Anything human beings can do with a bureaucracy, computers can do lots faster and more accurately. Thanks to data mining techniques pioneered in the last few years, expert systems can even find efficiencies and improve themselvs.
So to me, the answer is yes. What is wrong with our health care system is that it is a human run, for-profit bureaucracy. Replace that with a computer run, single payer system and you will realize billions of dollars in immediate resource allocation savings- dollars which can then be used to feed back into the system and used to provide health care to more people.
That, and I trust a computer more than I trust a politician any day.
The point being- if you've played the game, the scenario has crossed your mind, and you have at least *contemplated* being that kind of person. The fact that you have a firm grip on reality is the *only* thing keeping you from being that kind of person.
My grip on reality *has* been damaged in the past, I know how thin the line of sanity really is. All it took for the Rwanda Massacre is for the government to *tell* people it was ok and hand out machettes and clubs to one side- it didn't even take any guns, they were glad to return to the old days when they were allowed to kill other tribes. Sanity is a very thin line- and I can easily see a Stephen King or an Alice Cooper stepping over it.
Mass murder takes 3 things today- some target skill, somebody willing to sell a weapon, and convincing yourself that other things that look like people aren't people. You've got the first- you got it from playing those video games. Having a clean record, you've probably got the second. How sure are you that things that look like people in real life ARE people?
I'll throw in my old tagline here: I cannot prove that I think, so I cannot prove that I am. To anybody who has studied Solipsism and Philosophy- reality isn't anything more than a collection of perceptions that my nerve endings are giving me.
I see- you don't buy into the story line of the game. Which kind of ruins the experience of the game for me- might as well just be target practice at that point. If you can't suspend disbelief enough to consider the story line of the game, what is the point of playing it?
2nd reply- now I think I understand what you're saying. Does this mean I can break a patent merely by having the product manufactured in China and marketed here?
If the original coding was in the US- or even that particular DLL- then that shouldn't be an issue. Unless of course they want to get into the philosophical difference between software and hardware, and even then, they've got to prove that the disks manufactured and shipped in are not substantially different than say, a music CD, or Sony's and Phillip's patents might come into play.
It's even WORSE- Microsoft is arguing that software isn't patentable because software and hardware are different. Well, maybe that's better- but basically, they're arguing no patent infringement because the source code wasn't on the disk.
I've played a fair amount of what seems to be considered "violent" video games including GTA, Wolfenstein, Lethal Enforcer, Call of Duty, so on an so forth. I've watched a fair amount of violent television programming and movies. I've read some violent and disturbing books, including everybody's favorite footnote "Catcher in the Rye".
I have never entertained the notion of doing harm to another. I have never pointed a weapon any more dangerous than a SuperSoaker at another human being. I hope on hope I am never put in that position. I, and millions of others, are safe an consciencous gun owners. You suggest that I should not be if I can imagine a situation where another's life is worth less than... something. I refer you back to my first paragraph as testament to my "imagination", and repectfully point out that it doesn't take that much.
Can you explain the apparent contradiction between these two paragraphs? How can you play a FPS game WITHOUT entertaining the notion of doing harm to others (irrespective of the other forms of fictional media)? If you let the thought in, you've entertained it- if only in your immagination you HAVE indeed pointed a weapon more dangerous than a SuperSoaker at another human being- certainly the big gun in Wolfenstien 3D would qualify, and the targets in that game WERE representations of human beings.
I think you're at least partially in denial as to how close to the line you really are. I don't, as a rule, have a problem with that; in that you're relatively sane. But if you added "and have WRITTEN stories in which I kill myself and take others with me", AND have scared a teacher enough to refer you to counseling for that, no, I don't think you should be allowed to own a weapon. That's a thin line, easy to cross indeed; but if we want to live together in cities it's a line that needs to be drawn.
Now having said THAT- the cities (and other tight knit communities, such as college campuses) is a big part of this. Rural areas change everything. For one, your target you're trying to protect your family from in a rural area might not be human, but still need a gun to dispatch (here in Oregon, we've got cougar and black bear who have threatened humans within the last 10 years). For another, even if you try to go after humans on foot or in a car, a quarter mile between households would cause you to get caught LONG before you could find, let alone murder, 33 victims.
Erm, so you think oil is going up in price because of a general increase in the money supply? While other prices stay put? Please.
What other prices are staying put? Construction, housing, beef, vegetables, milk, grains- all these costs are increasing as well, far above the 3% the "official inflation" numbers would have you believe. I work for a state department of transportation- to put people back to work, we had a works program put in place in 2003 to bring every bridge in the state up to modern earthquake standards. EVERY project is coming in 50% over budget for the 2008 target- because basic SUPPLIES for bridge building have gone up in cost.
Well, all recordings would be pretty worthless to the artists if the was no copyright - RIAA or no RIAA.
Thus encouraging artists to get their money from PERFORMANCES, rather than RECORDINGS. Better art to the public in exchange, and the artist makes all the money, not the recording company.
Of course, if there were fewer musicians, perhaps that wouldn't be too bad. Plenty of talent playing for fame, pussy and concert proceeds alone. (I'm more worried about TV and movies).
