You may not agree with abortion or gay marriage but believing in freedom is about having the maturity to realize that the people who are gay or have abortions are consenting adults and are fully aware of the consequences of their actions.
There is a huge difference between abortion and gay marriage, though - at least from the POV of a pro-life person such as myself. If two guys want to get married, or two gals want to get married, I don't care. Who is it hurting? No one. Whose rights are being deprived or denied by their actions? No ones. That is what freedom is about to me - so long as you do not initiate force or fraud against a non consenting other, the government has no rightful say to tell you what to do or not do with your property.
But abortion is certainly not the same thing. I'm not out to start a flame fest, but yes I do believe abortion-on-demand is murder. That is, abortion "as birth control", as opposed to abortion to save the life of the mother (which is a rare necesity indeed..). Now forget whether or not I am right or wrong about it actually being murder, and think about it for a second as if it were murder. Would it then be outside the government's purvue still, as you claim? Certainly not. NO, I am not advocating any form of prior restraint (IE, bedroom checks or spying on or monitoring of sexual activity), nor am I advocating in ANY sense a lessening of due process. And yes, I totally concede that if I did not see abortion as murder, and thus a major violation of someone's rights, the government would have no standing whatsoever to say anything about it.
So please, don't lump all pro lifers in with the "Christian Right" because I am not Christian and I certainly am not part of today's right wing. The bottom line is, gay marriage and abortion are really to disparate to compare as directly as you did..
Aiming to give money to shareholders, as private companies do instead of distributing money to their employees, is another way to steal the money and then waste large portions of it.
More anti business tripe from someone who doesn't seem to have a grasp on business.
If I, as a consumer of this type of fire insurance in the future I advocate, see that a company charges X for service package Y, and another company charges 1.05X for service package Y, then I'm going to go with the first company.
Why do I go with this company? Because all other things being equal, they are the best value for my money spent. IOW, I the consumer am maximizing my profit.
So if the first company can survive better, and offer a better value, by dividing up monies to it's shareholders rather than it's employees, that is an indication it is not a waste of money from an economic standpoint.
You forget that profit goes both ways in a trade, and then go on to attack profit a company makes. But profit is by no means evil, nor is it waste. Profit is the incentive the company/entreprenuer has to bring a product to market in the first place. It is the very key to ensuring a rich variety of products and services. Because without profit, effectively NO SERVICES OR PRODUCTS would be offered on the market.
So profit is not waste, it is one of the key conditions of capitalism. You act as though it is evil, which is assinine in the extreme. Do you use money to buy things? EVERY time you do, you are profiting in some manner. Even under the barter system, trading with someone still implies profit - or you wouldn't trade.
So do you grow your own food? Sew your own clothes? Build your own house? Collect your own water?
Build your own computer?
Government has no inherent systemic method to oversee and prevent waste. In fact, it is quite the opposite: bureaucracy has a tendency to grow over time and to waste more tax money. Government officials LOVE to claim greater efficiencies, but this is all quite cynical PR. Doing even a modicum of study on this topic can reveal startling amounts of waste.
In short, the free market is the best way to ensure economic efficiency. The reasons for this are not so much the motives of the individual people, as it is the way the system as a whole interacts and works. (Not to say the motives of the people in a free market are wrong - nor to say they are right. This is a purely economic analysis.)
See, when I say insurance will pay for necesary services, I mean that insurance will pay for firemen, equipment, training, and so forth to be able to fight the fire.
Insurance is a free market way to spread or socialize risk. It would perform far, far better than the government which steals the money and then wastes large portions of it.
All police responses to your house will be entirely voluntary.
They allready are. No, really. Check it out for yourself. (If you're really curious.) Police have absolutely no legal responsibility to protect you or respond to any particular 911 call whatsoever.
If it's for police, I'd rather handle the problem myself, with a gun. Certainly a heck of a lot faster response time: 1000 fps lead (feet, not frames... lol) versus 5-10-15 minutes for the Police to respond... quite likely to just draw chalk outlines.
If it's for ambulance or fire, thats what insurance is for.
And yeah - I know you'll lecture me about how many people can't afford insurance. But thats only because the government interferes in the market. If we had true laisez-faire capitalism, the necesary insurance for these services would be dirt cheap.
