Perhaps because one must first accept the simple fact that freedom is proportional to the size of government. Did you miss an "inversely" before "proportional" in that sentence? I just want to be clear what you mean.
In a nutshell, the more complex and ambiguous the law, the more exploitable the law is for those who control the law.
Put another way, the bigger the government, the more profitable the business of government.
I would probably argue that the two statements are not equivalent, but rather the second follows from the first.
But what Dr. Ferris was talking about was not just ambiguous laws, but laws that contradict themselves. Such laws make it possible to declare everyone a criminal.
It's such a dead-obvious, simple truth, that I can *almost* understand why the vast majority of people refuse to believe it. Because the bigger the lie, the more people are inclined to believe it.
Someone quoted this paragraph before while I was saying essentially the same thing as the grandparent. I recognized the quote right away from the rather unique Dr. Ferris attribution. I think this alone makes it clear that the whole thing is a quote from something. From what? Well, maybe trying to find who is Dr. Ferris will lead someone to finding who is John Galt. I left the by-line out on purpose.:)
So in the end, the only people actually harmed of it are ordinary citizens who are having their rights abused by heavy handed searches. And you assume that this is not the actual intent. Why?
"Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We *want* them broken. You'd better get it straight That it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against- then you'll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We're after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you'd better get wise to it. There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted - and you create a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Rearden, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."
First of all,
A shocker! Long copyrights cause piracy of songs out less than one year! Clearly the public domain is being impoverished by being denied the heartrending artistic stylings of Justni Timberlake, forever locked up by the evil copyright lawyers!
evil? Right. Clueless as to what the word "property" means is what I would say. "Evil" is probably the word best reserved for mass murderers and socialists. I would never resort to a vaguery when a precise description is available. And "evil" is as vague as it gets.
The mass entertainment industry produces disposable culture and markets to create a perpetual demand for the new culture. That is what the pirates pirate, because that is what the pirates (and essentially everybody else) wants. Everybody wants this? I haven't heard of a single song on that list, but Ok. Actually, I heard one person talking (once) about Soulja Boy. I might be out of touch. I am only on a college campus everyday -- not somewhere mainstream. I don't download songs, but here's the top 10 torrents that showed up when I clicked on top 100 on piratebay.org:
Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts I (2008)
Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts I-IV 2008 320kbps And Extras
Jack Johnson - Sleep Through The Static (highest quality)
Rick Ross - Trilla
Queen discography (MP3@320Kbps)
Gnarls Barkley - The Odd Couple
Btw, #13 on that list is "Pink Floyd - full discography". I am not sure where wired got their info. But I would bet they are part of the conglomerate that, as you put it, "produces disposable culture". So their information as to what happens to be popular might be, shall we say, "biased". Their parent company, Condé Nast, also owns Vogue, GQ, Mademoiselle, Vanity Fair, Gormet, American Golfer, etc. 'Enough said.
when the dollar is falling almost daily. Wheat growers are having record profits, too (despite the famine). That's because the dollar has lost about 15% of its value in the past year. And now comes the torrent of accusations of conspiracy theories because I think the fed inflation figure is laughable. Not that I am saying that the right to charge for a freely(as in beer)-reproducible commodity should be equated with the right to sell a piece of property that can only be sold once without having to create it again (as in bread). Copyrights that last over 10 years is what causes piracy -- not consumers that want to treat movies the way they treat books. But the dollar buys much fewer things that anyone wants to have nowadays, so there are all the dollars people "earn" or have accumulated (when spend at the same rate) must be buying fewer things... but at higher prices.
Everyone knows that.com is the name brand for the internet.
So? That doesn't address the issue at all. The fact that something is convenient doesn't mean that it is how it is supposed to be according to the requirements. However, http://www.internic.net/faqs/domain-names.html does say that "The.com,.info,.name,.net, and.org TLDs are open and unrestricted."
And yet, in a case such as described by the article, it would seem that the more appropriate course of action would be to operate under the.eu TLD. It would certainly emphasize the fact that the intended customers are residents of the designated territory. I am not sure the case qualifies as censorship here for the very reason that having a.com TLD invites US business. And certainly US federal government has the responsibility to enforce US laws. It didn't charge the owners of the site with any crimes. It just made it more difficult for the US citizens to go around the embargo. By the way, let's not turn this into an argument about the appropriateness (vs inappropriateness) of the embargo itself. That's an entirely different issue. The issue at hand is whether the US should be enforcing the US law as applied to the US citizens. Any sovereign nation should.