TV and movies already make the most money off of first run. Make it legal to copy as long as you don't cut the comercials- or better yet, go back to the original model of actual product placement of sponsors (like all of those Carnation Milk Jokes on the Burns and Allen show from the 1950s- because, gasp, Carnation Evaporated Milk was their sponsor).
Well, you can always go on about how we need a "better system". But unless you give specifics, that isn't really very helpful.
Two ways to go on this one. One is to realize that piracy is a business model that should simply be legitimized instead of making more criminals, and that some things are just better done by volunteers than by big corporations, signaled by the existance of such "pirate" volunteers. The other way, the more humane way, is public sponsorship of cultural works of zero economic value, where the economic cost to produce has fallen below the price the market is willing to pay. The first is laisez faire capitalism, the second is socialism; both are more realistic than the current model of corporatism where corporations make laws and criminals to support otherwise unsupportable business models.
As political campaigning = speech (pretty much),
Stop right there- if political campagining= speech, then spending more than your opponent is the equivalent of shouting somebody down just because you don't like his message, which is also incompatible with a spirit of free speech.
a ridiculously low campaign funding limit will mean that you will need an even harder government clampdown on all forms of speech and political organization, to prevent various groups from offering "undue support" to campaigns (support = monetary value = campaign funding).
Yep, that's the intent.
(Pure bribery is rare, it should be added - lobbyism is usually more subtle - I.e. you support candidates who fit your "profile" in various ways, including both cash and non-material support).
I fail to see any functional difference between lobbyism and bribery. In both cases, you get laws passed that support economically unsupportable business models, and those laws take away the freedom of other people. Bribery is wrong *because* it passes such laws, not merely because the politician is selling his vote.
So, there is a tradeoff between government control of all public fora and controlling campaign contributions.
Yep, in effect, it cedes government control of all public fora for corporate control of all public fora- and the actual voting population still gets disenfranchised by bait-and-switch fake voting based on a system that is not functionally distinguishable from bribery.
Yes they have- so isn't it time we admited to that reality? Either that, or showed them what the United States becoming world terrorists REALLY means- entire continents laid to radioactive waste. What's one suicide bomber when you can destroy him and all of his family and all of his friends from orbit without ever presenting him with a target?
Zero. Which is why the Fed, ECB, etc. are very careful to keep supply in check. You would notice if the money supply was suddenly through the roof, because prices would be running wild. (Printing money is indeed an historically popular way of getting cash for the government, but it's not terribly stealthy. The US gets only a tiny share of revenue from the "inflation tax".
And yet, inflation in certain sectors IS through the roof. Notice the price of Oil lately?
Well, that's not quite true. Patents, IP, etc. are all economic instruments (partially) designed to handle the problem of products with very low marginal cost but large total cost. No, they're not perfect, but certainly better than a "zero-incentive-to-invest" situation. (All product development can't be carried out on a volunteer basis, although initiatives like Linux are neat)
Art, however, CAN. And you get better art if you do. Thus comming back to the original topic of this thread, the RIAA; no marginal cost and no total cost for what they do, their "product" of recordings and marketing would be utterly worthless to the artists if there was no copyright or patent law. Thus my argument that we need a better system than mere mindless commerce to make money. And we'd better invent it soon- the RIAA's business model isn't the only one being proped up by law when there is NO actual productive economic value to what they do.
'True believers' should stick to religion. Obviously the market has a problem of handling incentives for creating stuff that is infinitely (or merely easily) copyable. Implying that copyright law, intellectual property rights, etc. exist merely because politicians are universally bribed, and not because they are useful to society is unproven (and somewhat unlikely). Lobbyism might have some significance when it comes to the details, at best.
Why not take on an experiment and do away with bribed politicians to begin with? Limit campaign spending to $15,000/year- and that way we'll see what happens when ANYBODY can afford to be a politician, instead of just the ones being universally bribed through campaign financing.
Oh yeah, we can't do that, because we have to protect the wimpy minority known as the "rich" from the injustice of a free market and the majority rule of democracy, right?
At least the Diesel fuel works a bit slower- I've used it to burn blackberries, it's damned hard to light.:-).
But my point is, anybody owning a gun should be able to read and understand and believe in just war theory. And I just don't think most teenagers, even ones earning 4.0 GPAs, fit that category. A good many adults don't either.
I don't think either are worthy of ARREST. But NEITHER do I consider either of those men worthy to own a weapon (for proof on the first, I offer the music video for "School's Out"- I don't know of anything similar for the second). For one thing, I don't think jail works for this problem. Nor, really, does gun control. Intensive referal for counseling on the other hand....
I agree with this, except I say that this is worse than what was done with preists. The fact that they are aliened this student, removing him from his friends, humiliated him... these are the things that CREATE monsters. I believe a better analogy regarding the priest situation would be if the Church took priests that they *suspected* may become child molestors, and intentionally put them in charge of orphanages. What was done to this student was not only unjust, it was dangerous.
There were a few cases of NUNS in Ireland and Canada where that was the case- nuns suspected of child abuse were moved to orphanages. Some of them ended up racking up as many as 500-600 victims.