There are plenty of ways to fund the necesary means for society to remain intact, without coerced payments. The real question is then: do we want a society run by voluntary methods, or with brute force? Taxation is brute force. Stop paying, and see men with guns show up at your door.
... but every state has a different design, and most have very minimal security features.
I know because I see at least a dozen out-of-state drivers licenses a month. Many of them, except for being printed on plastic, look like something I could whip up in half an hour with the GIMP and a decent inkjet printer. How do I know if it's the real deal? The truth is that I don't.
I work as a clerk in a college town. I therefore see out of state ids at the rate of sometimes twelve times per hour. (Actually, much higher some nights.)
I have to wonder which state ID's you think look this bad, since most states do have very nice designs now - by nice, I mean far more secure than they used to be. Off the top of my head, Rhode Island, Alaska, and New Jersey each have licenses which are unexpired of their old "laminated" types, which DO look pretty sad. But most states have all sorts of security features on them.
Most states now have holograms, dual photos, various means of authentication via what numbers go where. You should try your "half hour with GIMP and an inkjet printer" ids at some college town bars - and THEN see how well you do.
How, precisely, will this prevent a terrorist organization - with millions in funding - from getting their hands on "real" ids?
All they have to do is find a bribeable DMV 'crat.
Or maybe all they have to do is apply to work at the DMV...
I deal with fake ID's all the time. I am a clerk in a college town. The only reason college kids don't put $5000 in front of a DMV 'crat is because that wouldn't make any financial sense to get a fake-for-alcohol id that way.
But $5000 to get id so that the US government snores itself into a blissful slumber anytime you present the id?
The US military spends BILLIONS on stealth. But this kind of stealh is far cheaper.
Instead of creating this system where by people will shut off their brains (This guy Achmed has a real id, so he can not be a threat...), we need to focus on the real security threats, rather than harrass smalltown Americans who just want their Disneyworld vacations...
Whooptee-freaking-do. Your understanding of physical limitations clearly does not involve property rights. If you can't figure out how right of way easements affect the laying of cable, you are not qualified to even comment on the topic of public utilities.
It ain't property rights and easements holding things back, it's government regulation.
As for my definition of "is feasible", how is it unfeasible? We HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY - again what prevents it's use?
There is effectively no limit to the number of bookstores one can build in a town, while there is a relatively small limit to the number of cable plants and radio spectrum.
Tell me you're kidding, right?
No effective limit to the number of bookstores in town?
But limits on cable and spectrum?
Ever hear of a thing called "acreage"?
As for limits on cable, c'mon... do you know how much data fiber can move? Get real!
As for spectrum, the reason it is "limited" right now is because of our technology, not because it is itself inherently limited as we percieve it today. And the right technologies to open spectrum up wide exist, they just have yet to hit commercial production.
I'll side with the needs of the citizenry over the needs of business any day. Besides, this is like any other government service--if you don't like it, then pay to get different or better service.
This is so mind bogglingly assinine...
I do not suppose you'll give a refund on the money you stole from me, would you? (AKA taxes to you statists.)
What's wrong with the local governments by the people, for the people, deciding how to spend their dollars in a democratic and free way?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Democracy my "friend" is nothing but two wolves and a lamb voting on whats for dinner.
The goram governments allready have too damn much of my money as taxes - let's come out and call it the theft that it is - why should they get another cent?
FUCK THAT.
And then once they have these glorious and utopic nets of the citizens, by the citizens, etc, what happens when "OMFG!!!!! Little Johnny is looking at PORNO!!!! We've GOT TO FILTER THAT!!!!"
Then you're stuck behind a nice filtered area which is no longer going to be serviced by the big telcos etc because the market has been locked out of the area.
Hooray! Three hoorays for more socialism!
Fuck that shit...
(And why are the telcos etc taking their sweet time? Why do we not have the broadband we want TODAY? I'll wager my next six months wages it's due to... bah bah bah... government interference in the market. Same old story, different infrastructure. *SIGH*)
Once again we see that ignorance and a high user ID are strongly correlated.
This is a truly stupid and piss poor argument. An amazingly fucked in the head argument. A what the fuck are you smoking? argument.
There is zero correlation between user id and ideals of the user. Jesus fuckin christ how stupid can you be?
Sinclair is using airwaves that belong to the people to broadcast their claptrap.