But I am pretty sure that any interest that are limited to a specific territory that has a designated extension are supposed to be using that extension. Absolutely not. If you want to get a.ca, the rules require you have a Canadian presence (live there or do business there). I see. So the requirements go in the other direction. You don't have to get.ca if you live in Canada, but you have to live in Canada if you want.ca. Interesting. I am not sure why you got modded down. Certainly, you get my "interesting" vote.
Well, they are selling copyright music without permission to people located in the US. Pretty open & shut, but extraditing them to the US might be difficult.
Don't you mean that the US Citizens buy that music without permission. allmp3.ru are located within a sovereign territory operating under its laws and using the domain designated for that territory. The fact that some foreigners use advanced means of communication to buy things from them is hardly their responsibility. I mean, what's the difference between this and someone phoning them (from the US) and purchasing a CD that is to be delivered to an address inside of Russia... or even just phoning them and being put on hold while a piece of music (copyrighted in the US) is played while they hold? If the Russian law does not require them to identify the territoriality of their customers, why should they?
Let's take this example further. Utah has passed laws which prohibit many kinds of pornography. Maybe even all kinds -- I am really not certain. Does that mean all owners of Dutch brothels that advertise their establishments under.nl TLD should be charged in Utah? They are after all ignoring the fact that Utah residents can access their websites contrary to the Utah law.
If the company operates exclusively in Europe, why is it using a.com extension? Isn't the idea that they are supposed to be using.eu? I am actually not clear on whether.com was meant for the us only commercial interests or for commercial interests that were international. But I am pretty sure that any interest that are limited to a specific territory that has a designated extension are supposed to be using that extension. Which, of course, begs the question, how the hell can allmp3.ru be breaking US law?
Academic papers generally don't get counted The ggp article was using such a count as an argument for efficiency of academic research:
"Public sector research spending almost equals private sector spending, and publicly funded researchers generate a disproportionate share of the papers published in relevant fields (Stephan 1996)."
Because I am intimately familiar with the mind set of academia and the way academics set their goals and priorities. Curing ailments of comforting nature's harshness is hardly ever their concern. They are more interested in finding out something that picques their curiosity. Whereas, goal-oriented, for-profit corporations are intrested in creating things that people want so much that they are willing to part with their earning for them. So it is the corporate-driven research that produces results. The more research you move into academia, the less of it will end up producing drugs that help people. I don't see why putting innovation in quotes is justtified when describing the progress of the US pharm companies. Btw, I insist on my KLOC analogy despite the blurb about peer-review process. The only thing that the process guarantees is that the information described by those papers was not previously known. It makes not guarantee of its usefulness. Profit-seeking does.
Obviously it would not be easy to establish such a contract Why bother calling it a contract? You are talking about complete usurpation. Just call it what it is -- a tyranny. Well, good luck all that. Been tried. Been done. I guess the ghost is not walking Europe anymore. He's adapted his ways. Enjoy the slow and painful bankruptcy onsetting after the initial jubilation at the reaches attained by robbing those who produced them. When you ask yourself in 20 years "why isn't it working"? It will not be because too many people will have become corrupt. People won't change. They never did. We are the same homo sapience that lived thousands of years ago. It will be because of what you set in motion.
And yet the evidence says otherwise... How do you know? How do you know what math has already been developed, but will never get published or even mentioned due to NDA's? On what are you basing the assumption that it is not useful? Anyway, I'll assume that you haven't read the link which in the gggp which the guy trashed in ggp. I've made my arguments there. I am not gonna do point counter point when it's all there already.
Name one drug developed as a direct result of purely academic research. There might be some. But I am drawing a blank at the moment. Seems like it's all developed by pharm companies.
Then most math will never see the light of day. End of story. Thanks for posting anonymously, btw. At least we know you believe in what you have to say.
Ok, a number of people have been throwing the traditional slashdot arguments at me due to this comment. I said that I am tired. But it keeps bugging me. So I'll just try to be as clear as I can before I finally let it go. If people disagree, we'll all be worse off for it. But that's that.
Under the current ip regime there are certain winners and certain losers. There is a chain of source-to-market of innovation. Roughly it goes like this:
Someone works hard or happens to accidentally come across an innovative idea. They describe it in the most abstract terms (philosopher, pure mathematician, theoretical physicist, etc). Let's call this person A.
A explains their idea to a number of people who have some skills in using abstractly defined patterns to describing real-world objects (engineering researchers, historians, applied physicists, applied mathematicians, computer science researchers, biologists, etc.). Let's call these people B.