However, that said, I do not feel that any single writing, or even a small group of writings should qualify as much as a mental health evaluation -- As a long fan of Poe, I've written plenty of matters of dark fiction. That doesn't make me crazy. Likewise, I'm sure that readers of Steven King also have been influenced in their writings. Should we burn the works of Poe or King? Should students be forbidden from such literary persuits? What will happen to tomorrow's writers? Should books also have a rating system like that of movies and video games? If not, then should movies and video games NOT have ratings? If a student can read The Pit and the Pendulum, why can they not purchase an R rated movie?
I'm not saying burn their works. I'm saying such people should not be allowed to own what would be considered a weapon of mass distruction in 1800.
Put violence in and I'd agree with that. All of it. Any writer who writes about mass murder is certainly unfit to control what in the 1700s would be a weapon of mass destruction. Including myself. If you can imagine a situation where the life of somebody else is worth less to you than your own happiness, you are not mentally fit to carry a weapon.
I hate to use this phrase, but if you succumb to paranoia, then the terrorists have won.
The terrorists have won. The only thing left to do is become worse terrorists.
I'd settle for referral to mental health professionals, and I would not accept any of that other shit except on their advice. If they say that the kid is a genuine threat, okay, prevent him from purchasing firearms. But I'm not willing to do that just because the kid writes about death. We all think about death and teenagers sitting in school wondering when the next student will snap and kill a bunch of people, and if they're going to be next to die, are probably going to be thinking about it more than most.
Correct- which is why I'm against teenagers owning guns in general.
I certainly know that when I was a teenager, death was something much more interesting than I find it now. Now it's mostly something to be avoided for as long as possible.
I never made it beyond that stage- but at least it's something I'd do to myself, not my neighbors.
We all have these thoughts inside of us. This student's only crime is taking his teacher's instructions too literally. She is a liar. She didn't really want the students to express themselves. She wanted them to write something not too scary. If anyone should be cited for anything, it should be her, for being a shitty teacher. Too bad that's not a crime - but if it were, at least four of my elementary school instructors, all but about five of my junior high instructors (from two schools!) and all but maybe four of my high school instructors (also from two schools) would be in prison or hanged by the neck until dead by now.
However, I'm agreed with that. And the administration for going along with the idiocy that doesn't do any good. We need a stronger link between mental health and gun laws. We don't need to be arresting people who just need to talk.
I'd be afraid of EITHER of those (and most other hollywood types or politicians) owning guns. For exactly the same reason I'll never take an invitation to go hunting with Dick Cheney.
What gets me about this isn't the paranoia; the paranoia is justified in view of recent events.
What disturbs me is the utter lack of an appropriate response. It's almost as bad as the 1970s Catholic Bishop response to a peadophile priest: bring him in, talk to him, censor him for a bit, then reassign him to a new location to offend again.
That's basically what they did with this kid- arrested him, charged him, released him to a new school where nobody knows him or how to deal with his insecurities.
That is UTTERLY the wrong solution. I'd settle for- no arrest, referal to mental health professionals, keep the kid with his friends so he has an outlet for his feelings, and give him his very own entry in the state gun control lookup database to prevent him from legally buying a firearm. The 2nd and 3rd parts are more important than the 1st and the 4th- but ALL need to happen given recent events. The arrest probably accomplishes #4 at best- and leaves #2 and #3 completely undone.
Given the lack of what I would consider an adequate response (which to me wouldn't have been an arrest, but rather a referal for counseling and a flag against buying weapons in the state gun background check database) they just might- by this very kid.
LOL. You have a well know history of turning every topic into an attack on capitalism as you see it. On-topic conversation is merely an appetizer for your multi-course meals.
Hmm, you may be correct. I was going to counter with the Virgina Tech massacre- but the lack of sufficient gun sales to responsible citizens is due to regulated capitalism, as is the lack of availability of sufficient mental health care....
No it hasn't, there has been some very good music released in the last 17 years which has not been heavily marketed crap.
Of course since you don't buy any music all you will have heard is what you may have heard on the radio which obviously is for the most part heavily marketed crap.
Thus proving my point- marketing is about taking inferior products and lying about them to sell better than superior products.
I don't imagine you would be very happy if every company in the world sent you a spec sheet for every product which they sell. I expect you'd moan about that quite a lot.
Well, actually, I wouldn't. I'd love such a database. I'd prefer it online and searchable rather than paper, but that is EXACTLY how I want to shop- comparing the specifications of similar products and choosing the one that best fits my NEEDS.
Instead companies often put shortened versions of their spec sheets in highly visible locations, these are called advertisements, and if you see something which you think may be useful then you can request the spec sheet directly from the company. This whole process is called marketing and is how you find about new products which you may find useful.
The problem is, the advertisements rarely include the specs I need, or worse yet, they lie about the true specs. If you have to advertise, you don't have a good enough product to be worthy of survival in the market.
Irrelevant - if money is physical or electronic matters little in practice - electronic money is merely a more efficient form of fiat money. It is used as a store of value, a means of transaction and a unit of accounting nonetheless, with no current alternatives in use. (Commodity-based bartering is terribly rare these days)
Except of course that electronic money is the ultimate in Fiat money- universally counterfietable, and infinite in supply. Do you remember the law of supply and demand? What is the value of something in infinite supply?
Correct - money is a civilizational advance. Reciprocal bartering (and reciprocity in general) however, has a very long history within our species.