Belong to "the people"... right. Thats just thinly veiled marxist bullshit. Tell me, since the Interenet does use satellites for some of it's communications - does that mean you advocate the the 'net be part free and part unfree? Of course, one drop of cyanide in your drinking glass is more than enough to kill you...
Make up your mind: freedom or slavery. I fight for freedom, and therefore side with freedom of speech in whatever medium speech occurs.
Why is it that most people who try to justify piracy try to rationalize it through this kind of reasoning? If someone who pirates music (or software) wouldn't buy it anyway, so what? What does that have to do with anything? The fact is that these materials provide something people actually want. In other words, it has value. No logic that I can justify would suggest that someone has an inherent right to benefit from this value whether or not they intend to pay for it.
Your reasoning - such as it is - is flawed on several levels. Let's go over them.
1) Mere copying is not piracy. Even copying and sharing is not piracy. Depending on the context, it can even be entirely fair use. Let's not, please, think that morals have changed due to digitization. That is to say, copying a tape for a friend to use is fair use. How is it morally different now that it's digital? Is it morally different to kill someone with a single shot musket versus a full auto machine gun?
Piracy is not copying and sharing. Piracy is copying and selling. I can't speak for all p2p defenders, but I personally am against actual piracy.
2) The reason pro-freedom advocates respond in this way ("people would not buy it if they were forced to") is not due to the morals of the argument, but the practicality of the argument, and we are replying by way of rebuttal. The **AAs are the ones who are saying they are losing sales. That is a practical argument. So we respond with a practical rebuttal. Please do not construe a practical rebuttal for a moral one. That is to say, don't confuse contexts of arguments.
3) Yes, there is value for me to listen to "Radar Love" as an mp3 on my computer. There is also value for me to hear it on the radio. I can tape a radio show and it is considered fair use. Why is it now a heinous "crime against humanity" if I get it from a different source? In fact, if it is digital radio, I may even be getting the exact same bits that I might get off the internet. So on the one hand, I am morally okay, and on the other, I am morally reprehensible? This kind of binary logic does not strike me as very sensible. But let's get back to the "it has value" argument. If I see something I appreciate, it has value to me. A beautiful girl walks buy... do I have to pay her because she is beautiful? No? But the porn industry makes billions each year! You're taking away from the industry! Hey, sometimes I get pretty damn good sights down at the beach in august... guess I'd better start bringing a boatload of cash, hunh? What I am saying is, the "it has value" appraoch is a bit untenable. It's ephemeral in it's nature as information. The same information can have huge amounts of value to some, and little to none for others. Also, the "it has value" argument fails because there is currently no practical way to show what one does value as a customer. See my previous post about how I think this should be set up.
4) You speak of the pro-p2p side as having "no inherent right to benefit from this value". But you do not explain what limits this right. The Constitution, hardly a perfect document, recognizes that there needs to be a balance struck. On the one hand, you have the artist creating the song. On the other hand, you have people who want to enjoy the music. The RIAA has historically been the middleman for content distribution. The technology is changing, allowing for the first time in human history, for the artist to "play to an audience of millions directly"... thus eliminating the need for old content distribution mechanisms. The real group with NO inherent rights are the middlemen who are trying to create a false barrier to music which should be able to flow like water or float like air.
Please don't misconstrue me. I am certainly not against capitalism - I am very much in favor of laisez-faire. But look at Rand's definition: mutual trade to mutual benefit without force or fraud. Calling 12 year old girls "pirates" because they like to listen to cool music is certainly a moral fraud, and the RIAA is a wretched old ogre whose time has come to get on the chopping block.
Fact is, you can't say for definite *either* way - plenty of people will only have downloaded stuff they'd not have bought, or bought all the stuff that they downloaded and liked, but likewise, plenty of people will have downloaded stuff *instead* of buying it.
I call bullshit. Sorry, but the simple fact is this.
Lets do a little "back of the napkin" math...
If your average CD has 15 titles, and costs about 15 bucks, thats a buck a song. Which also jives with itunes (if memory serves, I have never bought any...)
At an average of a dollar a song, most peoples mp3 collections is WAY over what they could afford. (Or would reasonably be likely to pay, given their dispossable income.) How do I figure this? Because most people I know who d/ mp3s do so in volumes large enough to have multi thousand dollar price tags at $1/song.
