Government force should be met with force if necessary. But contracts entered into voluntarily are the basis of civilization. You're advocating a return to the day when contracts couldn't be enforced, which would destroy the availability of the very services you hope to steal. Your position is not only irrational and immoral, but short-sighted.
Control click on an app's icon and choose "Show contents" and you can see everything.
Re:Klein's a Leftist with an agenda, not a journal
on
China's All-Seeing Eye
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· Score: 1
Thanks for pointing this out. I was too disgusted by someone trying to claim that those countries represent capitalism to notice his unstated assumption that freedom and democracy are the same thing. You can ask 1,000 people today to define those two terms, and most of them will give synonymous definitions, at least one of which has to be incorrect. It's nice that there are still a few people who understand that democracy really means "dictatorship by the majority."
Re:Klein's a Leftist with an agenda, not a journal
on
China's All-Seeing Eye
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· Score: 1
Your assumptions are so ill-founded that it makes the rest of your rant worthless. I don't defend the United States as free, as you seem to think. We've been slowing losing our economic freedom since at least the late 19th century. (The only positive things insofar as freedom in this country is that we've gained a bit in some areas of social freedom.) Most companies are so "in bed" with big government today that we have Facism Lite, not capitalism. You can't declare support of the current U.S. economic system to be my position and then try to make me defend it. In addition to making unsupported assumptions about my point of view, you don't seem to understand that free people can do evil things, but that doesn't make the system under which they exist evil. Do some free people help evil people do evil? Sure, but that has nothing to do with making real freedom evil.
Re:Klein's a Leftist with an agenda, not a journal
on
China's All-Seeing Eye
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· Score: 1
You're talking about governments which exercised huge control the economy (in addition to repressing their people in other ways). If you want to call that capitalism, that's fine. But it's not what a free market really is. Even to take your definition, you could have a far more statistically significant correlation between capitalism and freedom than between capitalism and authoritarianism. For you to call Nazi Germany a capitalist country (when the economy was quite controlled in a top-down fashion) shows who is truly "blinded by your ideology."
Re:Klein's a Leftist with an agenda, not a journal
on
China's All-Seeing Eye
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· Score: 1
I think you mean "define" instead of "quantify," because surely you're not looking to put a number on it. And it's not especially hard to do. To be free is to be able to make your own decision insofar as you're not infringing on others' rights or property. The difficult part for some people (especially those on the Left) is that so many of them don't believe that people truly have the right to make their own decisions and they don't believe that private ownership of property is moral. Of course, those on the repressive Right don't believe in freedom, either, but they want control in different areas. Typically, a Leftist is willing to give you social freedom, but wants control of your economic life, while a Rightist is willing to give you economic freedom, but wants to control your social life. Someone who really believes in individual freedom doesn't want to control either your social or your economic life.
Klein's a Leftist with an agenda, not a journalist
on
China's All-Seeing Eye
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· Score: 0, Flamebait
It's very important to point out that Naomi Klein is a Leftist who hates capitalism. This story isn't from a journalist who's trying to be fair. It's from a dedicated ideologue who is promoting her new book, "The Shock Doctrine." In the summary of this story, you can tell that something is amiss when you read, "...the most efficient delivery system for capitalism is actually a communist-style police state." That has nothing to do with what's gone before it, so its lack of sense in context makes it jump out, because it's not supported by (or related to) anything else in the summary so far. Then you realize who the author of the piece is and you realize this isn't a technology story. It's a Leftist political piece dressed up for Slashdot.
Klein is trying to take something that we all will hate (the spying and lack of freedom in communist China) and forcing it into being linked to capitalism. To see the illogic of this, all one has to do is see that the countries that are the freest also tend to be the most capitalistic. The ones that are the most politically repressive also tend to be the most anti-capitalist. The Chinese experiment in limited economic freedom stands out because it's an anomaly, not because it's typical. In fact, what the Chinese fear more than anything else is probably what will eventually happen -- people who become accustomed to making money and controlling their financial decisions eventually start wanting political freedom.
There is a limited IT story here, because western companies are selling technology that's being used for bad purposes by the Chinese government. But it ultimately makes as much sense as lambasting Ford because the bank robber drove a Mustang as his getaway car. Just understand that Klein has an agenda here, and being evenhanded toward the free market certainly isn't on that agenda.