Yes, but only because our species has not, until very recently, encountered a situation where something is virtually in infinite surplus. We're used to, and designed our economics around, an assumption of scarcity. That assumption, for more and more goods and services every day, is proving false.
Using force to take other people's stuff sounds much more like Marx than market economics.
And yet, the market does it all the time: a corporation pays for a politician's campaign, that politician makes a law to create an artificial scarcity (such as the copyright law), and then the police and courts enforce that law. A true believer in the market would see piracy as just another competing business model for when a service is physically in surplus- the value of copying that service has a natural market value of nothing if you get rid of the laws.
Yea, the fact that you benefit personally from your "ethical stance" is merely a happy coincidence. Whoopdido.
Actually, I don't. I find the easiest way of getting new music and movies and television shows in a DRM-free format is to pay for CDs and Sattelite TV and do the conversion to digital myself using operating systems and software that don't understand DRM. The artists and even the RIAA still get paid. I just think there COULD be a more efficient business model out there- and I still support paying the artist for high quality non-marketing tracks. What I don't support is paying for a service that has an economic value of nothing.
The market determines new business models, not random Slashdot posters trying to defend piracy using tired cliches and declarations that "money is obsolete." Right now, the market is moving to iTunes.
Uh, other way around. Money is obsolete because piracy exists, and piracy too is a business model determined by the FREE market (as opposed to the overly regulated one with intellectual property laws that give power to inferior business plans such as Itunes). You can't have it both ways- does the market support copyright sufficiently that copyright is respected WITHOUT resorting to lawsuits, or does piracy exist because the economic value of copying digital files is essentially zero?
You don't have the moral authority to determine what other people should be paid for. I'm sure you enjoy your student loan or employer paychecks.
Actually, I had to become a civil servant because I couldn't get an employer to pay me reliably. Near as I can tell, unless mandated by law, capitialism is a total non-starter.
My mistake too- I assumed because this was in the story RIAA Wins In Court Against UW Madison that it was understood I was talking about how money applies to copying digital files- an ecconomically zero value service. Just as in the future sometime, just about everything mankind does now will be an ecconomically zero value service.
Yes. And? Since when was the path supposed to be easy?
"My path is easy and my yoke is light". Seems to me that when we put our faith in truth instead of lies, the path is a lot easier.
Wrong, currency as a moderator of trade continues to have value as long as those who participate in the game continue to accept it. We assign value through our actions. We use money as a moderator of trade, simple as that. You may feel free, obviously to believe whatever you want, but that doesnt change the fact that you participate in a system you hold to be meaningless. All the rest is empty Demagoguery.
I fully agree I participate in a system I hold to be meaningless- that doesn't mean I shouldn't work, as well as I am able, to abolish the meaningless system. As it is, that work isn't very hard- by the process of inflation, the system is quickly abolishing itself, that's why piracy exists.
Far out. And my ancestors did the same in Ireland before the potato famine. This has nothing whatsoever to do with the apparent fact that you subsist through means negotiated by currency, yet claim that moderation by currency is meaningless. If that is the case, then why buy into the lie? and yes, holding that its a lie but participating in the system is buying into the lie. So you're a malcontent. So what?
So I'm working to bring down the system from the inside, in little ways.
Not entirely sure what you're trying to say. Legislating a business-model is different than litigating capitalism.
Not much- it is in fact legislating capitalism instead of allowing it to fall to the forces of the market. The piracy is the REAL market- the other is a fake propped up by violence and fraud. The reason piracy exists is because the value of copying and marketing has fallen to zero.
You'll get no argument from me if you choose to phrase this in terms of 'the expansionist nature of capitalism as viewed through the constant inflation of world currencies, is an inherently unsustainable practice, and should be stopped.' However, again, you come with meaningless rhetoric instead of argument. It *is* the way things are. PRESENT TENSE. Last I checked use of the present tense in no way spoke to how things would be at ANY POINT IN THE FUTURE. If its a con game, its one we play on ourselves, yourself included, no matter how much you flail around deriding it, and as such labeling it fraudulent is just vapid.
Time means nothing to me- what, after all, is a few centuries or even my own life in comparison to eternity? To end the unsustainable practice will take time- so we should work on it in ANY WAY WE CAN. Labeling it as a fraudulent con game is the start of breaking out of the superstition- unless you can label the problem, you'll never begin to fight the problem.
No. does it make you feel good to think that you've 'tricked' me somehow? putting quote marks around money doesnt alter the fact that you have chosen a lifestyle dependent on something you claim to be fradulent and meaningless. If you want to talk about the negative social impacts of a monetary society, I'm right there with you, but i fail to see how you've said anything of meaning.
Actually, as a unionized civil servant, I've found a partial way out- a niche in the capitalist economy where my income is entirely protected by law, unaffected by the con game. It auto-adjusts with inflation and those who pay me are forced to rather than choose to. But that's beside the point- my lifestyle isn't actually dependant upon either- that's why I also formed The Oregon Project- a club to "buy" a commune for those of us who will eventually be made useless.
yeah, good luck with that. I'd not say that you hack anything so much as that you yourself are a hack.
High praise indeed, for my set of personal values.