Thus if people were forced to purchase all of their music, there would be far more people with far less music, rather than far more money in the coffers of the RIAA. This is plain economic sense. (Can't. Squeeze. Blood. Rock.)
So, sorry, your desire for ambiguity can be laid to rest. Sure. Some people d/l who can pay for the stuff. But the reality is, most - and I'd say a VERY high percentage - d/l because the cost is just right, that is, next to nothing. (Indeed, with bandwidth costing what it does today, one can almost eliminate that entirely and just consider the time cost of the end user, which is still minimal since it's browsing and clicking while likely doing something else in another window. Or eight.)
The system we *should* have? The system I'd say technology WILL evolve to? Once the government gets out of the way? Donations straight to the artists pocket. How? Simple. Cryptography.
Crypto can ensure you know you're getting a good copy, signed by the artist or their agent. This can also tell your computer exactly how to donate - ie, to what account etc - and you can tell your computer which artists to donate to and how much. Either automatically or per transaction. And off goes an emailed secure micro payment - totally anonymous if necesary, discrete (ie, small amounts) and easy-as-pie.
Thus the internet becomes the new distribution middleman, replacing the distribution component of the RIAA. I don't see the promotional aspect of it going away, but they better evolve to that quickly. Anyway, back to the donation aspect. Let's do some more "back of the napkin" math. Suppose a big artist like Peter Gabriel (picked at semi random, I am listening to him right now) releases a new song to the internet and asks for donations.
Now suppose the average donation is a dime. Yup. One tenth of an American dollar.
Now suppose twenty million people downloaded the song.
Thats two MILLION dollars straight into the artists pocket.
In the case of the web, you want the web page that is supported by advertising.
No, I want the information, not the advertising.
Do I watch TV thinking "Oh wow! When is the next commercial coming on! Woohoo I can't wait!". No, I watch TV because I (ostensibly) like the programing. As more and more TIVOs/DVRs come online, inline advertising for tv programing will have to be replaced as a business model.
As for the other analogies, I *do* want my windshield clean, and I *do* want food in my fridge - but I don't want it done with bad "business" models either way. That means I want these things done on my schedule, at my convienence. Popups are certainly inconvienent - to say the very least.
The anaology I make is not so bad when you think about *control*. Who should control my windshield being cleaned? Me. Who should control my fridge getting stocked? Me. Who should control my web browser? Me. Not some damn podunk marketing "exec" who thinks that if they can "just get that image in front of that guy he will buy our product..."; sorry, but wresting control of my browser out of my hands is not a behaviour I enjoy or will reward.
Do you think spam is okay simply because you can hit the delete button?
Do you think drm is okay simply because you don't have to fork over the $$$ ?
It is about control.
And you can put popups galore on my screen when you pry my browser from my cold dead, hands!
So if some guy comes up to me in my car, while I am stopped at a light, and washes my windows - am I supposed to honour the flawed "business" model and pay him?
I don't think so!
How about if someone comes into my house without my say so and puts stuff in the fridge, then demands payment?
Again - flawed business model. That does not mean we must bow down to such "businesses" and give them money, thats brutally absurd. Why in fact, I'm charging you fourty nine dollars ninety five cents to read my post.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, so thats how they controlled Spock in that episode :D
You may not agree with abortion or gay marriage but believing in freedom is about having the maturity to realize that the people who are gay or have abortions are consenting adults and are fully aware of the consequences of their actions.
..). Now forget whether or not I am right or wrong about it actually being murder, and think about it for a second as if it were murder. Would it then be outside the government's purvue still, as you claim? Certainly not. NO, I am not advocating any form of prior restraint (IE, bedroom checks or spying on or monitoring of sexual activity), nor am I advocating in ANY sense a lessening of due process. And yes, I totally concede that if I did not see abortion as murder, and thus a major violation of someone's rights, the government would have no standing whatsoever to say anything about it.
..
There is a huge difference between abortion and gay marriage, though - at least from the POV of a pro-life person such as myself. If two guys want to get married, or two gals want to get married, I don't care. Who is it hurting? No one. Whose rights are being deprived or denied by their actions? No ones. That is what freedom is about to me - so long as you do not initiate force or fraud against a non consenting other, the government has no rightful say to tell you what to do or not do with your property.
