How the hell is this insightful? Are you all really that stupid? How is having a non-profit government run option a monopoly when you can still get private for-profit insurance?
This country is seriously lost. The corporations control the media and you sheep just lap it up without using your brains. Consistently voting against your best interest and only in the interest of the richest 5%. Hating anything the government does and happily cheering on the CEOs that get paid millions as their companies fail.
The worst thing is that your stupidity is costing me (and yourself) money. Having something that could actually reduce the cost of health insurance and forcing them to compete for once (they are like MLB and are not subject to anti-competition laws). And the rest of the world looks at us like we are idiots because we are fighting against the government helping us all out. Pathetic. You all just make me sick.
Oh God, your arguments are just stupid. Wealth disparity is actually a huge issue. An economy which has the wealth concentrated in the few is going to suffer because it has a poorer middle class. The middle class are the consumers. If you weaken them by concentrating all the wealth at the top, it means less money for them to buy the products that companies produce. But when you allow the rich to control the government, you get what we are getting now. The rich get richer and the rest of us gets poorer. The rich reduce taxes on themselves so as to burden it more on the middle class. The rich control their salaries so they get paid millions and millions of dollars even if their companies fail miserably.
No one is saying that we all should get paid the same for doing different work. That is the argument that the weak minded use as a straw man. What we need is a strong middle class. But we are going in the opposite direction because the rich control a lot of the media. They own Fox News and Limbaugh. They tell you that government is the root of all evil so you hate them. At the same time the pay off government to make them be taxed less and have tax loopholes so that they can fleece more money from the rest of us.
You cry "oh, but the rich, look at their tax rate, it is so unfair!". But you don't see the effective tax rate they are paying in the end. Turns out they get taxed much less than someone in the middle class like me.
You ignore facts that some public schools are actually very good. It really more depends on the neighborhood than it does on the fact that it is socialism. If the public school system didn't exist, then some would get no education at all which would have an extremely negative impact on society. You have to wake up and understand that all countries blend different philosophies. Pure capitalism and pure socialism would both be disasters. While having a single payer health insurance plan is socialism, it would be positive for this country since it would remove profit from the equation and would be better since insurance works best when it is over a larger population. But because it is socialism, people stop using their brain and say how horrible it is. Look what capitalism is doing. Record profits for people who tell you you can't have insurance because you are pregnant or you were raped. People not being able to afford insurance and having to go to the ER (the most expensive care) and being unable to pay causing our premiums to go up when they could have solved the problem with a doctor's visit. Insurance company boards telling people they can't get treatment their doctor recommends condemning them to death or debt (while they get a nice fat bonus for doing it).
Capitalism and socialism are not inherently good or evil. There are ways to use either that are positive and negative. We need to reward those people who work hard and that compete better than others. Pure socialism removes any incentives to work hard. But pure capitalism has its pit falls as well. Companies that get so large that their failure would destroy the economy of a nation. Companies that are so rich they control the government and stifle any innovation in an area thus removing any incentive to try to start a business in that area.
Equality taken to extremes is bad. But making equality seem like it is evil in all cases is dangerously stupid and extreme. Should women not be treated equally? Should you not be treated equally because of your skin color? Your religion? If you are talented, none of that stuff should matter and you should be allowed to compete along with other things.
When people fight for equality, it is not to make us all the same, it is to make things fair. We don't want to cut off Phelps arm to make him slower. We want to make sure that if there is some minority kid out there that is faster than him, that he gets that same chance to compete. That's equality and that's American. That no matter who you are, you are given a chance to make the most of yourself. It is not at all about trying to get in the way of others. You listen to way too much garbage if you believe that is what equality is about.
DigiShaman believes that he alone has all the answers. He believe he know what people like Obama thinks because he watches Fox News and listens to Rush Limbaugh. DigiShaman doesn't care about facts or research because that has nothing to do with being right, he knows he is right if he believes it really hard. More right than anyone on Slashdot.
Is DigiShaman mad? Nope. Well, not any more than all the other people screaming about how socialism is the root of all evil, how Obama isn't an American, and how deep down they can't stand that someone who isn't white is president.
