrating anyway), but the governments which cannot agree extradition treaties, consisent laws, etc. (which would obviously not be an issue if the rapist were moving within a country).
Direct Connect has many times more content than Kazaa, but that doesn't mean that it's right for everyone. In much the same way, Gnutella might be more useful to some people despite having less content.
Personally though, I find that none of the protocols can be truely useful until it is possible to search them all at once (or if people all chose to you the same one). Where p2p really comes into its own is finding stuff that I can't get elsewhere (if I really want something that is in the shops, I can buy it). If I have to try OpenNap, Gnutella, Fast Track, Direct Connect, IRC, Usenet, etc. every time I want a rare recording, then I don't get very much.
Actually, the Europeans who migrated to America were far more likely to get scurvy than Europeans who never went to sea, so those scurvy-ridden Brits are now called Americans.
> but seriously, why would france want to attack its
> best oil supplier?
Also, US oil companies stand to gain from this war. If it is acceptable for the US to act in its own commercial interests, then why is it not acceptable for France to protect its business? (I am not saying the right course of action will not coincide with anyone's business interests, just that the parties involved have too much of a conflict of interest to be trusted).
> they aren't chickens, they're
> smart business men who just happen to deal with
> tryannical dictators.
Much like US governments who have illegally overthrown democratically elected governments in the name of democracy, supported Saddam Hussein when it suited them to, funded Al Qaeda, backed Isreal's war of aggression against Palestine, permitted its citizens to fund terrorism against Britain, supported dictators in Saudi Arabia and human rights violations in Turkey and imposed poverty on Cuba through unwarranted sanctions. All done in accordance with US business interests.
> It may be insulting and racist but it also happens
> to be quite true.
Rascist comments are, by definition, untrue.
> (socialism and communism) suck in that the
> community exploits the individual
I don't think that this is true. The problem with Communism is that the community itself (i.e. the state) was put before members of the community. The mistake was to make a priority of community's interests, rather than the sum of the interests of the members of the community. It is not exploitation (or wrong in any way) to follow the goal of maximising the overall well-being of the community.
Community exploiting the individual is impossible (as a member of the community, the individual also benefits from his 'exploitation'). Removal of the 'right' to exploit others is not exploitation. There is no exploitation unless some individuals gain special privelidges from infringing the rights of others.
The only exploitation under Communism (as it was practiced, not true socialism) is a feudal style hierachy that also exists under capitalism and fascism.
> if you think all conservatives think this way
We do because the aggregate of all conservatives has not stood up to the worst excesses of capitalism or government leaning towards fascism.
> be prepared to be judged by your socialist policies
Yes... why does nobody want to be judged by conservative policies?
> Isn't that why unemployment is 4-5% higher in Europe?
In communist eastern Europe there was full employment (not that that excuses the crimes against their own people of some communist regimes). In capitalist Europe, on the other hand unemployment is high.
What about unemployment among the very rich? It's only a problem if you're not getting paid, right?
There was another Dilbert comic in which Dilbert was confronted with a similar contract, and Dogbert suggested that he retyped it, with some changes, and signed that instead.
> Either we will end up in a big-brother like
> situation, or there will be a major social
> revolution and rebellion, an overthrow of the
> existing order, and major reevaluation of the
> thinking on intellectual property issues.
The powers that be have got avoiding revolution down to a fine art. They will act in our best interests... but only when it becomes apparant that that is the only option.
I don't think that there will be either of the scenarios that you describe. I think that business (and government that is against those whose interests do not coincide with those of business) will push us as far as we can be pushed and then make only the concessions they have to, while claiming that they are doing what they planned to do all along.
> physical terrorism being inflicted esp. on
> Palestinian terrorists
Actually mostly on innocent Palestinians. Just living, through no choice of your own, near terrorists does not make you a terrorist. If it did, then US citizens would all be terrorists, what with both officially recognized terrorists and war-mongering politicians living amongst them.
