You've obviously not read Nietzsche, or understood him. The strong get to define moral norms, thus socially might becomes right. The Genealogy of Morals is his history of this happenning repeatedly in the past. However, he in fact goads the reader to defining their values and fighting for them. A society that is strong, to his mind, is one that suffers repeated dissent, and adapts.
Yes, Nietzsche hates Christianity and socialism, but that's because he doesn't want people to obey. That might becomes right is why one has to defend and assert one's own values, not yield to another's!
This is Slashdot at it's worst. I count myself as a liberal, but I will not have my political opponents slandered. They hold their view in good faith, and their exponding of their views based upon personal experience is yes, insightful.
I never supported going into Iraq, but soldiers have ever right to be proud. They did their duty, and performed pretty well, given an ill-planned job.
Once Saddam was overthrown, Iraq needed more law than the soldiers would give it, which goes to show something else: once you've decided to go in, you need enough strength to complete.
I shouldn't really reply: it's a troll. "Iraqi kids relish being able to learn" -> "You bastard warmonger". Hmm.
Informative and Insightful posts like this one, that actually add to your knowledge rather than just quoting something that you might agree with are not that common!
Yes. If I have created something, it is mine to do with as I will. I have no ethical obligation to give it away, even if doing so would cost me nothing. Giving it away might well be a very nice thing to do, but that doesn't mean not giving it away is wrong.
Property law in a complex animal. You might give away something or sell something that you own, or have even made, but once it's in another's hands, that's another matter. If you want to bind others to conditions for your trade to occur, that's clearly a restrait of freedom. Maybe overall they've got more freedom than they would have done otherwise, but they'd have still more had you not put restrictions limiting the use of what you'd made.
There is a difference here between what is your right, and what is most moral. You have every right to use contract law to define terms, but perhaps that is not the most moral action. Maybe you can't afford the more moral action, or else need to act less morally here so as to be able to exercise your values elsewhere (so that you don't need to claim from the state, say). Nonetheless what you have the right to do is not enough of a pesonal guide, else freedom would cause society to melt.
The best state of law is one that recognises that freedoms have to be traded. The ones in question here are those limited by enforcing a licence, and the ones that are lost in losing the availability of products that require such restrictions upon their use so that they are made in the first place.
However, the availability of free software means that one can have the best of both worlds. One has gained the capacity to choose the more moral path, but the right to the other path remains, should one need to compromise, and make goods that have the threat of incarceration or of loss of some of the client's income as conditions for their use.
All caps should help here! This is neither a troll, nor offtopic. I have a feeling that a troll somewhere has found themselves in possession of mod points.
To mod up a non-anonymous cut and paste post or link, mod it as funny; if the author's gone to the trouble to make a mirror, informative is the best mod IMO.
Uh, any economist should tell you that "what the market will bear" is one of the fundamentals of capitalism - it's hardly something that's just popped up in the last few decades.
Not quite. First level analysis, yes, but then customers tend to buy what they did last time, so greatest immediate profits may not be synonymous with long-term profitability.
I was going to make a pun about "bear markets", but it seemed rather poor, and thought that slashdotters would "correct" the joke, po-faced, so I won't.
This is an excellent idea. There may be problems with it, but if there are, it deserves a +3 at least and a reply, not -1 overrated!
For my 2 pence, I reckon that to get clients to encrypt by default and only accept encrypted email would chew up a lot of spammer's CPU time, and make the whole spam business a lot more expensive. Of course, this would also be difficult to make happen, particularly when countries like France make the encryption of private email illegal.
Yes, it's an arms race, but each new level makes things pricier for the spammer, making the model less tenable.
IMO, we should ramp the race right up, and make email encrypted by default. Think of the CPU cycles required to send every recipient encrypted mail!
Okay, that seems excessive at present, but this is a "tax" that cannot be ducked. Naturally, the problem remains that such a solution would in fact be illegal in France, and so might be impossible to implement.
The letter argues that because the FSF takes a certain political view of copyrights, its copyright-related contracts are invalid and violate the US constitution. That's roughly like saying that you would lose your drivers license because you have stated that cars are bad for the environment.