People's response to claims of piracy by game makers: - There is no piracy. - To the extent that piracy exists, which it doesn't, it's your fault. - If you try to protect your game, we'll steal it as a matter of principle.
It's like, who wouldn't want to bend over backward in their service? You need to know it, because nobody else is going to tell you: you guys sound like Goddamned subway vagrants. Of course when you speak exclusively to each other, it all sounds so reasonable. It'll be reasonable when you all board the bus, and the songs you sing en route to excoriate your enemies will be forceful, but within reason; and when you douse yourself with gasoline and immolate yourself in front of the offices of Infinity Ward, one assumes this will be reasonable also.
Your question is fallacious as well. It is impossible to measure that with any accuracy. Does piracy contribute to loss sales? Absolutely. How much? No where near as many people who pirate, but certainly a few who pirated would probably have bought if piracy wasn't possible.
Maybe they aren't working on the next game because it isn't worth it since too many people pirate instead of buy. This hurts the small, independent, innovative game companies more than the larger ones.
There is no way to test that with any accuracy so your question is stupid and pointless. We can only base metrics on things we can measure. What they gave were numbers. They draw their conclusions, but we can at least look at the numbers and draw our own (assuming the numbers aren't made up).
It is possible that the game wasn't very good and so everyone who tried it hated it. Possible, but given the variation of people's opinion and the fact that they are getting high scores makes it seem like they are probably playing it and enjoying it enough to get those scores. We could conclude that all of these people who pirated would never have bought the game in the first place. That still has a negative effect since these people are using the infrastructure to submit scores wasting resources that otherwise would be devoted to paying customers (of course, this is a minimal amount of traffic that probably doesn't have any real impact on users, but it seems like AT&T would as much of their resources as possible since it is struggling with all the data iPhone users generate). What I would conclude from this is that the "try before buy" people are an extremely small minority. Since they recorded the people who submitted scores, we can see that a lot of people are pirating and a lot of them are actually playing the game...not just downloading it and never touching it. It is impossible to guess how many of those people would have bought the game if they couldn't pirate. I doubt the answer would be none. I doubt the answer would be most. I imagine a few of them would have though thus cutting in to this companies profits. But doesn't matter what I think, it matters what the game companies think. And what they are going to see is a loss of profit and will probably want better DRM. Piracy hurts the companies (or at least that is what it looks like to the people of the company) so they do things to try to try to protect their software which can cause more problems for the consumers. Hate DRM? You should hate pirates then.
It is immoral because the person who creates something is allowed to charge whatever they want for it. You have the right to think that the price is outrageous and not pay. You do not have a right to take their work and use it without their permission. You are not stealing...that's fine. This is different. It is still depriving someone of the payment they deserve for their work for your own selfish reasons.
What I find funny is that this site is predominantly a libertarian mindset. Yet piracy is really a form of socialism. I don't think socialism is inherently evil, there are a lot of good applications of socialism (like public education). But piracy is the worst form of socialism. You are taking from the creative/productive people and giving to the lazy/uncreative/unproductive masses. You are stifling creativity since if the creative people don't make a profit due to your laziness to pay for what you use, they stop creating things.
Ok, let's take your scenario. Now that you can replicate everything, there is no profit in making anything anymore. So who will make new cars? No one under the current profit model. So that means you are stuck with all the current technology for cars because no one is going to make anything new or innovative since it would be a waste. Of course, in your scenario, it wouldn't really matter because people could have whatever they wanted.
But there is no need to make an analogy for this because it isn't a difficult topic to understand. I spend years of my life ot hundreds of people to create software. Once the software is replicated, it is infinitely reproducible. But I still had to pay all the people or myself for the time so that I can feed myself and my family and afford to live in this society. Since this is my creation, I have a right to charge what I want for the software. You have the right to think the price is not reasonable and not buy the product. You do not have the right to use it without paying for it. It may not cause a loss to me like if you were to steal my car. The fact is you are ethically and legally in the wrong. If everyone was like you, then very few people would make software and it would only be their spare time hobby since they would have to find another way to make a living. The quality and the quantity of software would suffer from this. All of your justification are just pathetic ways to skirt around the issue of not paying people for the work that they did. If you want to pirate, go ahead. Just don't try to morally justify it. Because it is immoral. Period.