Just because iTunes doesn't organize music the way you want it to doesn't make it a "horrible music organizer." For me and for many people, it's an excellent music organizer and playback system. In fact, it's my only music system at home, because it was so superior to standalone stereos. What you really seem to mean is that it doesn't do what you want, so it doesn't meet your needs. That's reasonable. But don't pretend that a product is lousy just because it's not designed the way you would have designed it.
So why is it astroturfing when people disagree with you? Can you provide some specific evidence of comments here that are paid for? If you have FACTS, let's hear them. Otherwise, you're throwing around charges that you can't back up.
I hate Windows. I detest Microsoft. But it would be sheer madness to mandate that an operating system can't be included with a computer. It would make just as much sense to mandate that microwave ovens be sold without the software to operate them or that cars be sold without engines. It's an accident of computer history that the OS is sold by a different company than the one that makes the computer. It doesn't have to be that way -- and it WON'T always be that way, IMO. Microsoft will eventually lose its dominance, but the proper way to deal with it is to quit buying the junk that Microsoft makes. I frequently hear people claim that we HAVE to buy Microsoft products, but I assure them that I haven't given a penny to the folks in Redmond for many, many years.
Whether you're a Mac user (as I am) or a user of Linux or BSD or some other little-known OS, we do better when we produce or recommend alternatives to Microsoft that actually work well for end users. Mandating that computers be sold without operating systems would end up hurting the vast majority of people -- who DO want to buy a computer that they can just turn out and do work on. Unlike many geeks, "normal" people don't want to be forced to buy components and make them work on their own. To FORCE this takes away people's freedom to choose. They deserve that freedom, even if many of them make a choice that I despise.
You said that you've seen reviews claiming that that the iPhone scratches easily, right? So where exactly are those reviews? ALL of the reviews I've seen so far from people who have actually used the iPhone for any length of time have said that they don't see it as an issue. The ONLY people I've seen bringing it up are those who are purely speculating. So if you've seen reviews by people who have actually REVIEWED the iPhone (as opposed to speculated about it) and had that problem, I'd be very interested in seeing links to them. If you don't provide any links, I'll assume you're making things up at worst and exaggerating at best.
If a bank robber makes his getaway in a Ford, it doesn't mean that Ford is somehow responsible for the robbery. If a pair of kidnappers co-ordinate their activities via a Nokia phone on the Verizon network, it doesn't make Nokia and Verizon responsible for their actions. And if a drunken husband grabs a butcher knife purchased at Target and kills his wife with it, neither Target nor the knife maker has any responsibility.
The real agenda of the person who wrote this spin is to say, "Guns and any associated parts are bad. If you deal with weapons in any way, you are evil. Therefore, eBay is evil because it doesn't have the policy I want it to have."
Individuals have to take responsibility for what they do, and the rest of us have to keep a sense of proportion about how we react to the actions of crazed lunatics. Statistically, somewhere in the neighborhood of 120 people have died in this country in car accidents in the last 24 hours, but nobody is stupid enough or irresponsible enough to suggest that the utility of car travel be taken away from everyone else because of these deaths. Bad things happen sometimes in life. Sometimes we can't control all of them. We will NEVER have a completely safe world -- and it's not going to made perfect by following the panicked political agenda of those who insist that the rights of millions be destroyed (especially when their favored course of action wouldn't even save lives).
The box office number you quoted is accurate, but you're leaving out the fact that the production budget was $39 million. In addition, a movie is going to have an additional budget for promotion and prints somewhere between 50 and 100 percent of its budget. So it would have actually cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $60 million to $80 million. When a movie costs that much, but only grosses $25.5 million, it's a disaster.
I wanted to like, "Serenity." I went to the theatre expecting to like it. But I was bored silly by a boring plot that was full of holes. The characters weren't especially compelling. I couldn't figure out what was so great about this. After finishing it, I couldn't even figure out what was tolerable about it. From what I've seen since then, it seems as though "Serenity" fans are fanatically loyal and vocal, but most people who weren't already fans didn't find the movie especially entertaining. Obviously, I haven't taken a poll, but the box office results must mean SOMETHING.