But abortion is certainly not the same thing. I'm not out to start a flame fest, but yes I do believe abortion-on-demand is murder. That is, abortion "as birth control", as opposed to abortion to save the life of the mother (which is a rare necesity indeed
So please, don't lump all pro lifers in with the "Christian Right" because I am not Christian and I certainly am not part of today's right wing. The bottom line is, gay marriage and abortion are really to disparate to compare as directly as you did
Every time I get mod points, it asks me if I have read the moderator guidelines yet.
..
Perhaps there should be a link for editor guidelines
I mean, this is brutally bad editing, folks.
Aiming to give money to shareholders, as private companies do instead of distributing money to their employees, is another way to steal the money and then waste large portions of it.
More anti business tripe from someone who doesn't seem to have a grasp on business.
If I, as a consumer of this type of fire insurance in the future I advocate, see that a company charges X for service package Y, and another company charges 1.05X for service package Y, then I'm going to go with the first company.
Why do I go with this company? Because all other things being equal, they are the best value for my money spent. IOW, I the consumer am maximizing my profit.
So if the first company can survive better, and offer a better value, by dividing up monies to it's shareholders rather than it's employees, that is an indication it is not a waste of money from an economic standpoint.
You forget that profit goes both ways in a trade, and then go on to attack profit a company makes. But profit is by no means evil, nor is it waste. Profit is the incentive the company/entreprenuer has to bring a product to market in the first place. It is the very key to ensuring a rich variety of products and services. Because without profit, effectively NO SERVICES OR PRODUCTS would be offered on the market.
So profit is not waste, it is one of the key conditions of capitalism. You act as though it is evil, which is assinine in the extreme. Do you use money to buy things? EVERY time you do, you are profiting in some manner. Even under the barter system, trading with someone still implies profit - or you wouldn't trade.
So do you grow your own food? Sew your own clothes? Build your own house? Collect your own water?
Build your own computer?
Government has no inherent systemic method to oversee and prevent waste. In fact, it is quite the opposite: bureaucracy has a tendency to grow over time and to waste more tax money. Government officials LOVE to claim greater efficiencies, but this is all quite cynical PR. Doing even a modicum of study on this topic can reveal startling amounts of waste.
In short, the free market is the best way to ensure economic efficiency. The reasons for this are not so much the motives of the individual people, as it is the way the system as a whole interacts and works. (Not to say the motives of the people in a free market are wrong - nor to say they are right. This is a purely economic analysis.)
No, no.
See, when I say insurance will pay for necesary services, I mean that insurance will pay for firemen, equipment, training, and so forth to be able to fight the fire.
Insurance is a free market way to spread or socialize risk. It would perform far, far better than the government which steals the money and then wastes large portions of it.
All police responses to your house will be entirely voluntary.
They allready are. No, really. Check it out for yourself. (If you're really curious.) Police have absolutely no legal responsibility to protect you or respond to any particular 911 call whatsoever.
Yeah, my credit card when I dial 9-11 ...
... lol) versus 5-10-15 minutes for the Police to respond ... quite likely to just draw chalk outlines.
If it's for police, I'd rather handle the problem myself, with a gun. Certainly a heck of a lot faster response time: 1000 fps lead (feet, not frames
If it's for ambulance or fire, thats what insurance is for.
And yeah - I know you'll lecture me about how many people can't afford insurance. But thats only because the government interferes in the market. If we had true laisez-faire capitalism, the necesary insurance for these services would be dirt cheap.
There are plenty of ways to fund the necesary means for society to remain intact, without coerced payments. The real question is then: do we want a society run by voluntary methods, or with brute force? Taxation is brute force. Stop paying, and see men with guns show up at your door.
(BTW - whats up with this anti-bot bullshit?)
Tax reform?
Taxation is theft.
Other than eliminating theft, how could you "reform" it? Have the robber say "Pretty please?" ?
All monies paid to the state should be 100% voluntary, no ifs ands or buts.
... but every state has a different design, and most have very minimal security features.
I know because I see at least a dozen out-of-state drivers licenses a month. Many of them, except for being printed on plastic, look like something I could whip up in half an hour with the GIMP and a decent inkjet printer. How do I know if it's the real deal? The truth is that I don't.