Umm, just because statistics can be used in any way to support whatever belief you want, it doesn't mean your anecdotal crap trumps their data. 0 pirates buying something is a pretty hard number to argue with. The fact is, despite what people on here want you to believe, most people just don't pay for things. It has nothing to do with just trying it out and seeing if it is good, it has to do with people knowing they can get something for free and not suffer any consequences.
The problem with your method is that anyone can find some reason to think someone is "evil" and deserves to be "punished". If they are evil, just don't buy their crap. There is really no excuse for piracy...despite what the Slashdot groupthink wants to force you to believe.
My follow on question to you would be why do you think it is wrong for private companies to collect information that people put on the Internet by their own free will?
Uh, no it isn't. Medicare covers a large number of people and you are trying to tell people that only a small number of doctor's offices deal with Medicare? Who the heck does your fact checking, Glenn Beck?
Any insurance policy is all about shifting the cost of unhealthy people on to healthy people. You have no idea if you are going to get a catastrophic illness. Even if you eat right, are young, etc, is not guarantee. A friend of mine just died from leukemia at 31. Are you trying to say you don't want a drug plan...that you want to only pay for a catastrophic illness and you take the rest of the cost. Well, then do that. Government run full coverage health care would probably still be cheaper than if you only got catastrophic insurance from a private for-profit company. And enjoy paying $100+ for doctor's visits.
This shows your ignorance (and the ignorance of your nurse aunt, which is kind of sad, since she should know better). Many "complications" with vaccines are just people getting sick naturally and then blaming the vaccine. Also, vaccines don't do something magical beyond what your immune system does. It basically tells your immune system what to look out for (in a safe environment) so that it knows how to fight the problem if it encounters it. It doesn't make your immune system lazy...that is just stupid.
You dumb people with your anecdotal evidence are going to get people killed. If you don't want to take it because you are paranoid and refuse to research the issue...fine, don't do it. But don't tell other people to buy in to your stupidity.
Pretty much any reason these days is used as an excuse to pirate. It's easy to find something you don't like in any game to make some sort of excuse. These people are just trying to justify breaking the law. Just don't pirate.
You would have a point if MS ever advertised that you could use any third party storage device. I don't know that they ever did...and I imagine if they did someone would have already posted it. Generally software updates are a good thing as it increases functionality and reduces bugs. Unfortunately, for consoles it also means that they try to control their product more as well. This is the reality of consoles though. The current industry players all want locked down standardized hardware so that they maximize their profits and reduce piracy.
Just pretend they are apple. All they are trying to do is "control the experience" so that everyone has the best experience possible. Third party hardware could lessen your experience because it may not work as well. Yeah, it is BS, but for some reason people on here believe it when Apple tells it to them.
I think most gamers look at what games are on each system. I don't think they care about storage. Besides, if you cared you would buy an elite anyways. I don't see this really changing the playing field at all. It will only be another point PS3 fanboys use in their endless war of stupidity versus the other fanboys.
By standard controller I mean the xbox/360/ps2/ps3 controller. I don't need to go back in time when I only had a couple of buttons like the NES. Nor do I need to use hand gestures or swing my arm around in place of pushing a button.
I do not own a Wii, but a lot of people I hang out with do. I have played it, it was fun, but not anything that made me want to buy it. It was only interesting when there was a group of people together and we are drinking. I like RPGs, and other than Tales of Symphonia 2, the Wii is really weak on those. Heck, even Final Fantasy is going multi-platform and the Wii isn't included because its hardware is too weak.
Like I said, I like RPGs. Tales of Vesperia, Mass Effect, Eternal Sonata, Fable 2, Blue Dragon, etc. etc.
People have been saying the PC has been doomed for years. Quite frankly, the arguments are at best moronic. Keyboard and mouse is superior to other inputs for certain games. And most people would rather have a controller than a KB/mouse when they are sitting on a sofa.
Slashdot Mirror
Or maybe not paying the CEO 1000 times what we make would help too.
How the hell is this insightful? Are you all really that stupid? How is having a non-profit government run option a monopoly when you can still get private for-profit insurance?