B describes their ideas to the people who are actually interested in manipulating real-world objects (engineers, government, reporters, artists, merchants, programmers, architects, doctors, lawyers, etc.). Let's call these people C.
Some of the C's can do their manipulation on their own, but some will need helpers because the tasks that are necessary to perform to achieve the manipulation are too strenuous or too time consuming or both. So they hire people with minimal skills and break up their task into smaller tasks that these people can perform (umm.. php programmers? jk). Let's call them D.
The reason this chain ever follows through is that the C's realize that they can improve the quality of what they do because of what B's have to say. Often enough B's say things which are of no use to C's. But currently they live off of a common pool of tips which C's throw their way in the hopes that the output of useful ideas continues.
Notice that teachers are not in this chain. Their function is to preserve existing knowledge in the society. And this is a chain of innovation. Actually, there are teachers in all 3 of B,C,D levels. They are the ones who train the next generation of aspiring members. Those who fail at the training generally end up one level lower, but I digress.
The historical confluence of events has put us at the point where the surplus of the benefits produced by the increased level of productivity is distributed as following:
B's desperately seek out A's and when they do find them the B's build castles in which the A's work undisturbed. Naturally that often leaves A's who are too far ahead undiscovered. But B's continued output depends on having occasional A's, so those able to become A's continue to have a chance to do so.
As I already said, B's live off the tips from C's. Often times they try to fool C's into thinking that what they have to say might be of potential use to C's down the line. They need the tips to survive, so they keep making often-unjustified promises to ensure that the pool of tips continues to exist.
And now we come to the player that makes it possible by doing the worst thing he can -- attempting to exploit both the B's and the D's... assuming he needs the D's for his task. The C has to keep B's well-enough-fed that they won't decide to wear the C hat as well as the B hat and refuse to share their information. The C's have to compete with each other for survival in their C position. They are the ones in control of what actually happens in the world. They have to constantly walk the fine line between being too slow to produce something and being outperformed by another C who got hold of more efficient information from some B. They draw from the pool of D's when they need them and the pool changes and adapts its basic skills to the needs of C's.
If you are still reading at this point, you have probably come up with a number of examples of people who fit two consecutive categories. They exist. They just happen to wear two hats. Sometimes they
Ok, I am all for the gold standard, but this misses an important point. Even gold-backed money is useless if they don't allow one to purchase something (other than gold) of use. The French may have more money per capita, but they can buy less goods and services and oil per person because their money is backed by a lesser production capacity and virtually no oil. Nixon didn't steal the entire value of the dollar by removing the gold backing. But he did steal a significant portion of it. So now the currency is more exposed to the random factors such as productivity, whims of oil producers, etc. Had he kept the gold standard, the backing by productivity would still make the dollar more valuable than Franc. For example, it is my understanding that Japan has no gold standard. Yet, the yen is quite strong.
Slashdot Mirror
Can you name an altruist whom you would trust with your wallet?
Don't you mean:
In a nutshell, the more complex and ambiguous the law, the more exploitable the law is for those who control the law.
Put another way, the bigger the government, the more profitable the business of government.
I would probably argue that the two statements are not equivalent, but rather the second follows from the first.
But what Dr. Ferris was talking about was not just ambiguous laws, but laws that contradict themselves. Such laws make it possible to declare everyone a criminal.
It's such a dead-obvious, simple truth, that I can *almost* understand why the vast majority of people refuse to believe it. Because the bigger the lie, the more people are inclined to believe it.Someone quoted this paragraph before while I was saying essentially the same thing as the grandparent. I recognized the quote right away from the rather unique Dr. Ferris attribution. I think this alone makes it clear that the whole thing is a quote from something. From what? Well, maybe trying to find who is Dr. Ferris will lead someone to finding who is John Galt. I left the by-line out on purpose. :)
"Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We *want* them broken. You'd better get it straight That it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against- then you'll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We're after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you'd better get wise to it. There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted - and you create a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Rearden, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."
evil? Right. Clueless as to what the word "property" means is what I would say. "Evil" is probably the word best reserved for mass murderers and socialists. I would never resort to a vaguery when a precise description is available. And "evil" is as vague as it gets.