I work as a clerk in a college town. I therefore see out of state ids at the rate of sometimes twelve times per hour. (Actually, much higher some nights.)
I have to wonder which state ID's you think look this bad, since most states do have very nice designs now - by nice, I mean far more secure than they used to be. Off the top of my head, Rhode Island, Alaska, and New Jersey each have licenses which are unexpired of their old "laminated" types, which DO look pretty sad. But most states have all sorts of security features on them.
Most states now have holograms, dual photos, various means of authentication via what numbers go where. You should try your "half hour with GIMP and an inkjet printer" ids at some college town bars - and THEN see how well you do.
for a Soviet Russia joke?
How, precisely, will this prevent a terrorist organization - with millions in funding - from getting their hands on "real" ids?
...
...), we need to focus on the real security threats, rather than harrass smalltown Americans who just want their Disneyworld vacations ...
All they have to do is find a bribeable DMV 'crat.
Or maybe all they have to do is apply to work at the DMV
I deal with fake ID's all the time. I am a clerk in a college town. The only reason college kids don't put $5000 in front of a DMV 'crat is because that wouldn't make any financial sense to get a fake-for-alcohol id that way.
But $5000 to get id so that the US government snores itself into a blissful slumber anytime you present the id?
The US military spends BILLIONS on stealth. But this kind of stealh is far cheaper.
Instead of creating this system where by people will shut off their brains (This guy Achmed has a real id, so he can not be a threat
That this balls-out lie about what Al Gore said still manages to exist today is demonstrative of just how little truth matters in American politics.
How can anyone who defends a member of the Clinton administration be upset over lying in any form?
Of course, golly, "create" vs" invent" ain't really much of a lie is it? To say nothing of a "balls out" one.
So kindly shut the fuck up. Gore lost. We have a new tyrant to deal with, so let's not rehash ancient history - especially when YOU ARE WRONG.
"I took the initiative in inventing the internet"
"I took the initiative in creating the internet"
SAME FUCKING DIFFERENCE!
and that is why he is frozen.
Whooptee-freaking-do. Your understanding of physical limitations clearly does not involve property rights. If you can't figure out how right of way easements affect the laying of cable, you are not qualified to even comment on the topic of public utilities.
..
It ain't property rights and easements holding things back, it's government regulation.
As for my definition of "is feasible", how is it unfeasible? We HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY - again what prevents it's use?
Say it with me now: GOVERNMENT REGULATION
Are you being deliberately ignorant?
...
You should ask yourself that.
The physical limitations on cable are far far less than the limitations on putting up bookstores.
Period.
Any NON physical limitation, which you seem to be citing, is a government restriction - an intrusion into the free market.
Yadda, yadda, yadda. What does that have to do with what is feasible TODAY or the next six months? Nothing.
Read what I said again.
It *is* feasible today.
Guess why much of this tech is not commercially available *right* f'ing now?
Government intervention into the market
Same old story, different players each generation.
There is effectively no limit to the number of bookstores one can build in a town, while there is a relatively small limit to the number of cable plants and radio spectrum.
... do you know how much data fiber can move? Get real!
Tell me you're kidding, right?
No effective limit to the number of bookstores in town?
But limits on cable and spectrum?
Ever hear of a thing called "acreage"?
As for limits on cable, c'mon
As for spectrum, the reason it is "limited" right now is because of our technology, not because it is itself inherently limited as we percieve it today. And the right technologies to open spectrum up wide exist, they just have yet to hit commercial production.
I'll side with the needs of the citizenry over the needs of business any day. Besides, this is like any other government service--if you don't like it, then pay to get different or better service.
...
This is so mind bogglingly assinine
I do not suppose you'll give a refund on the money you stole from me, would you? (AKA taxes to you statists.)
What's wrong with the local governments by the people, for the people, deciding how to spend their dollars in a democratic and free way?
...
... bah bah bah ... government interference in the market. Same old story, different infrastructure. *SIGH*)
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Democracy my "friend" is nothing but two wolves and a lamb voting on whats for dinner.
The goram governments allready have too damn much of my money as taxes - let's come out and call it the theft that it is - why should they get another cent?
FUCK THAT.
And then once they have these glorious and utopic nets of the citizens, by the citizens, etc, what happens when "OMFG!!!!! Little Johnny is looking at PORNO!!!! We've GOT TO FILTER THAT!!!!"