As for "Star Wars," I don't agree that it necessarily ought to be classified as fantasy, but it's also silly to see it as representing all of science fiction, as so many people do. "Star Wars" was an example of one particular branch of sci-fi, but it came to be seen as what sci-fi really was because ignorant studio execs all tried to clone it after it made a lot of money. Good science fiction is easy to find it books, but very hard to find on screen, IMO. It's hard to see either "Serenity" OR "Star Wars" as the best sci-fi movie ever.
Can we agree that it is reasonable for a company (or person) to maximize profit to the degree possible without being immoral? If we can agree on that, then the question becomes defining what might be immoral. Within the framework of this discussion, I've made it clear that I would agree that deception, theft or failure to honor contracts would be immoral, so I think my other posts have shown that I'm not in favor of those sorts of behavior. I'm not really trying to define all things a company can do which might be wrong. I'm trying to get someone who thinks Haliburton is "greedy" ON THIS POINT (of moving headquarters to lower its tax burden) to explain WHY it is immoral or wrong in ANY way to maximize profit by doing this. Nobody has made a serious attempt to do that, insofar as I can tell. To merely assert that it's immoral to save on taxes by moving a company's headquarters is just as irrational as it would be (to give a random example pulled out of the air) to assert that it's immoral for a company to increase its profits by advertising. I can't prove a negative. It's up to those who assert this action is greed and immoral to at least TRY to defend their position. Otherwise, they're doing nothing other than blowing hot air.
You won't even bother to define what moving a company's headquarters has to do with ethical behavior. Or are you NOW claiming that taking legal action to limit your taxes is unethical? You're confusing entirely different things. In other words, you're being emotional instead of rational. If you will be rational and at least ATTEMPT to prove what you're saying, I might have some respect for you even if I disagree with you. So far, though, you're just making wild emotional assertions -- and such yammering will never will rational arguments.
Ummmm, that's because you HAVEN'T responded. You merely assert something as fact. I'm not "ethically challenged." I merely want facts that are relevant rather than your moral outrage which is badly misplaced in this case. I've extrapolated your postion and show how your position is completely relativistic, but you won't address the issue at which profit becomes greed. You seem to think it's easier to posture than to think.
You seem to have lost the ability to reason on this point. It seems that you think you can merely declare that something is greedy and it becomes it. No real argument is necessary, to your way of thinking. You throw up an irrational straw man when you bring up "lying, cheating and stealing" in a discussion of alleged greed. From your point of view, merely mentioning things that we agree are immoral is enough to define another (completely unrelated) action as greed. You spend plenty of time fulminating about Haliburton's OTHER alleged misdeeds, but those have no bearing on this disagreement.
Please explain this comment RATIONALLY. If a person or a company has a choice of paying $1 in taxes or $2 in taxes, why would it be relevant whether that person or company has ties to someone high in government if he (or it) chooses to pay the lower amount by taking a voluntary and completely legal action?
You seem to be letting your apparent hatred of Dick Cheney affect your ability to reason. Personally, I hate most of what the Bush administration has done (including everything about invading Iraq), but I can be rational about a business decision that a company makes, even if it was formerly headed by the veep.
If a company is maximally capable of making $10 million in profit (which you define as greed, since it's maximal), at which magical point does profit before something other than "greed"? $9.9 million? $5 million? $1 million? $1? You're trying to assign moral labels to success and failure. By your irrational thinking, an unsucessful company (which is losing money) must be moral, but a successful company (which is making money) must be greedy. That's just plain stupid.
Your steam engine metaphor doesn't make any sense. If you want to point to specific things which a company (or a person) does which is immoral for some specific reason, that's fine. But pretending that it's immoral to be as successful as possible by maximizing profits is irrational. So far, ALL you've done is assert that maximizing profit is irrational. Doing specific things such as cheating people or deceiving people or not honoring agreements can reasonably be criticized as immoral, and I would agree completely about such things. But profit is many times the result of doing what's right, NOT doing what's wrong.
You haven't even pretended to answer the real question, which is WHY it would be greed for Haliburton to move its headquarters. You can't rationally answer that question.