Slashdot Mirror
Anything human beings can do with a bureaucracy, computers can do lots faster and more accurately. Thanks to data mining techniques pioneered in the last few years, expert systems can even find efficiencies and improve themselvs.
So to me, the answer is yes. What is wrong with our health care system is that it is a human run, for-profit bureaucracy. Replace that with a computer run, single payer system and you will realize billions of dollars in immediate resource allocation savings- dollars which can then be used to feed back into the system and used to provide health care to more people.
That, and I trust a computer more than I trust a politician any day.
The point being- if you've played the game, the scenario has crossed your mind, and you have at least *contemplated* being that kind of person. The fact that you have a firm grip on reality is the *only* thing keeping you from being that kind of person.
My grip on reality *has* been damaged in the past, I know how thin the line of sanity really is. All it took for the Rwanda Massacre is for the government to *tell* people it was ok and hand out machettes and clubs to one side- it didn't even take any guns, they were glad to return to the old days when they were allowed to kill other tribes. Sanity is a very thin line- and I can easily see a Stephen King or an Alice Cooper stepping over it.
Mass murder takes 3 things today- some target skill, somebody willing to sell a weapon, and convincing yourself that other things that look like people aren't people. You've got the first- you got it from playing those video games. Having a clean record, you've probably got the second. How sure are you that things that look like people in real life ARE people?
I'll throw in my old tagline here: I cannot prove that I think, so I cannot prove that I am. To anybody who has studied Solipsism and Philosophy- reality isn't anything more than a collection of perceptions that my nerve endings are giving me.
I see- you don't buy into the story line of the game. Which kind of ruins the experience of the game for me- might as well just be target practice at that point. If you can't suspend disbelief enough to consider the story line of the game, what is the point of playing it?
2nd reply- now I think I understand what you're saying. Does this mean I can break a patent merely by having the product manufactured in China and marketed here?
If the original coding was in the US- or even that particular DLL- then that shouldn't be an issue. Unless of course they want to get into the philosophical difference between software and hardware, and even then, they've got to prove that the disks manufactured and shipped in are not substantially different than say, a music CD, or Sony's and Phillip's patents might come into play.
It's even WORSE- Microsoft is arguing that software isn't patentable because software and hardware are different. Well, maybe that's better- but basically, they're arguing no patent infringement because the source code wasn't on the disk.
That the Asian OEM code is substantially different than what is sold in the US.
I've played a fair amount of what seems to be considered "violent" video games including GTA, Wolfenstein, Lethal Enforcer, Call of Duty, so on an so forth. I've watched a fair amount of violent television programming and movies. I've read some violent and disturbing books, including everybody's favorite footnote "Catcher in the Rye".
I have never entertained the notion of doing harm to another. I have never pointed a weapon any more dangerous than a SuperSoaker at another human being. I hope on hope I am never put in that position. I, and millions of others, are safe an consciencous gun owners. You suggest that I should not be if I can imagine a situation where another's life is worth less than... something. I refer you back to my first paragraph as testament to my "imagination", and repectfully point out that it doesn't take that much.
Can you explain the apparent contradiction between these two paragraphs? How can you play a FPS game WITHOUT entertaining the notion of doing harm to others (irrespective of the other forms of fictional media)? If you let the thought in, you've entertained it- if only in your immagination you HAVE indeed pointed a weapon more dangerous than a SuperSoaker at another human being- certainly the big gun in Wolfenstien 3D would qualify, and the targets in that game WERE representations of human beings.
I think you're at least partially in denial as to how close to the line you really are. I don't, as a rule, have a problem with that; in that you're relatively sane. But if you added "and have WRITTEN stories in which I kill myself and take others with me", AND have scared a teacher enough to refer you to counseling for that, no, I don't think you should be allowed to own a weapon. That's a thin line, easy to cross indeed; but if we want to live together in cities it's a line that needs to be drawn.
Now having said THAT- the cities (and other tight knit communities, such as college campuses) is a big part of this. Rural areas change everything. For one, your target you're trying to protect your family from in a rural area might not be human, but still need a gun to dispatch (here in Oregon, we've got cougar and black bear who have threatened humans within the last 10 years). For another, even if you try to go after humans on foot or in a car, a quarter mile between households would cause you to get caught LONG before you could find, let alone murder, 33 victims.
Erm, so you think oil is going up in price because of a general increase in the money supply? While other prices stay put? Please.
What other prices are staying put? Construction, housing, beef, vegetables, milk, grains- all these costs are increasing as well, far above the 3% the "official inflation" numbers would have you believe. I work for a state department of transportation- to put people back to work, we had a works program put in place in 2003 to bring every bridge in the state up to modern earthquake standards. EVERY project is coming in 50% over budget for the 2008 target- because basic SUPPLIES for bridge building have gone up in cost.
Well, all recordings would be pretty worthless to the artists if the was no copyright - RIAA or no RIAA.
Thus encouraging artists to get their money from PERFORMANCES, rather than RECORDINGS. Better art to the public in exchange, and the artist makes all the money, not the recording company.
Of course, if there were fewer musicians, perhaps that wouldn't be too bad. Plenty of talent playing for fame, pussy and concert proceeds alone. (I'm more worried about TV and movies).