The mass entertainment industry produces disposable culture and markets to create a perpetual demand for the new culture. That is what the pirates pirate, because that is what the pirates (and essentially everybody else) wants. Everybody wants this? I haven't heard of a single song on that list, but Ok. Actually, I heard one person talking (once) about Soulja Boy. I might be out of touch. I am only on a college campus everyday -- not somewhere mainstream. I don't download songs, but here's the top 10 torrents that showed up when I clicked on top 100 on piratebay.org:- Gnarls Barkley - The Odd Couple
Btw, #13 on that list is "Pink Floyd - full discography". I am not sure where wired got their info. But I would bet they are part of the conglomerate that, as you put it, "produces disposable culture". So their information as to what happens to be popular might be, shall we say, "biased". Their parent company, Condé Nast, also owns Vogue, GQ, Mademoiselle, Vanity Fair, Gormet, American Golfer, etc. 'Enough said.when the dollar is falling almost daily. Wheat growers are having record profits, too (despite the famine). That's because the dollar has lost about 15% of its value in the past year. And now comes the torrent of accusations of conspiracy theories because I think the fed inflation figure is laughable. Not that I am saying that the right to charge for a freely(as in beer)-reproducible commodity should be equated with the right to sell a piece of property that can only be sold once without having to create it again (as in bread). Copyrights that last over 10 years is what causes piracy -- not consumers that want to treat movies the way they treat books. But the dollar buys much fewer things that anyone wants to have nowadays, so there are all the dollars people "earn" or have accumulated (when spend at the same rate) must be buying fewer things... but at higher prices.
So? That doesn't address the issue at all. The fact that something is convenient doesn't mean that it is how it is supposed to be according to the requirements. However, http://www.internic.net/faqs/domain-names.html does say that "The .com, .info, .name, .net, and .org TLDs are open and unrestricted."
And yet, in a case such as described by the article, it would seem that the more appropriate course of action would be to operate under the .eu TLD. It would certainly emphasize the fact that the intended customers are residents of the designated territory. I am not sure the case qualifies as censorship here for the very reason that having a .com TLD invites US business. And certainly US federal government has the responsibility to enforce US laws. It didn't charge the owners of the site with any crimes. It just made it more difficult for the US citizens to go around the embargo. By the way, let's not turn this into an argument about the appropriateness (vs inappropriateness) of the embargo itself. That's an entirely different issue. The issue at hand is whether the US should be enforcing the US law as applied to the US citizens. Any sovereign nation should.
But I am pretty sure that any interest that are limited to a specific territory that has a designated extension are supposed to be using that extension. Absolutely not. If you want to get aDon't you mean that the US Citizens buy that music without permission. allmp3.ru are located within a sovereign territory operating under its laws and using the domain designated for that territory. The fact that some foreigners use advanced means of communication to buy things from them is hardly their responsibility. I mean, what's the difference between this and someone phoning them (from the US) and purchasing a CD that is to be delivered to an address inside of Russia... or even just phoning them and being put on hold while a piece of music (copyrighted in the US) is played while they hold? If the Russian law does not require them to identify the territoriality of their customers, why should they?
Let's take this example further. Utah has passed laws which prohibit many kinds of pornography. Maybe even all kinds -- I am really not certain. Does that mean all owners of Dutch brothels that advertise their establishments under .nl TLD should be charged in Utah? They are after all ignoring the fact that Utah residents can access their websites contrary to the Utah law.
If the company operates exclusively in Europe, why is it using a .com extension? Isn't the idea that they are supposed to be using .eu? I am actually not clear on whether .com was meant for the us only commercial interests or for commercial interests that were international. But I am pretty sure that any interest that are limited to a specific territory that has a designated extension are supposed to be using that extension. Which, of course, begs the question, how the hell can allmp3.ru be breaking US law?
Because I am intimately familiar with the mind set of academia and the way academics set their goals and priorities. Curing ailments of comforting nature's harshness is hardly ever their concern. They are more interested in finding out something that picques their curiosity. Whereas, goal-oriented, for-profit corporations are intrested in creating things that people want so much that they are willing to part with their earning for them. So it is the corporate-driven research that produces results. The more research you move into academia, the less of it will end up producing drugs that help people. I don't see why putting innovation in quotes is justtified when describing the progress of the US pharm companies. Btw, I insist on my KLOC analogy despite the blurb about peer-review process. The only thing that the process guarantees is that the information described by those papers was not previously known. It makes not guarantee of its usefulness. Profit-seeking does.
Running and winning... but then again... the opposition was John Ashcroft, so how hard could it have been to win?
You appear to be dead. Let's rectify the misunderstanding in an orderly manner. Please, stand closer to that wall.
for tax purposes doesn't seem so farfetched all of a sudden.
Using number of papers published to measure the quality of research is about as effective as using KLOCs to measure the quality of code.
Read the actual link I provided (that the guy tried to trash without reading it). It's about 2 written pages. And I don't want to rehash it.
