Way to confound economic power with political power. Corruption, violation of rights and contracts, none of that is possible without a hand in politics, ie, a politician willing to pass/enforce laws that harm others and violate their rights.
If you feel at risk clicking on things, then certainly Bing's mini preview window should make you feel even more safe, not less. With that said, I'll probably be sticking with Google.
I don't think that word means what you think it means... How can total volunteerism lead to anything forced, as through fraud or the violation of rights?
Which can also lead to progress.
That is no justification for the inherent violation of individual rights that comes with such actions, though. That is why free market capitalism is the only moral system.
capitalism also demands forced collaboration
Words have meanings, regardless of whether you choose to acknowledge them. Any examples you could label as "force" under capitalism would be restrictions on the violations of individual rights - ie, self-defense or government retaliation against force.
The concept of owning resources in common isn't anti-individualistic
There's nothing wrong with owning a resource in common - for example people in certain states resort to owning "shares" of a cow in order to legally get raw milk (you know, the stuff your grandparents drank without worry). But that's not the same thing as being *forced* to give up your property to a communal share. That is anti-individual and anti-man.
having neighborhood parks or sharing roads and pipes and cables is just smart resource usage
Well, that is obvious. I doubt anyone would disagree with you on that. So why the need to force it to happen through a government-backed monopoly?
The "power of working together" comes from shared individual resources and individual insights. There is no collective consciousness, no collective ideas. Voluntary collaboration is capitalistic and leads to progress. Communism/socialism, on the other hand, demands forced collaboration.
Is sentience (a consciousness) really enough to generate self-preservation? A consciousness is simply a means toward knowledge. That knowledge need not be used for self-preservation, and it certainly doesn't generate self-preservation. More likely, such a robot must be "programmed" (in some sense of the word) toward self-preservation - it must be in a robot's nature to want to "live", just as it is in a person's nature to want to live.
The life that we see (including humanity) wants to live because of natural selection - if it didn't want to live, it wouldn't be around for us to observe it, nor even for us to exist ourselves. Throughout the course of evolution there were likely many self-destructive mutation - those creatures died out rather quickly. It was only the build-up of self-preserving mutations that resulted in self-preserving creatures, thus resulting in life that strives to live.
So no, I don't think you can simply get a robot smart enough and *poof* it wants to live. That shortcuts the entire evolutionary process. Instead, either the evolutionary process must be repeated in robots, or robots must be pre-programmed toward self-preservation.
Intel's "crime": "'Intel awarded major computer manufacturers rebates on condition that they purchased all or almost all of their supplies, at least in certain defined segments, from Intel.'
This is called "volume discounting". Office Max and Sam's Club are guilty of similar "crimes" and "anticompetitive" behavior, it seems.
Such a bullshit violation of the right to set the terms of your contract. When you sign a contract with a company offering a product or service, do you merely read the terms of the agreement, or do you also consider the consequences on your lost service to other companies? Of course you don't do the latter, but that's what the EU claims you must do.
But your argument breaks down the further you get away from that. How is owning multiple houses, cars, song rights, whatever necessary for a sustained life?
A right is not something granted by another, by a god, or by a higher authority. It is a freedom of action. It makes no sense to say that because you have more property than is necessary for you to merely survive (according to the judgment of another) that therefore that property is not yours. Whether or not you acknowledge another's right to their property, if you influence the government pass laws that take away their property, it does not change that fact that you are still violating their rights.
What you're suggesting is that, as an author, if I write a book that sells 500,000 copies, and makes me $20 million dollars - then if I try to write another book a couple months later, that book is not my property, because your or some other entity deemed that I've already made enough money for now, and so the book can be freely copied by another, distributed, taken, etc.
As to owning the fruits of your mind, that's only been true for the last 300 years or so.
Again, whether or not a right is acknowledged doesn't change its existence.
I really don't see how the right to property follows from the right to life. Especially with the concept of private property ever expanding (real estate, intellectual property, business property,...).
To sustain his life, a man must be free to use the product of his mind and effort as he sees fit. If he is not free to do so, then he cannot sustain his life as a human being - he would be a slave.
Whether or not people know their rights does not mean those rights don't exist. It's not that rights are expanding, but that they're being realized.
What is the purpose of the Bill of Rights if not to protect individual's rights by stating the limits of government action?