TV and movies already make the most money off of first run. Make it legal to copy as long as you don't cut the comercials- or better yet, go back to the original model of actual product placement of sponsors (like all of those Carnation Milk Jokes on the Burns and Allen show from the 1950s- because, gasp, Carnation Evaporated Milk was their sponsor).
Well, you can always go on about how we need a "better system". But unless you give specifics, that isn't really very helpful.
Two ways to go on this one. One is to realize that piracy is a business model that should simply be legitimized instead of making more criminals, and that some things are just better done by volunteers than by big corporations, signaled by the existance of such "pirate" volunteers. The other way, the more humane way, is public sponsorship of cultural works of zero economic value, where the economic cost to produce has fallen below the price the market is willing to pay. The first is laisez faire capitalism, the second is socialism; both are more realistic than the current model of corporatism where corporations make laws and criminals to support otherwise unsupportable business models.
As political campaigning = speech (pretty much),
Stop right there- if political campagining= speech, then spending more than your opponent is the equivalent of shouting somebody down just because you don't like his message, which is also incompatible with a spirit of free speech.
a ridiculously low campaign funding limit will mean that you will need an even harder government clampdown on all forms of speech and political organization, to prevent various groups from offering "undue support" to campaigns (support = monetary value = campaign funding).
Yep, that's the intent.
(Pure bribery is rare, it should be added - lobbyism is usually more subtle - I.e. you support candidates who fit your "profile" in various ways, including both cash and non-material support).
I fail to see any functional difference between lobbyism and bribery. In both cases, you get laws passed that support economically unsupportable business models, and those laws take away the freedom of other people. Bribery is wrong *because* it passes such laws, not merely because the politician is selling his vote.
So, there is a tradeoff between government control of all public fora and controlling campaign contributions.
Yep, in effect, it cedes government control of all public fora for corporate control of all public fora- and the actual voting population still gets disenfranchised by bait-and-switch fake voting based on a system that is not functionally distinguishable from bribery.
Yes they have- so isn't it time we admited to that reality? Either that, or showed them what the United States becoming world terrorists REALLY means- entire continents laid to radioactive waste. What's one suicide bomber when you can destroy him and all of his family and all of his friends from orbit without ever presenting him with a target?
Zero. Which is why the Fed, ECB, etc. are very careful to keep supply in check. You would notice if the money supply was suddenly through the roof, because prices would be running wild. (Printing money is indeed an historically popular way of getting cash for the government, but it's not terribly stealthy. The US gets only a tiny share of revenue from the "inflation tax".
And yet, inflation in certain sectors IS through the roof. Notice the price of Oil lately?
Well, that's not quite true. Patents, IP, etc. are all economic instruments (partially) designed to handle the problem of products with very low marginal cost but large total cost. No, they're not perfect, but certainly better than a "zero-incentive-to-invest" situation. (All product development can't be carried out on a volunteer basis, although initiatives like Linux are neat)
Art, however, CAN. And you get better art if you do. Thus comming back to the original topic of this thread, the RIAA; no marginal cost and no total cost for what they do, their "product" of recordings and marketing would be utterly worthless to the artists if there was no copyright or patent law. Thus my argument that we need a better system than mere mindless commerce to make money. And we'd better invent it soon- the RIAA's business model isn't the only one being proped up by law when there is NO actual productive economic value to what they do.
'True believers' should stick to religion. Obviously the market has a problem of handling incentives for creating stuff that is infinitely (or merely easily) copyable. Implying that copyright law, intellectual property rights, etc. exist merely because politicians are universally bribed, and not because they are useful to society is unproven (and somewhat unlikely). Lobbyism might have some significance when it comes to the details, at best.
Why not take on an experiment and do away with bribed politicians to begin with? Limit campaign spending to $15,000/year- and that way we'll see what happens when ANYBODY can afford to be a politician, instead of just the ones being universally bribed through campaign financing.
Oh yeah, we can't do that, because we have to protect the wimpy minority known as the "rich" from the injustice of a free market and the majority rule of democracy, right?
At least the Diesel fuel works a bit slower- I've used it to burn blackberries, it's damned hard to light. :-).
But my point is, anybody owning a gun should be able to read and understand and believe in just war theory. And I just don't think most teenagers, even ones earning 4.0 GPAs, fit that category. A good many adults don't either.
I don't think either are worthy of ARREST. But NEITHER do I consider either of those men worthy to own a weapon (for proof on the first, I offer the music video for "School's Out"- I don't know of anything similar for the second). For one thing, I don't think jail works for this problem. Nor, really, does gun control. Intensive referal for counseling on the other hand....
I agree with this, except I say that this is worse than what was done with preists. The fact that they are aliened this student, removing him from his friends, humiliated him... these are the things that CREATE monsters. I believe a better analogy regarding the priest situation would be if the Church took priests that they *suspected* may become child molestors, and intentionally put them in charge of orphanages. What was done to this student was not only unjust, it was dangerous.
There were a few cases of NUNS in Ireland and Canada where that was the case- nuns suspected of child abuse were moved to orphanages. Some of them ended up racking up as many as 500-600 victims.