Then you're stuck behind a nice filtered area which is no longer going to be serviced by the big telcos etc because the market has been locked out of the area.
Hooray! Three hoorays for more socialism!
Fuck that shit
(And why are the telcos etc taking their sweet time? Why do we not have the broadband we want TODAY? I'll wager my next six months wages it's due to
THANK YOU!
... WOW! HOLY SHIT WOW!
THANK YOU!
THANK YOU!
HOLY SHIT THANK YOU!
All I can say is
"Let's be badguys" - and HOLY SEXY River !
Once again we see that ignorance and a high user ID are strongly correlated.
... right. Thats just thinly veiled marxist bullshit. Tell me, since the Interenet does use satellites for some of it's communications - does that mean you advocate the the 'net be part free and part unfree? Of course, one drop of cyanide in your drinking glass is more than enough to kill you ...
This is a truly stupid and piss poor argument. An amazingly fucked in the head argument. A what the fuck are you smoking? argument.
There is zero correlation between user id and ideals of the user. Jesus fuckin christ how stupid can you be?
Sinclair is using airwaves that belong to the people to broadcast their claptrap.
Belong to "the people"
Make up your mind: freedom or slavery. I fight for freedom, and therefore side with freedom of speech in whatever medium speech occurs.
CowboyNeal is reported to have be heard saying: "I love to have sex with dogs, cats, and sheep. Oooohhh, especially the sheep!"
...)
(Disclaimer: yeah, I just made that quote up
Why is it that most people who try to justify piracy try to rationalize it through this kind of reasoning? If someone who pirates music (or software) wouldn't buy it anyway, so what? What does that have to do with anything? The fact is that these materials provide something people actually want. In other words, it has value. No logic that I can justify would suggest that someone has an inherent right to benefit from this value whether or not they intend to pay for it.
... do I have to pay her because she is beautiful? No? But the porn industry makes billions each year! You're taking away from the industry! Hey, sometimes I get pretty damn good sights down at the beach in august ... guess I'd better start bringing a boatload of cash, hunh? What I am saying is, the "it has value" appraoch is a bit untenable. It's ephemeral in it's nature as information. The same information can have huge amounts of value to some, and little to none for others. Also, the "it has value" argument fails because there is currently no practical way to show what one does value as a customer. See my previous post about how I think this should be set up.
... thus eliminating the need for old content distribution mechanisms. The real group with NO inherent rights are the middlemen who are trying to create a false barrier to music which should be able to flow like water or float like air.
Your reasoning - such as it is - is flawed on several levels. Let's go over them.
1) Mere copying is not piracy. Even copying and sharing is not piracy. Depending on the context, it can even be entirely fair use. Let's not, please, think that morals have changed due to digitization. That is to say, copying a tape for a friend to use is fair use. How is it morally different now that it's digital? Is it morally different to kill someone with a single shot musket versus a full auto machine gun?
Piracy is not copying and sharing. Piracy is copying and selling. I can't speak for all p2p defenders, but I personally am against actual piracy.
2) The reason pro-freedom advocates respond in this way ("people would not buy it if they were forced to") is not due to the morals of the argument, but the practicality of the argument, and we are replying by way of rebuttal. The **AAs are the ones who are saying they are losing sales. That is a practical argument. So we respond with a practical rebuttal. Please do not construe a practical rebuttal for a moral one. That is to say, don't confuse contexts of arguments.
3) Yes, there is value for me to listen to "Radar Love" as an mp3 on my computer. There is also value for me to hear it on the radio. I can tape a radio show and it is considered fair use. Why is it now a heinous "crime against humanity" if I get it from a different source? In fact, if it is digital radio, I may even be getting the exact same bits that I might get off the internet. So on the one hand, I am morally okay, and on the other, I am morally reprehensible? This kind of binary logic does not strike me as very sensible. But let's get back to the "it has value" argument. If I see something I appreciate, it has value to me. A beautiful girl walks buy
4) You speak of the pro-p2p side as having "no inherent right to benefit from this value". But you do not explain what limits this right. The Constitution, hardly a perfect document, recognizes that there needs to be a balance struck. On the one hand, you have the artist creating the song. On the other hand, you have people who want to enjoy the music. The RIAA has historically been the middleman for content distribution. The technology is changing, allowing for the first time in human history, for the artist to "play to an audience of millions directly"
Please don't misconstrue me. I am certainly not against capitalism - I am very much in favor of laisez-faire. But look at Rand's definition: mutual trade to mutual benefit without force or fraud. Calling 12 year old girls "pirates" because they like to listen to cool music is certainly a moral fraud, and the RIAA is a wretched old ogre whose time has come to get on the chopping block.