Slashdot Mirror
Government force should be met with force if necessary. But contracts entered into voluntarily are the basis of civilization. You're advocating a return to the day when contracts couldn't be enforced, which would destroy the availability of the very services you hope to steal. Your position is not only irrational and immoral, but short-sighted.
Control click on an app's icon and choose "Show contents" and you can see everything.
Thanks for pointing this out. I was too disgusted by someone trying to claim that those countries represent capitalism to notice his unstated assumption that freedom and democracy are the same thing. You can ask 1,000 people today to define those two terms, and most of them will give synonymous definitions, at least one of which has to be incorrect. It's nice that there are still a few people who understand that democracy really means "dictatorship by the majority."
Your assumptions are so ill-founded that it makes the rest of your rant worthless. I don't defend the United States as free, as you seem to think. We've been slowing losing our economic freedom since at least the late 19th century. (The only positive things insofar as freedom in this country is that we've gained a bit in some areas of social freedom.) Most companies are so "in bed" with big government today that we have Facism Lite, not capitalism. You can't declare support of the current U.S. economic system to be my position and then try to make me defend it. In addition to making unsupported assumptions about my point of view, you don't seem to understand that free people can do evil things, but that doesn't make the system under which they exist evil. Do some free people help evil people do evil? Sure, but that has nothing to do with making real freedom evil.
You're talking about governments which exercised huge control the economy (in addition to repressing their people in other ways). If you want to call that capitalism, that's fine. But it's not what a free market really is. Even to take your definition, you could have a far more statistically significant correlation between capitalism and freedom than between capitalism and authoritarianism. For you to call Nazi Germany a capitalist country (when the economy was quite controlled in a top-down fashion) shows who is truly "blinded by your ideology."
I think you mean "define" instead of "quantify," because surely you're not looking to put a number on it. And it's not especially hard to do. To be free is to be able to make your own decision insofar as you're not infringing on others' rights or property. The difficult part for some people (especially those on the Left) is that so many of them don't believe that people truly have the right to make their own decisions and they don't believe that private ownership of property is moral. Of course, those on the repressive Right don't believe in freedom, either, but they want control in different areas. Typically, a Leftist is willing to give you social freedom, but wants control of your economic life, while a Rightist is willing to give you economic freedom, but wants to control your social life. Someone who really believes in individual freedom doesn't want to control either your social or your economic life.
It's very important to point out that Naomi Klein is a Leftist who hates capitalism. This story isn't from a journalist who's trying to be fair. It's from a dedicated ideologue who is promoting her new book, "The Shock Doctrine." In the summary of this story, you can tell that something is amiss when you read, "...the most efficient delivery system for capitalism is actually a communist-style police state." That has nothing to do with what's gone before it, so its lack of sense in context makes it jump out, because it's not supported by (or related to) anything else in the summary so far. Then you realize who the author of the piece is and you realize this isn't a technology story. It's a Leftist political piece dressed up for Slashdot. Klein is trying to take something that we all will hate (the spying and lack of freedom in communist China) and forcing it into being linked to capitalism. To see the illogic of this, all one has to do is see that the countries that are the freest also tend to be the most capitalistic. The ones that are the most politically repressive also tend to be the most anti-capitalist. The Chinese experiment in limited economic freedom stands out because it's an anomaly, not because it's typical. In fact, what the Chinese fear more than anything else is probably what will eventually happen -- people who become accustomed to making money and controlling their financial decisions eventually start wanting political freedom. There is a limited IT story here, because western companies are selling technology that's being used for bad purposes by the Chinese government. But it ultimately makes as much sense as lambasting Ford because the bank robber drove a Mustang as his getaway car. Just understand that Klein has an agenda here, and being evenhanded toward the free market certainly isn't on that agenda.
Actually, Safari 3.0.4 gets an 87. I just ran it.
Just because iTunes doesn't organize music the way you want it to doesn't make it a "horrible music organizer." For me and for many people, it's an excellent music organizer and playback system. In fact, it's my only music system at home, because it was so superior to standalone stereos. What you really seem to mean is that it doesn't do what you want, so it doesn't meet your needs. That's reasonable. But don't pretend that a product is lousy just because it's not designed the way you would have designed it.