However, that said, I do not feel that any single writing, or even a small group of writings should qualify as much as a mental health evaluation -- As a long fan of Poe, I've written plenty of matters of dark fiction. That doesn't make me crazy. Likewise, I'm sure that readers of Steven King also have been influenced in their writings. Should we burn the works of Poe or King? Should students be forbidden from such literary persuits? What will happen to tomorrow's writers? Should books also have a rating system like that of movies and video games? If not, then should movies and video games NOT have ratings? If a student can read The Pit and the Pendulum, why can they not purchase an R rated movie?
I'm not saying burn their works. I'm saying such people should not be allowed to own what would be considered a weapon of mass distruction in 1800.
Censorship is ALSO something I disagree with.
Put violence in and I'd agree with that. All of it. Any writer who writes about mass murder is certainly unfit to control what in the 1700s would be a weapon of mass destruction. Including myself. If you can imagine a situation where the life of somebody else is worth less to you than your own happiness, you are not mentally fit to carry a weapon.
I hate to use this phrase, but if you succumb to paranoia, then the terrorists have won.
The terrorists have won. The only thing left to do is become worse terrorists.
I'd settle for referral to mental health professionals, and I would not accept any of that other shit except on their advice. If they say that the kid is a genuine threat, okay, prevent him from purchasing firearms. But I'm not willing to do that just because the kid writes about death. We all think about death and teenagers sitting in school wondering when the next student will snap and kill a bunch of people, and if they're going to be next to die, are probably going to be thinking about it more than most.
Correct- which is why I'm against teenagers owning guns in general.
I certainly know that when I was a teenager, death was something much more interesting than I find it now. Now it's mostly something to be avoided for as long as possible.
I never made it beyond that stage- but at least it's something I'd do to myself, not my neighbors.
We all have these thoughts inside of us. This student's only crime is taking his teacher's instructions too literally. She is a liar. She didn't really want the students to express themselves. She wanted them to write something not too scary. If anyone should be cited for anything, it should be her, for being a shitty teacher. Too bad that's not a crime - but if it were, at least four of my elementary school instructors, all but about five of my junior high instructors (from two schools!) and all but maybe four of my high school instructors (also from two schools) would be in prison or hanged by the neck until dead by now.
However, I'm agreed with that. And the administration for going along with the idiocy that doesn't do any good. We need a stronger link between mental health and gun laws. We don't need to be arresting people who just need to talk.
I'd be afraid of EITHER of those (and most other hollywood types or politicians) owning guns. For exactly the same reason I'll never take an invitation to go hunting with Dick Cheney.
What gets me about this isn't the paranoia; the paranoia is justified in view of recent events.
What disturbs me is the utter lack of an appropriate response. It's almost as bad as the 1970s Catholic Bishop response to a peadophile priest: bring him in, talk to him, censor him for a bit, then reassign him to a new location to offend again.
That's basically what they did with this kid- arrested him, charged him, released him to a new school where nobody knows him or how to deal with his insecurities.
That is UTTERLY the wrong solution. I'd settle for- no arrest, referal to mental health professionals, keep the kid with his friends so he has an outlet for his feelings, and give him his very own entry in the state gun control lookup database to prevent him from legally buying a firearm. The 2nd and 3rd parts are more important than the 1st and the 4th- but ALL need to happen given recent events. The arrest probably accomplishes #4 at best- and leaves #2 and #3 completely undone.
Given the lack of what I would consider an adequate response (which to me wouldn't have been an arrest, but rather a referal for counseling and a flag against buying weapons in the state gun background check database) they just might- by this very kid.
LOL. You have a well know history of turning every topic into an attack on capitalism as you see it. On-topic conversation is merely an appetizer for your multi-course meals.
Hmm, you may be correct. I was going to counter with the Virgina Tech massacre- but the lack of sufficient gun sales to responsible citizens is due to regulated capitalism, as is the lack of availability of sufficient mental health care....
No it hasn't, there has been some very good music released in the last 17 years which has not been heavily marketed crap.
Of course since you don't buy any music all you will have heard is what you may have heard on the radio which obviously is for the most part heavily marketed crap.
Thus proving my point- marketing is about taking inferior products and lying about them to sell better than superior products.
I don't imagine you would be very happy if every company in the world sent you a spec sheet for every product which they sell. I expect you'd moan about that quite a lot.
Well, actually, I wouldn't. I'd love such a database. I'd prefer it online and searchable rather than paper, but that is EXACTLY how I want to shop- comparing the specifications of similar products and choosing the one that best fits my NEEDS.
Instead companies often put shortened versions of their spec sheets in highly visible locations, these are called advertisements, and if you see something which you think may be useful then you can request the spec sheet directly from the company. This whole process is called marketing and is how you find about new products which you may find useful.
The problem is, the advertisements rarely include the specs I need, or worse yet, they lie about the true specs. If you have to advertise, you don't have a good enough product to be worthy of survival in the market.
Irrelevant - if money is physical or electronic matters little in practice - electronic money is merely a more efficient form of fiat money. It is used as a store of value, a means of transaction and a unit of accounting nonetheless, with no current alternatives in use. (Commodity-based bartering is terribly rare these days)
Except of course that electronic money is the ultimate in Fiat money- universally counterfietable, and infinite in supply. Do you remember the law of supply and demand? What is the value of something in infinite supply?