Fact is, you can't say for definite *either* way - plenty of people will only have downloaded stuff they'd not have bought, or bought all the stuff that they downloaded and liked, but likewise, plenty of people will have downloaded stuff *instead* of buying it.
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I call bullshit. Sorry, but the simple fact is this.
Lets do a little "back of the napkin" math
If your average CD has 15 titles, and costs about 15 bucks, thats a buck a song. Which also jives with itunes (if memory serves, I have never bought any
At an average of a dollar a song, most peoples mp3 collections is WAY over what they could afford. (Or would reasonably be likely to pay, given their dispossable income.) How do I figure this? Because most people I know who d/ mp3s do so in volumes large enough to have multi thousand dollar price tags at $1/song.
Thus if people were forced to purchase all of their music, there would be far more people with far less music, rather than far more money in the coffers of the RIAA. This is plain economic sense. (Can't. Squeeze. Blood. Rock.)
So, sorry, your desire for ambiguity can be laid to rest. Sure. Some people d/l who can pay for the stuff. But the reality is, most - and I'd say a VERY high percentage - d/l because the cost is just right, that is, next to nothing. (Indeed, with bandwidth costing what it does today, one can almost eliminate that entirely and just consider the time cost of the end user, which is still minimal since it's browsing and clicking while likely doing something else in another window. Or eight.)
The system we *should* have? The system I'd say technology WILL evolve to? Once the government gets out of the way? Donations straight to the artists pocket. How? Simple. Cryptography.
Crypto can ensure you know you're getting a good copy, signed by the artist or their agent. This can also tell your computer exactly how to donate - ie, to what account etc - and you can tell your computer which artists to donate to and how much. Either automatically or per transaction. And off goes an emailed secure micro payment - totally anonymous if necesary, discrete (ie, small amounts) and easy-as-pie.
Thus the internet becomes the new distribution middleman, replacing the distribution component of the RIAA. I don't see the promotional aspect of it going away, but they better evolve to that quickly. Anyway, back to the donation aspect. Let's do some more "back of the napkin" math. Suppose a big artist like Peter Gabriel (picked at semi random, I am listening to him right now) releases a new song to the internet and asks for donations.
Now suppose the average donation is a dime. Yup. One tenth of an American dollar.
Now suppose twenty million people downloaded the song.
Thats two MILLION dollars straight into the artists pocket.
For one song.
I don't think thats a bad deal at all, do you?
No, I want the information, not the advertising.
Do I watch TV thinking "Oh wow! When is the next commercial coming on! Woohoo I can't wait!". No, I watch TV because I (ostensibly) like the programing. As more and more TIVOs/DVRs come online, inline advertising for tv programing will have to be replaced as a business model.
As for the other analogies, I *do* want my windshield clean, and I *do* want food in my fridge - but I don't want it done with bad "business" models either way. That means I want these things done on my schedule, at my convienence. Popups are certainly inconvienent - to say the very least.
The anaology I make is not so bad when you think about *control*. Who should control my windshield being cleaned? Me. Who should control my fridge getting stocked? Me. Who should control my web browser? Me. Not some damn podunk marketing "exec" who thinks that if they can "just get that image in front of that guy he will buy our product
Do you think spam is okay simply because you can hit the delete button?
Do you think drm is okay simply because you don't have to fork over the $$$ ?
It is about control.
And you can put popups galore on my screen when you pry my browser from my cold dead, hands!
So if some guy comes up to me in my car, while I am stopped at a light, and washes my windows - am I supposed to honour the flawed "business" model and pay him?
I don't think so!
How about if someone comes into my house without my say so and puts stuff in the fridge, then demands payment?
Again - flawed business model. That does not mean we must bow down to such "businesses" and give them money, thats brutally absurd. Why in fact, I'm charging you fourty nine dollars ninety five cents to read my post.
NOW PAY UP!