Name one drug developed as a direct result of purely academic research. There might be some. But I am drawing a blank at the moment. Seems like it's all developed by pharm companies.
Then most math will never see the light of day. End of story. Thanks for posting anonymously, btw. At least we know you believe in what you have to say.
complete drying up of AIDS research (who the hell wants to spend their life researching or fund researching it if there is not money in it?)
Feel free to insert some blurb about people's good nature, goodness, good intentions and whatever else you think they work for other than the money.
complete drying up of Alzheimer's research
complete drying up of obesity research... ok, that might be a plus since we might reconsider our diets.
no development of anti-biotics that would fight the newly emerging strains of viruses (heard of staph? how bout sars?)
but yeah! let's show those pharm companies who is boss. I mean Michael Moore said so, so it must be true, right?This wasted half of my day on Friday. But the pulled me back in. Fine. I'll just post my final conclusion: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=470808&cid=22612730
Ok, a number of people have been throwing the traditional slashdot arguments at me due to this comment. I said that I am tired. But it keeps bugging me. So I'll just try to be as clear as I can before I finally let it go. If people disagree, we'll all be worse off for it. But that's that.
Under the current ip regime there are certain winners and certain losers. There is a chain of source-to-market of innovation. Roughly it goes like this:
Someone works hard or happens to accidentally come across an innovative idea. They describe it in the most abstract terms (philosopher, pure mathematician, theoretical physicist, etc). Let's call this person A.
A explains their idea to a number of people who have some skills in using abstractly defined patterns to describing real-world objects (engineering researchers, historians, applied physicists, applied mathematicians, computer science researchers, biologists, etc.). Let's call these people B.
B describes their ideas to the people who are actually interested in manipulating real-world objects (engineers, government, reporters, artists, merchants, programmers, architects, doctors, lawyers, etc.). Let's call these people C.
Some of the C's can do their manipulation on their own, but some will need helpers because the tasks that are necessary to perform to achieve the manipulation are too strenuous or too time consuming or both. So they hire people with minimal skills and break up their task into smaller tasks that these people can perform (umm.. php programmers? jk). Let's call them D.
The reason this chain ever follows through is that the C's realize that they can improve the quality of what they do because of what B's have to say. Often enough B's say things which are of no use to C's. But currently they live off of a common pool of tips which C's throw their way in the hopes that the output of useful ideas continues.
Notice that teachers are not in this chain. Their function is to preserve existing knowledge in the society. And this is a chain of innovation. Actually, there are teachers in all 3 of B,C,D levels. They are the ones who train the next generation of aspiring members. Those who fail at the training generally end up one level lower, but I digress.
The historical confluence of events has put us at the point where the surplus of the benefits produced by the increased level of productivity is distributed as following:
B's desperately seek out A's and when they do find them the B's build castles in which the A's work undisturbed. Naturally that often leaves A's who are too far ahead undiscovered. But B's continued output depends on having occasional A's, so those able to become A's continue to have a chance to do so.
As I already said, B's live off the tips from C's. Often times they try to fool C's into thinking that what they have to say might be of potential use to C's down the line. They need the tips to survive, so they keep making often-unjustified promises to ensure that the pool of tips continues to exist.
And now we come to the player that makes it possible by doing the worst thing he can -- attempting to exploit both the B's and the D's... assuming he needs the D's for his task. The C has to keep B's well-enough-fed that they won't decide to wear the C hat as well as the B hat and refuse to share their information. The C's have to compete with each other for survival in their C position. They are the ones in control of what actually happens in the world. They have to constantly walk the fine line between being too slow to produce something and being outperformed by another C who got hold of more efficient information from some B. They draw from the pool of D's when they need them and the pool changes and adapts its basic skills to the needs of C's.
If you are still reading at this point, you have probably come up with a number of examples of people who fit two consecutive categories. They exist. They just happen to wear two hats. Sometimes they
Ok, I am all for the gold standard, but this misses an important point. Even gold-backed money is useless if they don't allow one to purchase something (other than gold) of use. The French may have more money per capita, but they can buy less goods and services and oil per person because their money is backed by a lesser production capacity and virtually no oil. Nixon didn't steal the entire value of the dollar by removing the gold backing. But he did steal a significant portion of it. So now the currency is more exposed to the random factors such as productivity, whims of oil producers, etc. Had he kept the gold standard, the backing by productivity would still make the dollar more valuable than Franc. For example, it is my understanding that Japan has no gold standard. Yet, the yen is quite strong.