I think that it goes further than that. It sais that the GPL goes against the stated intent of the constitution. Naturally, it's still hogwash, though, as they're contrasting the GPL with copyright, when the GPL is copyright!
Just found a link to The Motley Fool that very much suggests that file-sharing isn't taking any revenue. If this is truly the case, how do they justify the restraint of freedom induced by laws and methods of enforcement? This appears to be less a case of protecting revenues as a simple imposition of unjustified power.
More musings on power and on civil disobedience. I should say that I admire the independent artist who chooses to share samples, and do not especially admire those who trade music illegally, but here, punishment is disproportionate.
It's not just trade that is "harmless greed"; seeking gain can lead to beneficial trades. There is no essential link between seeking gain and harming others, particularly if one wishes to sustain such gain over the long term (read Axelrod's "The Evolution of Cooperation" or Matt Ridley's "The Origins of Virtue"), but it is true that if one doesn't consider others or (say) the environment that one is more likely to do harm.
Seeking gain (Greed) in itself does not necessarily lead to destruction, as in fact that greediest acts tend to be cooperative in nature in order to be able to secure future gains. This doesn't mean that one cannot do better, but it does mean that one has to be very careful when attempting to regulate greed. Crime certainly should be regulated, and harm to others (as opposed to desire for gain it itself) can be legislated against or taxed, but whereas harm to others tends to involve greed as a major component, the reverse implication does not hold.
Even a purely greedy decision does not necessarily do harm. It is, of course much more likely to, but there are also likely to be corresponding gains. It is therefore much more important to focus upon harm done than the motive that is supposedly behind such harm, and to legislate from a perspective of maximising well-being, rather than dealing with people having the wrong motive. For analogous reasons, I prefer to focus upon eradicating poverty rather than equality per se.
Stupidity, I do agree with, though, whether it comes in to form of blindness as to the long term, or else reactive legislation to deal with "evil" rather than actual harm.
If you feel like checking my journal, you will see that I am not coming from a rightist perspective. I do think that there are great evils in this world, but I am sceptical of simple solutions, although I do not deny that they might exist.
Slashdot Mirror
You've obviously not read Nietzsche, or understood him. The strong get to define moral norms, thus socially might becomes right. The Genealogy of Morals is his history of this happenning repeatedly in the past. However, he in fact goads the reader to defining their values and fighting for them. A society that is strong, to his mind, is one that suffers repeated dissent, and adapts.
Yes, Nietzsche hates Christianity and socialism, but that's because he doesn't want people to obey. That might becomes right is why one has to defend and assert one's own values, not yield to another's!
This is Slashdot at it's worst. I count myself as a liberal, but I will not have my political opponents slandered. They hold their view in good faith, and their exponding of their views based upon personal experience is yes, insightful.
I never supported going into Iraq, but soldiers have ever right to be proud. They did their duty, and performed pretty well, given an ill-planned job.
Once Saddam was overthrown, Iraq needed more law than the soldiers would give it, which goes to show something else: once you've decided to go in, you need enough strength to complete.
I shouldn't really reply: it's a troll. "Iraqi kids relish being able to learn" -> "You bastard warmonger". Hmm.
Google's "I'm feeling lucky" doesn't hit SCO, but a page documenting the Google bomb. We've been foiled :-(
Perhaps it's because they're a bunch of litigious bastards!
Redundancy is hard to spot sometimes.
Informative and Insightful posts like this one, that actually add to your knowledge rather than just quoting something that you might agree with are not that common!
You might recognise it better as [y|ies]; the commar makes it appear as a set rather than a choice.
It doesn't say very much yet!
It's the fault of our conservative media, I say! ;-)
I didn't believe your article referenced here (now deleted) when read it, but now I do.
Scientific Progress goes 'Boink'!
There is a difference here between what is your right, and what is most moral. You have every right to use contract law to define terms, but perhaps that is not the most moral action. Maybe you can't afford the more moral action, or else need to act less morally here so as to be able to exercise your values elsewhere (so that you don't need to claim from the state, say). Nonetheless what you have the right to do is not enough of a pesonal guide, else freedom would cause society to melt.