So why is it astroturfing when people disagree with you? Can you provide some specific evidence of comments here that are paid for? If you have FACTS, let's hear them. Otherwise, you're throwing around charges that you can't back up.
David
I hate Windows. I detest Microsoft. But it would be sheer madness to mandate that an operating system can't be included with a computer. It would make just as much sense to mandate that microwave ovens be sold without the software to operate them or that cars be sold without engines. It's an accident of computer history that the OS is sold by a different company than the one that makes the computer. It doesn't have to be that way -- and it WON'T always be that way, IMO. Microsoft will eventually lose its dominance, but the proper way to deal with it is to quit buying the junk that Microsoft makes. I frequently hear people claim that we HAVE to buy Microsoft products, but I assure them that I haven't given a penny to the folks in Redmond for many, many years.
Whether you're a Mac user (as I am) or a user of Linux or BSD or some other little-known OS, we do better when we produce or recommend alternatives to Microsoft that actually work well for end users. Mandating that computers be sold without operating systems would end up hurting the vast majority of people -- who DO want to buy a computer that they can just turn out and do work on. Unlike many geeks, "normal" people don't want to be forced to buy components and make them work on their own. To FORCE this takes away people's freedom to choose. They deserve that freedom, even if many of them make a choice that I despise.
David
You said that you've seen reviews claiming that that the iPhone scratches easily, right? So where exactly are those reviews? ALL of the reviews I've seen so far from people who have actually used the iPhone for any length of time have said that they don't see it as an issue. The ONLY people I've seen bringing it up are those who are purely speculating. So if you've seen reviews by people who have actually REVIEWED the iPhone (as opposed to speculated about it) and had that problem, I'd be very interested in seeing links to them. If you don't provide any links, I'll assume you're making things up at worst and exaggerating at best.
David
You're asserting something as fact. Do you have actual knowledge to back up what you claim to know? Or are you just plain speculating?
I'm sure we know the answers to those questions, but let's see if you'll admit the truth.
David
If a bank robber makes his getaway in a Ford, it doesn't mean that Ford is somehow responsible for the robbery. If a pair of kidnappers co-ordinate their activities via a Nokia phone on the Verizon network, it doesn't make Nokia and Verizon responsible for their actions. And if a drunken husband grabs a butcher knife purchased at Target and kills his wife with it, neither Target nor the knife maker has any responsibility.
The real agenda of the person who wrote this spin is to say, "Guns and any associated parts are bad. If you deal with weapons in any way, you are evil. Therefore, eBay is evil because it doesn't have the policy I want it to have."
Individuals have to take responsibility for what they do, and the rest of us have to keep a sense of proportion about how we react to the actions of crazed lunatics. Statistically, somewhere in the neighborhood of 120 people have died in this country in car accidents in the last 24 hours, but nobody is stupid enough or irresponsible enough to suggest that the utility of car travel be taken away from everyone else because of these deaths. Bad things happen sometimes in life. Sometimes we can't control all of them. We will NEVER have a completely safe world -- and it's not going to made perfect by following the panicked political agenda of those who insist that the rights of millions be destroyed (especially when their favored course of action wouldn't even save lives).
David
The box office number you quoted is accurate, but you're leaving out the fact that the production budget was $39 million. In addition, a movie is going to have an additional budget for promotion and prints somewhere between 50 and 100 percent of its budget. So it would have actually cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $60 million to $80 million. When a movie costs that much, but only grosses $25.5 million, it's a disaster.
h tm
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=serenity.
David
I wanted to like, "Serenity." I went to the theatre expecting to like it. But I was bored silly by a boring plot that was full of holes. The characters weren't especially compelling. I couldn't figure out what was so great about this. After finishing it, I couldn't even figure out what was tolerable about it. From what I've seen since then, it seems as though "Serenity" fans are fanatically loyal and vocal, but most people who weren't already fans didn't find the movie especially entertaining. Obviously, I haven't taken a poll, but the box office results must mean SOMETHING.
As for "Star Wars," I don't agree that it necessarily ought to be classified as fantasy, but it's also silly to see it as representing all of science fiction, as so many people do. "Star Wars" was an example of one particular branch of sci-fi, but it came to be seen as what sci-fi really was because ignorant studio execs all tried to clone it after it made a lot of money. Good science fiction is easy to find it books, but very hard to find on screen, IMO. It's hard to see either "Serenity" OR "Star Wars" as the best sci-fi movie ever.