The Bill of Rights is a great document, but if the government founded on such legislation doesn't recognize the rights in that legislation, then the legislation itself is moot. This is a side issue. It basically comes down to: we need military/police to protect us from eachother and from foreign threats, and we need courts to decide contractual violations. The rest is not necessary, though it may be preferable (e.g., a legislature elected by the people).
We're talking about private entities cutting off users of their services, not about the government doing so. Obviously I'm against the latter. Yeesh...
Nope, no fail. What are you even talking about??? The quote asserts a "fundamental right" of Internet users - ie, a right to use other peoples' property (the ISP's). That must violate the actual right to property.
You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.
Other than through agreement from the people being governed there is not some objective standard that says that something is a right or not.
Quite simple. First you identify human nature - unlike with plants and animals, man's values and goals don't come automatically. Man must think to survive - he must using his reasoning mind to integrate sensory data into concepts and abstract higher concepts from that. So if you choose to live, you *should* use reason to survive. That's the basis of ethics. Ethics applied in the social setting reveals individual rights. If you should use your mind to survive, then you should be free to do so. Your right to your life is primary, and the social application of that is in the right to property - the right to do with the product of your mind as you please. You have values and goals, like any living thing, and therefore should be free to achieve those goals - rights to liberty and pursuit of happiness.
Other than through agreement from the people being governed there is not some objective standard that says that something is a right or not.
This is the notion of Contractarianism, to which I have the simple response: if the contract is the fundamental, why should I follow the contract? Clearly there must be something more fundamental if you can't simply get me, a person who chooses to live and further his values, to take your contract on faith. What you have done is demand reasons for my arguments, while supplanting faith as the reason for your arguments.
Why can't they protect these rights through legislation?
Legislation doesn't protect rights. Legislation sets the laws that are protected and upholded by courts and police/military.
Why not?
See the second sentence of my original post. A "right" that violates another right is a non-right.
If they can provide it better and cheaper then they should very much do so.
This is the idea of "the ends justify the means" - that if something is more convenient, go for it, regardless of the people and rights violated along the way. See above for why that should not be pursued.
There is no "right" to internet access, and any such attempt at asserting such a right must invariably violate actual individual rights - life, liberty, property, pursuit of happiness. Likewise, the only proper role of government is to uphold and protect these rights through the courts, police, and military. The government should not be providing internet access.
Because, obviously, people are going to be willing to give up internet access to prove a point.
Why would they have to give it up? Why couldn't they just switch to another provider? What prevents the from choosing another provider, and/or what makes it impossibly difficult for another company or startup to set up a new local service as a competitor? Oh, right, government in both cases.
as usually, people saying that missing the practical picture; which is ALL THE ISPs will institute the same crap so you won' have a choice.
And drive away all their customers? How would they stay in business?
Given that people don't have a right to internet access, neither we nor the government can force them to do anything against their will, even if they make stupid decisions. They should be permitted to succeed or fail by their own actions.
This is why net neutrality must be maintained.
Then you're begging for the government to violate all your other rights. If you want people to respect your rights to free speech, liberty, property, etc, you have to respect everyone else's rights to those same freedoms. You would like to have your cake and eat it too.
If you had any doubts about the unintended consequences of net neutrality regulation, this should help clarify it for you. The same folks who would be "handed the keys to the Internet" to enforce net neutrality will be the ones regulating shit like this. Rather than get the government involved, we should maintain individual responsibility by boycotting ISPs with bad practices and draconian ToS.
Why would anyone in the market have had an interest in loaning to high-risk individuals if it wasn't for the "affordable housing" and "homeownership for all" agenda pushed by both the Clinton and Bush administrations? A few quick examples: driving interest rates artificially low, using Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to drive the appeal for mortgage-backed securities, using CRA bank regulations to directly force banks to loan to specific demographics in order for bank functions to occur.
Sure, once this thing got going, it's difficult to place blame, but it started somewhere, so if we're going to learn from this, we need to be able to cut it off at the beginning.
Unfortunately, economists seemed to have forgotten their Econ 101, and now think they can stop the bubble. I have no problem with them believing that, except that they're feeding their nonsense to idiot politicians!
Slashdot Mirror
Way to confound economic power with political power. Corruption, violation of rights and contracts, none of that is possible without a hand in politics, ie, a politician willing to pass/enforce laws that harm others and violate their rights.
If you feel at risk clicking on things, then certainly Bing's mini preview window should make you feel even more safe, not less. With that said, I'll probably be sticking with Google.