The best state of law is one that recognises that freedoms have to be traded. The ones in question here are those limited by enforcing a licence, and the ones that are lost in losing the availability of products that require such restrictions upon their use so that they are made in the first place.
However, the availability of free software means that one can have the best of both worlds. One has gained the capacity to choose the more moral path, but the right to the other path remains, should one need to compromise, and make goods that have the threat of incarceration or of loss of some of the client's income as conditions for their use.
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/allencastro/knoppix/d wres.htm is the address I have got repeatedly, and it looks like, well, a mirror.
Either this redirects different browsers differently, or else this coward is himself a troll.
All caps should help here! This is neither a troll, nor offtopic. I have a feeling that a troll somewhere has found themselves in possession of mod points.
To mod up a non-anonymous cut and paste post or link, mod it as funny; if the author's gone to the trouble to make a mirror, informative is the best mod IMO.
Vivendi's actions show how much the music industry really cares about the artist!
Depends who's talking ;-)
Ich bein ein berliner - John F. Kennedy.
An Evening with Bruce Perens
Important facts about dihydrogen monoxide
I was going to make a pun about "bear markets", but it seemed rather poor, and thought that slashdotters would "correct" the joke, po-faced, so I won't.
Then try to explain why those allowed by the US to help rebuild Iraq are so few.
This is an excellent idea. There may be problems with it, but if there are, it deserves a +3 at least and a reply, not -1 overrated!
For my 2 pence, I reckon that to get clients to encrypt by default and only accept encrypted email would chew up a lot of spammer's CPU time, and make the whole spam business a lot more expensive. Of course, this would also be difficult to make happen, particularly when countries like France make the encryption of private email illegal.
Yes, it's an arms race, but each new level makes things pricier for the spammer, making the model less tenable.
IMO, we should ramp the race right up, and make email encrypted by default. Think of the CPU cycles required to send every recipient encrypted mail!
Okay, that seems excessive at present, but this is a "tax" that cannot be ducked. Naturally, the problem remains that such a solution would in fact be illegal in France, and so might be impossible to implement.
Just found a link to The Motley Fool that very much suggests that file-sharing isn't taking any revenue. If this is truly the case, how do they justify the restraint of freedom induced by laws and methods of enforcement? This appears to be less a case of protecting revenues as a simple imposition of unjustified power.
More musings on power and on civil disobedience. I should say that I admire the independent artist who chooses to share samples, and do not especially admire those who trade music illegally, but here, punishment is disproportionate.
It's not just trade that is "harmless greed"; seeking gain can lead to beneficial trades. There is no essential link between seeking gain and harming others, particularly if one wishes to sustain such gain over the long term (read Axelrod's "The Evolution of Cooperation" or Matt Ridley's "The Origins of Virtue"), but it is true that if one doesn't consider others or (say) the environment that one is more likely to do harm.
Seeking gain (Greed) in itself does not necessarily lead to destruction, as in fact that greediest acts tend to be cooperative in nature in order to be able to secure future gains. This doesn't mean that one cannot do better, but it does mean that one has to be very careful when attempting to regulate greed. Crime certainly should be regulated, and harm to others (as opposed to desire for gain it itself) can be legislated against or taxed, but whereas harm to others tends to involve greed as a major component, the reverse implication does not hold.
Even a purely greedy decision does not necessarily do harm. It is, of course much more likely to, but there are also likely to be corresponding gains. It is therefore much more important to focus upon harm done than the motive that is supposedly behind such harm, and to legislate from a perspective of maximising well-being, rather than dealing with people having the wrong motive. For analogous reasons, I prefer to focus upon eradicating poverty rather than equality per se.
Stupidity, I do agree with, though, whether it comes in to form of blindness as to the long term, or else reactive legislation to deal with "evil" rather than actual harm.
If you feel like checking my journal, you will see that I am not coming from a rightist perspective. I do think that there are great evils in this world, but I am sceptical of simple solutions, although I do not deny that they might exist.