> gruesome terrorism the Palestinians inflict on
> anyone they can get to (that is, the problem of
> the aptness of the "baby-killers" epithet seems to
> recur indefinitely with them).
Here in Europe, we get told that that is how the Isreali forces behave. I guess one's view depends on who tells it to one.
> If ... former Enron employees, service providers ... spent the rest of their
> (like banks), and government officials involved in
> Enron's activities,
> life behind bars
Actually there is something in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights requiring that suspects are (tried and, if appropriate) punished according to the law at the time that they (allegedly) committed their crime. This will only work for crimes committed after the law is fixed.
The exact words are found under Article 11(2): "No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed."
I don't think the issue is anti-piracy technology. I think the issue is technology that indiscriminately prevents *use*. Such measures promote unauthorised copying, because the best way to get corrupt cds to function is to make a(n analog, if necessary) copy of them and use that on your computer or portable mp3/ogg player.
> I think Google is the perfect Pyra buyer because
> their user-driven mentality is right in line
> with Evan [evhead.com]'s mentality.
I was under the impression that companies would only buy other companies if the target company was poorly managed. There is inevitably a premium (over current value, based in part on the competence of current management) to be paid in order to purchase a company. If Google and Pyra are managed in a similar way already, then how can this be good value for Google?
> "Note that only the engine is GPL'd, not the
> artwork and data."
> 3D engines really aren't the time-consuming part
> of creating a game. It would be nice to see some
> 'open sourced' player models, motion captures,
> sound effects, musics, etc, etc..
I thought that the important part from Slingshots's perspective was that now free software advocates can buy the game without having to use proprietary software (once it has been ported, which I assume they will not do themselves). People using the free version will, of course, still have to pay the full price if they want more than just the engine. It sounds like a pretty good business model to me, but I don't know how important free software users really are to commercial game developers.
> Is Larry a contraction of Lawrence?
Yes
> Other parties, Green, Reform, Libertarian have
> hugely varied political goals that most Americans
> never learn about.
Surely these are the same goals that the American people have. No?
While I think that Republican and Democrat policies (but not the people) are despicable, I think voters should take responsibility for making democracy function. You can't ever rely on partisan sources (like big media, which is inevitably pro-business at the expense of other policy goals) to give you the information you need to make your own decision.
> Ariel Sharon has his ground and air forces ready
> to "secure" the oil derricks this time. And once
> he gets his hands on them, the Jews will have them
> forever.
This is not a racial or religious issue. It is a national and class issue.
The idea that Jews are all bad is nonsense. It is just the Israeli government (like Bush, Blair, Hussein, Bin Laden, the Palestinian suicide bombers and others who use violence inappropriately) who are at fault.
> By legislating standards by which fair-use
> impaired proudcts are created, aren't we then
> giving fair-use impaired products our blessing?
But they already exist, and have substantial legal protection. Having already tried to prevent the DMCA, this is our next line of defense.
Supporting the DMCRA doesn't undermine your anti-copy-protection stance, because you've already spoken up against copy-protection. What this is about is how things ought to be if the DMCA is allowed to persist.
More than seven people have suffered horrible deaths this week. As a non-American, I won't be attatching any particular significance to such a small number of deaths.
If you cared about people other than astronauts, then you would find that tragedy occurred so often that we would have to mourn constantly and we wouldn't have any time to avert future tragedies.
> Snyder's arguments about growth in other media
> don't prove his point; rather they show that the
> decline in record sales can't be blamed on the
> slowing economy.
Perhaps the slowing economy has made competition between media more intense.
You might be right that it is because music is getting boring that music is falling behind.
> I hope in 200 years people will not point to us as
> the persons that left them unreadable culture.
If we carry on making these mistakes, then I hope hope they do. That will mean that they understand what we did wrong and they won't make the same mistakes.
I can't see light at the end of the tunnel. I think that the best that we can hope for is that people pay attention when loss of culture and knowledge is widespread.