Now my goal is obvious - to be more excited about the new iPhone than the Chinese! Thank you Apple for the fake leak to help me gauge my interest!
Sometimes it leads to collusion
I don't think that word means what you think it means... How can total volunteerism lead to anything forced, as through fraud or the violation of rights?
Which can also lead to progress.
That is no justification for the inherent violation of individual rights that comes with such actions, though. That is why free market capitalism is the only moral system.
capitalism also demands forced collaboration
Words have meanings, regardless of whether you choose to acknowledge them. Any examples you could label as "force" under capitalism would be restrictions on the violations of individual rights - ie, self-defense or government retaliation against force.
The concept of owning resources in common isn't anti-individualistic
There's nothing wrong with owning a resource in common - for example people in certain states resort to owning "shares" of a cow in order to legally get raw milk (you know, the stuff your grandparents drank without worry). But that's not the same thing as being *forced* to give up your property to a communal share. That is anti-individual and anti-man.
having neighborhood parks or sharing roads and pipes and cables is just smart resource usage
Well, that is obvious. I doubt anyone would disagree with you on that. So why the need to force it to happen through a government-backed monopoly?
The "power of working together" comes from shared individual resources and individual insights. There is no collective consciousness, no collective ideas. Voluntary collaboration is capitalistic and leads to progress. Communism/socialism, on the other hand, demands forced collaboration.
Did anyone else get a flash of Alan Sokal's genius upon reading the quote from the summary? So many words, so little content.
Self-preservation comes before one gains sentience.
That was exactly my point.
Is sentience (a consciousness) really enough to generate self-preservation? A consciousness is simply a means toward knowledge. That knowledge need not be used for self-preservation, and it certainly doesn't generate self-preservation. More likely, such a robot must be "programmed" (in some sense of the word) toward self-preservation - it must be in a robot's nature to want to "live", just as it is in a person's nature to want to live.
The life that we see (including humanity) wants to live because of natural selection - if it didn't want to live, it wouldn't be around for us to observe it, nor even for us to exist ourselves. Throughout the course of evolution there were likely many self-destructive mutation - those creatures died out rather quickly. It was only the build-up of self-preserving mutations that resulted in self-preserving creatures, thus resulting in life that strives to live.
So no, I don't think you can simply get a robot smart enough and *poof* it wants to live. That shortcuts the entire evolutionary process. Instead, either the evolutionary process must be repeated in robots, or robots must be pre-programmed toward self-preservation.
Intel's "crime": "'Intel awarded major computer manufacturers rebates on condition that they purchased all or almost all of their supplies, at least in certain defined segments, from Intel.'
This is called "volume discounting". Office Max and Sam's Club are guilty of similar "crimes" and "anticompetitive" behavior, it seems.
Such a bullshit violation of the right to set the terms of your contract. When you sign a contract with a company offering a product or service, do you merely read the terms of the agreement, or do you also consider the consequences on your lost service to other companies? Of course you don't do the latter, but that's what the EU claims you must do.
This is the way it was before the 1960s.
Ahh, so yours is an argument from tradition, then? Or do you have an actual argument?
In other words, it's a patent on how to not distribute content.
But your argument breaks down the further you get away from that. How is owning multiple houses, cars, song rights, whatever necessary for a sustained life?
A right is not something granted by another, by a god, or by a higher authority. It is a freedom of action. It makes no sense to say that because you have more property than is necessary for you to merely survive (according to the judgment of another) that therefore that property is not yours. Whether or not you acknowledge another's right to their property, if you influence the government pass laws that take away their property, it does not change that fact that you are still violating their rights.
What you're suggesting is that, as an author, if I write a book that sells 500,000 copies, and makes me $20 million dollars - then if I try to write another book a couple months later, that book is not my property, because your or some other entity deemed that I've already made enough money for now, and so the book can be freely copied by another, distributed, taken, etc.
As to owning the fruits of your mind, that's only been true for the last 300 years or so.
Again, whether or not a right is acknowledged doesn't change its existence.
I really don't see how the right to property follows from the right to life. Especially with the concept of private property ever expanding (real estate, intellectual property, business property, ...).
To sustain his life, a man must be free to use the product of his mind and effort as he sees fit. If he is not free to do so, then he cannot sustain his life as a human being - he would be a slave.
Whether or not people know their rights does not mean those rights don't exist. It's not that rights are expanding, but that they're being realized.