This country is seriously lost. The corporations control the media and you sheep just lap it up without using your brains. Consistently voting against your best interest and only in the interest of the richest 5%. Hating anything the government does and happily cheering on the CEOs that get paid millions as their companies fail.
The worst thing is that your stupidity is costing me (and yourself) money. Having something that could actually reduce the cost of health insurance and forcing them to compete for once (they are like MLB and are not subject to anti-competition laws). And the rest of the world looks at us like we are idiots because we are fighting against the government helping us all out. Pathetic. You all just make me sick.
Oh God, your arguments are just stupid. Wealth disparity is actually a huge issue. An economy which has the wealth concentrated in the few is going to suffer because it has a poorer middle class. The middle class are the consumers. If you weaken them by concentrating all the wealth at the top, it means less money for them to buy the products that companies produce. But when you allow the rich to control the government, you get what we are getting now. The rich get richer and the rest of us gets poorer. The rich reduce taxes on themselves so as to burden it more on the middle class. The rich control their salaries so they get paid millions and millions of dollars even if their companies fail miserably.
No one is saying that we all should get paid the same for doing different work. That is the argument that the weak minded use as a straw man. What we need is a strong middle class. But we are going in the opposite direction because the rich control a lot of the media. They own Fox News and Limbaugh. They tell you that government is the root of all evil so you hate them. At the same time the pay off government to make them be taxed less and have tax loopholes so that they can fleece more money from the rest of us.
You cry "oh, but the rich, look at their tax rate, it is so unfair!". But you don't see the effective tax rate they are paying in the end. Turns out they get taxed much less than someone in the middle class like me.
You ignore facts that some public schools are actually very good. It really more depends on the neighborhood than it does on the fact that it is socialism. If the public school system didn't exist, then some would get no education at all which would have an extremely negative impact on society. You have to wake up and understand that all countries blend different philosophies. Pure capitalism and pure socialism would both be disasters. While having a single payer health insurance plan is socialism, it would be positive for this country since it would remove profit from the equation and would be better since insurance works best when it is over a larger population. But because it is socialism, people stop using their brain and say how horrible it is. Look what capitalism is doing. Record profits for people who tell you you can't have insurance because you are pregnant or you were raped. People not being able to afford insurance and having to go to the ER (the most expensive care) and being unable to pay causing our premiums to go up when they could have solved the problem with a doctor's visit. Insurance company boards telling people they can't get treatment their doctor recommends condemning them to death or debt (while they get a nice fat bonus for doing it).
Capitalism and socialism are not inherently good or evil. There are ways to use either that are positive and negative. We need to reward those people who work hard and that compete better than others. Pure socialism removes any incentives to work hard. But pure capitalism has its pit falls as well. Companies that get so large that their failure would destroy the economy of a nation. Companies that are so rich they control the government and stifle any innovation in an area thus removing any incentive to try to start a business in that area.
Equality taken to extremes is bad. But making equality seem like it is evil in all cases is dangerously stupid and extreme. Should women not be treated equally? Should you not be treated equally because of your skin color? Your religion? If you are talented, none of that stuff should matter and you should be allowed to compete along with other things.
When people fight for equality, it is not to make us all the same, it is to make things fair. We don't want to cut off Phelps arm to make him slower. We want to make sure that if there is some minority kid out there that is faster than him, that he gets that same chance to compete. That's equality and that's American. That no matter who you are, you are given a chance to make the most of yourself. It is not at all about trying to get in the way of others. You listen to way too much garbage if you believe that is what equality is about.
DigiShaman believes that he alone has all the answers. He believe he know what people like Obama thinks because he watches Fox News and listens to Rush Limbaugh. DigiShaman doesn't care about facts or research because that has nothing to do with being right, he knows he is right if he believes it really hard. More right than anyone on Slashdot.
Is DigiShaman mad? Nope. Well, not any more than all the other people screaming about how socialism is the root of all evil, how Obama isn't an American, and how deep down they can't stand that someone who isn't white is president.
whoosh!
People's response to claims of piracy by game makers:
- There is no piracy.
- To the extent that piracy exists, which it doesn't, it's your fault.