David
If that's true, it makes my original question even more relevant. What would it be greed to move a company's headquarters?
David
Can we agree that it is reasonable for a company (or person) to maximize profit to the degree possible without being immoral? If we can agree on that, then the question becomes defining what might be immoral. Within the framework of this discussion, I've made it clear that I would agree that deception, theft or failure to honor contracts would be immoral, so I think my other posts have shown that I'm not in favor of those sorts of behavior. I'm not really trying to define all things a company can do which might be wrong. I'm trying to get someone who thinks Haliburton is "greedy" ON THIS POINT (of moving headquarters to lower its tax burden) to explain WHY it is immoral or wrong in ANY way to maximize profit by doing this. Nobody has made a serious attempt to do that, insofar as I can tell. To merely assert that it's immoral to save on taxes by moving a company's headquarters is just as irrational as it would be (to give a random example pulled out of the air) to assert that it's immoral for a company to increase its profits by advertising. I can't prove a negative. It's up to those who assert this action is greed and immoral to at least TRY to defend their position. Otherwise, they're doing nothing other than blowing hot air.
David
You won't even bother to define what moving a company's headquarters has to do with ethical behavior. Or are you NOW claiming that taking legal action to limit your taxes is unethical? You're confusing entirely different things. In other words, you're being emotional instead of rational. If you will be rational and at least ATTEMPT to prove what you're saying, I might have some respect for you even if I disagree with you. So far, though, you're just making wild emotional assertions -- and such yammering will never will rational arguments.
David
And that has exactly ZERO to do with whether or not it's greedy to want to pay less in taxes by taking a completely legal action.
David
Ummmm, that's because you HAVEN'T responded. You merely assert something as fact. I'm not "ethically challenged." I merely want facts that are relevant rather than your moral outrage which is badly misplaced in this case. I've extrapolated your postion and show how your position is completely relativistic, but you won't address the issue at which profit becomes greed. You seem to think it's easier to posture than to think.
David
You must have misunderstood. I wanted a RATIONL argument, not merely a "guilt by association" argument.
David
You seem to have lost the ability to reason on this point. It seems that you think you can merely declare that something is greedy and it becomes it. No real argument is necessary, to your way of thinking. You throw up an irrational straw man when you bring up "lying, cheating and stealing" in a discussion of alleged greed. From your point of view, merely mentioning things that we agree are immoral is enough to define another (completely unrelated) action as greed. You spend plenty of time fulminating about Haliburton's OTHER alleged misdeeds, but those have no bearing on this disagreement.
David
Please explain this comment RATIONALLY. If a person or a company has a choice of paying $1 in taxes or $2 in taxes, why would it be relevant whether that person or company has ties to someone high in government if he (or it) chooses to pay the lower amount by taking a voluntary and completely legal action?
You seem to be letting your apparent hatred of Dick Cheney affect your ability to reason. Personally, I hate most of what the Bush administration has done (including everything about invading Iraq), but I can be rational about a business decision that a company makes, even if it was formerly headed by the veep.
David
If a company is maximally capable of making $10 million in profit (which you define as greed, since it's maximal), at which magical point does profit before something other than "greed"? $9.9 million? $5 million? $1 million? $1? You're trying to assign moral labels to success and failure. By your irrational thinking, an unsucessful company (which is losing money) must be moral, but a successful company (which is making money) must be greedy. That's just plain stupid.
Your steam engine metaphor doesn't make any sense. If you want to point to specific things which a company (or a person) does which is immoral for some specific reason, that's fine. But pretending that it's immoral to be as successful as possible by maximizing profits is irrational. So far, ALL you've done is assert that maximizing profit is irrational. Doing specific things such as cheating people or deceiving people or not honoring agreements can reasonably be criticized as immoral, and I would agree completely about such things. But profit is many times the result of doing what's right, NOT doing what's wrong.
You haven't even pretended to answer the real question, which is WHY it would be greed for Haliburton to move its headquarters. You can't rationally answer that question.
David