What is the purpose of the Bill of Rights if not to protect individual's rights by stating the limits of government action?
The Bill of Rights is a great document, but if the government founded on such legislation doesn't recognize the rights in that legislation, then the legislation itself is moot. This is a side issue. It basically comes down to: we need military/police to protect us from eachother and from foreign threats, and we need courts to decide contractual violations. The rest is not necessary, though it may be preferable (e.g., a legislature elected by the people).
We're talking about private entities cutting off users of their services, not about the government doing so. Obviously I'm against the latter. Yeesh...
Nope, no fail. What are you even talking about??? The quote asserts a "fundamental right" of Internet users - ie, a right to use other peoples' property (the ISP's). That must violate the actual right to property.
Fail at abstraction?
arbitrary
You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.
Other than through agreement from the people being governed there is not some objective standard that says that something is a right or not.
Quite simple. First you identify human nature - unlike with plants and animals, man's values and goals don't come automatically. Man must think to survive - he must using his reasoning mind to integrate sensory data into concepts and abstract higher concepts from that. So if you choose to live, you *should* use reason to survive. That's the basis of ethics. Ethics applied in the social setting reveals individual rights. If you should use your mind to survive, then you should be free to do so. Your right to your life is primary, and the social application of that is in the right to property - the right to do with the product of your mind as you please. You have values and goals, like any living thing, and therefore should be free to achieve those goals - rights to liberty and pursuit of happiness.
Other than through agreement from the people being governed there is not some objective standard that says that something is a right or not.
This is the notion of Contractarianism, to which I have the simple response: if the contract is the fundamental, why should I follow the contract? Clearly there must be something more fundamental if you can't simply get me, a person who chooses to live and further his values, to take your contract on faith. What you have done is demand reasons for my arguments, while supplanting faith as the reason for your arguments.
Why can't they protect these rights through legislation?
Legislation doesn't protect rights. Legislation sets the laws that are protected and upholded by courts and police/military.
Why not?
See the second sentence of my original post. A "right" that violates another right is a non-right.
If they can provide it better and cheaper then they should very much do so.
This is the idea of "the ends justify the means" - that if something is more convenient, go for it, regardless of the people and rights violated along the way. See above for why that should not be pursued.
There is no "right" to internet access, and any such attempt at asserting such a right must invariably violate actual individual rights - life, liberty, property, pursuit of happiness. Likewise, the only proper role of government is to uphold and protect these rights through the courts, police, and military. The government should not be providing internet access.
The true test will be if it can copy 16 1kb files from our server to my workstation in under 3 hours.
Because, obviously, people are going to be willing to give up internet access to prove a point.
Why would they have to give it up? Why couldn't they just switch to another provider? What prevents the from choosing another provider, and/or what makes it impossibly difficult for another company or startup to set up a new local service as a competitor? Oh, right, government in both cases.
as usually, people saying that missing the practical picture; which is ALL THE ISPs will institute the same crap so you won' have a choice.
And drive away all their customers? How would they stay in business?
Given that people don't have a right to internet access, neither we nor the government can force them to do anything against their will, even if they make stupid decisions. They should be permitted to succeed or fail by their own actions.
This is why net neutrality must be maintained.
Then you're begging for the government to violate all your other rights. If you want people to respect your rights to free speech, liberty, property, etc, you have to respect everyone else's rights to those same freedoms. You would like to have your cake and eat it too.
Ad hominem, try again.
If you had any doubts about the unintended consequences of net neutrality regulation, this should help clarify it for you. The same folks who would be "handed the keys to the Internet" to enforce net neutrality will be the ones regulating shit like this. Rather than get the government involved, we should maintain individual responsibility by boycotting ISPs with bad practices and draconian ToS.
Why would anyone in the market have had an interest in loaning to high-risk individuals if it wasn't for the "affordable housing" and "homeownership for all" agenda pushed by both the Clinton and Bush administrations? A few quick examples: driving interest rates artificially low, using Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to drive the appeal for mortgage-backed securities, using CRA bank regulations to directly force banks to loan to specific demographics in order for bank functions to occur.
Sure, once this thing got going, it's difficult to place blame, but it started somewhere, so if we're going to learn from this, we need to be able to cut it off at the beginning.
Unfortunately, economists seemed to have forgotten their Econ 101, and now think they can stop the bubble. I have no problem with them believing that, except that they're feeding their nonsense to idiot politicians!