- If you try to protect your game, we'll steal it as a matter of principle.
It's like, who wouldn't want to bend over backward in their service? You need to know it, because nobody else is going to tell you: you guys sound like Goddamned subway vagrants. Of course when you speak exclusively to each other, it all sounds so reasonable. It'll be reasonable when you all board the bus, and the songs you sing en route to excoriate your enemies will be forceful, but within reason; and when you douse yourself with gasoline and immolate yourself in front of the offices of Infinity Ward, one assumes this will be reasonable also.
Your question is fallacious as well. It is impossible to measure that with any accuracy. Does piracy contribute to loss sales? Absolutely. How much? No where near as many people who pirate, but certainly a few who pirated would probably have bought if piracy wasn't possible.
Maybe they aren't working on the next game because it isn't worth it since too many people pirate instead of buy. This hurts the small, independent, innovative game companies more than the larger ones.
There is no way to test that with any accuracy so your question is stupid and pointless. We can only base metrics on things we can measure. What they gave were numbers. They draw their conclusions, but we can at least look at the numbers and draw our own (assuming the numbers aren't made up).
It is possible that the game wasn't very good and so everyone who tried it hated it. Possible, but given the variation of people's opinion and the fact that they are getting high scores makes it seem like they are probably playing it and enjoying it enough to get those scores. We could conclude that all of these people who pirated would never have bought the game in the first place. That still has a negative effect since these people are using the infrastructure to submit scores wasting resources that otherwise would be devoted to paying customers (of course, this is a minimal amount of traffic that probably doesn't have any real impact on users, but it seems like AT&T would as much of their resources as possible since it is struggling with all the data iPhone users generate). What I would conclude from this is that the "try before buy" people are an extremely small minority. Since they recorded the people who submitted scores, we can see that a lot of people are pirating and a lot of them are actually playing the game...not just downloading it and never touching it. It is impossible to guess how many of those people would have bought the game if they couldn't pirate. I doubt the answer would be none. I doubt the answer would be most. I imagine a few of them would have though thus cutting in to this companies profits. But doesn't matter what I think, it matters what the game companies think. And what they are going to see is a loss of profit and will probably want better DRM. Piracy hurts the companies (or at least that is what it looks like to the people of the company) so they do things to try to try to protect their software which can cause more problems for the consumers. Hate DRM? You should hate pirates then.
It is immoral because the person who creates something is allowed to charge whatever they want for it. You have the right to think that the price is outrageous and not pay. You do not have a right to take their work and use it without their permission. You are not stealing...that's fine. This is different. It is still depriving someone of the payment they deserve for their work for your own selfish reasons.
What I find funny is that this site is predominantly a libertarian mindset. Yet piracy is really a form of socialism. I don't think socialism is inherently evil, there are a lot of good applications of socialism (like public education). But piracy is the worst form of socialism. You are taking from the creative/productive people and giving to the lazy/uncreative/unproductive masses. You are stifling creativity since if the creative people don't make a profit due to your laziness to pay for what you use, they stop creating things.
And it is illegal.
Ok, let's take your scenario. Now that you can replicate everything, there is no profit in making anything anymore. So who will make new cars? No one under the current profit model. So that means you are stuck with all the current technology for cars because no one is going to make anything new or innovative since it would be a waste. Of course, in your scenario, it wouldn't really matter because people could have whatever they wanted.
But there is no need to make an analogy for this because it isn't a difficult topic to understand. I spend years of my life ot hundreds of people to create software. Once the software is replicated, it is infinitely reproducible. But I still had to pay all the people or myself for the time so that I can feed myself and my family and afford to live in this society. Since this is my creation, I have a right to charge what I want for the software. You have the right to think the price is not reasonable and not buy the product. You do not have the right to use it without paying for it. It may not cause a loss to me like if you were to steal my car. The fact is you are ethically and legally in the wrong. If everyone was like you, then very few people would make software and it would only be their spare time hobby since they would have to find another way to make a living. The quality and the quantity of software would suffer from this. All of your justification are just pathetic ways to skirt around the issue of not paying people for the work that they did. If you want to pirate, go ahead. Just don't try to morally justify it. Because it is immoral. Period.