Correct - money is a civilizational advance. Reciprocal bartering (and reciprocity in general) however, has a very long history within our species.
Yes, but only because our species has not, until very recently, encountered a situation where something is virtually in infinite surplus. We're used to, and designed our economics around, an assumption of scarcity. That assumption, for more and more goods and services every day, is proving false.
Using force to take other people's stuff sounds much more like Marx than market economics.
And yet, the market does it all the time: a corporation pays for a politician's campaign, that politician makes a law to create an artificial scarcity (such as the copyright law), and then the police and courts enforce that law. A true believer in the market would see piracy as just another competing business model for when a service is physically in surplus- the value of copying that service has a natural market value of nothing if you get rid of the laws.
Yea, the fact that you benefit personally from your "ethical stance" is merely a happy coincidence. Whoopdido.
Actually, I don't. I find the easiest way of getting new music and movies and television shows in a DRM-free format is to pay for CDs and Sattelite TV and do the conversion to digital myself using operating systems and software that don't understand DRM. The artists and even the RIAA still get paid. I just think there COULD be a more efficient business model out there- and I still support paying the artist for high quality non-marketing tracks. What I don't support is paying for a service that has an economic value of nothing.
The market determines new business models, not random Slashdot posters trying to defend piracy using tired cliches and declarations that "money is obsolete." Right now, the market is moving to iTunes.
Uh, other way around. Money is obsolete because piracy exists, and piracy too is a business model determined by the FREE market (as opposed to the overly regulated one with intellectual property laws that give power to inferior business plans such as Itunes). You can't have it both ways- does the market support copyright sufficiently that copyright is respected WITHOUT resorting to lawsuits, or does piracy exist because the economic value of copying digital files is essentially zero?
You don't have the moral authority to determine what other people should be paid for. I'm sure you enjoy your student loan or employer paychecks.
Actually, I had to become a civil servant because I couldn't get an employer to pay me reliably. Near as I can tell, unless mandated by law, capitialism is a total non-starter.
My mistake too- I assumed because this was in the story RIAA Wins In Court Against UW Madison that it was understood I was talking about how money applies to copying digital files- an ecconomically zero value service. Just as in the future sometime, just about everything mankind does now will be an ecconomically zero value service.
Yes. And? Since when was the path supposed to be easy?
"My path is easy and my yoke is light". Seems to me that when we put our faith in truth instead of lies, the path is a lot easier.
Wrong, currency as a moderator of trade continues to have value as long as those who participate in the game continue to accept it. We assign value through our actions. We use money as a moderator of trade, simple as that. You may feel free, obviously to believe whatever you want, but that doesnt change the fact that you participate in a system you hold to be meaningless. All the rest is empty Demagoguery.
I fully agree I participate in a system I hold to be meaningless- that doesn't mean I shouldn't work, as well as I am able, to abolish the meaningless system. As it is, that work isn't very hard- by the process of inflation, the system is quickly abolishing itself, that's why piracy exists.
Far out. And my ancestors did the same in Ireland before the potato famine. This has nothing whatsoever to do with the apparent fact that you subsist through means negotiated by currency, yet claim that moderation by currency is meaningless. If that is the case, then why buy into the lie? and yes, holding that its a lie but participating in the system is buying into the lie. So you're a malcontent. So what?
So I'm working to bring down the system from the inside, in little ways.
Not entirely sure what you're trying to say. Legislating a business-model is different than litigating capitalism.
Not much- it is in fact legislating capitalism instead of allowing it to fall to the forces of the market. The piracy is the REAL market- the other is a fake propped up by violence and fraud. The reason piracy exists is because the value of copying and marketing has fallen to zero.
You'll get no argument from me if you choose to phrase this in terms of 'the expansionist nature of capitalism as viewed through the constant inflation of world currencies, is an inherently unsustainable practice, and should be stopped.' However, again, you come with meaningless rhetoric instead of argument. It *is* the way things are. PRESENT TENSE. Last I checked use of the present tense in no way spoke to how things would be at ANY POINT IN THE FUTURE. If its a con game, its one we play on ourselves, yourself included, no matter how much you flail around deriding it, and as such labeling it fraudulent is just vapid.
Time means nothing to me- what, after all, is a few centuries or even my own life in comparison to eternity? To end the unsustainable practice will take time- so we should work on it in ANY WAY WE CAN. Labeling it as a fraudulent con game is the start of breaking out of the superstition- unless you can label the problem, you'll never begin to fight the problem.
No. does it make you feel good to think that you've 'tricked' me somehow? putting quote marks around money doesnt alter the fact that you have chosen a lifestyle dependent on something you claim to be fradulent and meaningless. If you want to talk about the negative social impacts of a monetary society, I'm right there with you, but i fail to see how you've said anything of meaning.
Actually, as a unionized civil servant, I've found a partial way out- a niche in the capitalist economy where my income is entirely protected by law, unaffected by the con game. It auto-adjusts with inflation and those who pay me are forced to rather than choose to. But that's beside the point- my lifestyle isn't actually dependant upon either- that's why I also formed The Oregon Project- a club to "buy" a commune for those of us who will eventually be made useless.
yeah, good luck with that. I'd not say that you hack anything so much as that you yourself are a hack.
High praise indeed, for my set of personal values.