Umm, just because statistics can be used in any way to support whatever belief you want, it doesn't mean your anecdotal crap trumps their data. 0 pirates buying something is a pretty hard number to argue with. The fact is, despite what people on here want you to believe, most people just don't pay for things. It has nothing to do with just trying it out and seeing if it is good, it has to do with people knowing they can get something for free and not suffer any consequences.
The problem with your method is that anyone can find some reason to think someone is "evil" and deserves to be "punished". If they are evil, just don't buy their crap. There is really no excuse for piracy...despite what the Slashdot groupthink wants to force you to believe.
My follow on question to you would be why do you think it is wrong for private companies to collect information that people put on the Internet by their own free will?
Uh, no it isn't. Medicare covers a large number of people and you are trying to tell people that only a small number of doctor's offices deal with Medicare? Who the heck does your fact checking, Glenn Beck?
Any insurance policy is all about shifting the cost of unhealthy people on to healthy people. You have no idea if you are going to get a catastrophic illness. Even if you eat right, are young, etc, is not guarantee. A friend of mine just died from leukemia at 31. Are you trying to say you don't want a drug plan...that you want to only pay for a catastrophic illness and you take the rest of the cost. Well, then do that. Government run full coverage health care would probably still be cheaper than if you only got catastrophic insurance from a private for-profit company. And enjoy paying $100+ for doctor's visits.
So I take it you don't have a Wii.
"Swine Flu" is about as accurate a name as "Mexican Flu. Just an FYI.
This shows your ignorance (and the ignorance of your nurse aunt, which is kind of sad, since she should know better). Many "complications" with vaccines are just people getting sick naturally and then blaming the vaccine. Also, vaccines don't do something magical beyond what your immune system does. It basically tells your immune system what to look out for (in a safe environment) so that it knows how to fight the problem if it encounters it. It doesn't make your immune system lazy...that is just stupid.
You dumb people with your anecdotal evidence are going to get people killed. If you don't want to take it because you are paranoid and refuse to research the issue...fine, don't do it. But don't tell other people to buy in to your stupidity.
Pretty much any reason these days is used as an excuse to pirate. It's easy to find something you don't like in any game to make some sort of excuse. These people are just trying to justify breaking the law. Just don't pirate.
You would have a point if MS ever advertised that you could use any third party storage device. I don't know that they ever did...and I imagine if they did someone would have already posted it. Generally software updates are a good thing as it increases functionality and reduces bugs. Unfortunately, for consoles it also means that they try to control their product more as well. This is the reality of consoles though. The current industry players all want locked down standardized hardware so that they maximize their profits and reduce piracy.
Just pretend they are apple. All they are trying to do is "control the experience" so that everyone has the best experience possible. Third party hardware could lessen your experience because it may not work as well. Yeah, it is BS, but for some reason people on here believe it when Apple tells it to them.
I think most gamers look at what games are on each system. I don't think they care about storage. Besides, if you cared you would buy an elite anyways. I don't see this really changing the playing field at all. It will only be another point PS3 fanboys use in their endless war of stupidity versus the other fanboys.
The Wii has more market share as well...so he still doesn't have a point.
By standard controller I mean the xbox/360/ps2/ps3 controller. I don't need to go back in time when I only had a couple of buttons like the NES. Nor do I need to use hand gestures or swing my arm around in place of pushing a button.
I do not own a Wii, but a lot of people I hang out with do. I have played it, it was fun, but not anything that made me want to buy it. It was only interesting when there was a group of people together and we are drinking. I like RPGs, and other than Tales of Symphonia 2, the Wii is really weak on those. Heck, even Final Fantasy is going multi-platform and the Wii isn't included because its hardware is too weak.
Like I said, I like RPGs. Tales of Vesperia, Mass Effect, Eternal Sonata, Fable 2, Blue Dragon, etc. etc.
People have been saying the PC has been doomed for years. Quite frankly, the arguments are at best moronic. Keyboard and mouse is superior to other inputs for certain games. And most people would rather have a controller than a KB/mouse when they are sitting on a sofa.
It already does. Just keep your finger on alt.