Very well. Collect all the information you please. Go pick it from the tree you think it grows on. Intellectual property isn't free precisely because it wasn't free to produce. Intellectual property is property like any other precisely because it is the result of labor. If I build a house, or make a pie, or a cup of coffee, that thing is *mine* because I owned the materials and provided the labor.
Yes, information can be easily copied, but you do diminish my copy by taking yours. You took your copy without my permission. Are you saying you should have access to my credit card number? It's information, and should be totally free! So, your argument implies this: it's my responsibility to produce information for your benefit, and that I have no right to control what I've produced. I have no right to determine what is done with my work. What you're saying is that your unsatiable desire for information -- whether you need it or not -- is more important than my being compensated for producing it.
Here's some free information for you. They have a word for this. It's called SLAVERY. By what right do you deserve my information? It's *mine." If I had never come along and produced it, you wouldn't have it. It wouldn't exist. I demand, not just credit and recognition, but payment. And I have every right to demand it.
If I ever live in a world where this becomes legally acceptable, I would refuse to do any work. I won't work for the benefit of a thief like you. And don't give me any socialistic bullshit about everyone helping everyone. Even on P2P networks there are "seeders" and there are "leechers". Even the people with no regard for intellectual property don't play fair.
Let me put it to you plainly: either we deal with each other through money, or at the point of a gun. There is no other choice. Either we trade by mutual consent, or through coercion and force. But you'll find that when you trade by force, that the producers no longer feel any desire to produce for you. If you need proof, take a peek at any communist country. You want thought policing? Free information at any price is tantamount to thought policing -- after all, all that information that goes against free information must be controlled. We wouldn't want the huddled masses to get the wrong idea about intellectual property. Here's the deal: just because it sounds good doesn't mean it works.
You know, availability's simply not going to be a problem. My family has given me -- free of charge -- two common cold viruses already this year. It's only a matter of time before everyone catches the cancer cure cold, too!
But then we'll all get sued by the AMA, the RIAA, and SCO for copyright infringement for illegally distributing the patented cure virus to complete strangers. They'll demand royalties every time a cell undergoes mitosis!
Either way it's not a very original title. And not to be too anal, the Gettyburg Address is a speech, not a written work, which makes Abraham Lincoln a speaker, not a writer, in this context.
I never said I *liked* "We the Living", just that I've read it:-)
Hmm... "For Us the Living"? Try "We the Living" published four years earlier by Ayn Rand. Title thief! (Actually, for the record, I've never read "For Us the Living", but I have read "We the Living")
Also (and I learned this the hard way) you need to make sure to quit Xcode when it updates that, too. My system hung -- I mean "gray screen of death" hung -- because I was running Xcode when I updated. At least, that's what I've been able to figure out so far.
Just have to say, that is the *weirdest* plane I've ever seen in my whole life. I love it! It's an engineering marvel! Seems only appropriate that a fellow who "thinks different" should be using a Mac:-)
I see your point, but I disagree with your interpretation. It's really a matter of semantics, but it means something to me. You say that the open source folks do it for love rather than money. You're right, but this point needs clarification: they do it out of love *for themselves and their effort*. That seems contradictory since they're not making any money, but they are receiving a material value for their work: the software itself. Furthermore, think about the money they're *saving* by not buying software to do it or doing it by hand. Saving money is close enough to making money for me.
I would argue that to make something that f**king works is much better than getting paid to produce crap exactly because you have an interest in making the thing f**king work. The problem is that Microsoft hires people who are content to accept money in exchange for producing total sh*t. That they would take money for doing poor work shows you what kind of thieves and moochers they are. If Microsoft had made it a policy never to hire crappy programmers, no matter how far behind schedule that may put them, they would be exponentially richer today, and we wouldn't even be having this discussion.
Furthermore, the open source folks release the source code in the confidence that others will find a way to extend it and make it better, which more often than not benefits the original developer. More rewards!
Open source developers *ought* to feel good about the stuff they've done. Why? Because they've used their minds to make their lives easier! They shouldn't feel good simply because they've written a program that *someone* finds useful. They should be proud because they've written something *they* find useful.
I'm a staunch captialist, and you all might find it contradictory that I support the open-source movement, but what you must realize is that capitalism is about the exchange of value for value for mutual advantage. The value could be money, or it could be code that helps you accomplish some task in a better way. If you ask me, which I guess in all honesty you haven't, the open source programmer is much more selfish than the person who programs only for the money. He does it out of love, I'll agree, but for himself, not for other people. That, ladies and gentlemen, is a truly moral person -- the kind that *ought* to be getting paid sh*tloads of money.
Make it stop!!! Make it stop!!! About five minutes into the "intro" I had a pencil and was trying to puncture my eardrums! The difference between zombocom and sunncomm is that zombo is wayyyyyy less obnoxious!
Hey, don't you all love the warning to the shareholders that says, "we have no intention of ever making a profit. Invest in us!" Pure genius, I tell ya.
Everything the government has put its hand to that should be done by private citizens has failed miserably. Take, for example, schools. Why do private schools exist? Because for those who can afford them, they know that the government way of education sucks. They want something better than "good enough" for their kids.
What our taxes are paying for, primarily, are things that the government has no business in. I've said many times that I'm willing to pay for the protection of my freedom -- police, military, and courts. I'm not willing to pay for inferior schools, lousy streets, the welfare state, environmental programs, etc., etc. The government sponsors tobacco farmer subsidies, but also supports stop-smoking programs. These programs contradict each other! We could achieve the same effect by spending *nothing.* I think it ought to be my choice what government programs -- if any -- I support.
You wouldn't go to the grocery store to put food in your house that your family doesn't like, so why should I be paying for programs that offend me? Ask any person if there's some government program that they don't like, and there you'll find a person who is made unhappy by paying taxes. Let the people who want this stuff pay for it. I'll buy the things I really want for myself. I'm not a whiny brat, I'm a person who hates to see his effort go to waste.
If the government didn't waste money, I'd have no problem paying my taxes, but they do. That means that the effort it took me to produce that money is going down the drain. On average, six months of my effort (due to the 50% net tax we all pay, when you add it all up), is wasted. If you'd like, I'd rather have a six month vacation, or better yet, the benefit of all twelve months of my effort. Who needs communism? America's halfway there already!
I haven't gotten rich by any action of the government, either. Are you suggesting that my existence is taxable, that I somehow owe other people for my existence?
But at the same time, your taxation argument demands that I owe other people for their existence. "We exist and are too lazy to work. Feed us. We deserve it. We were born." What you are suggesting is that no one has a fundamental *right* to exist, because everyone else does. Do you see the contradiction here? You think it's our responsibility to arm our oppressors!
I reject your assertion that the government has benefitted me. If they have, have they benefitted me for the exact amount of my taxes? Otherwise, I think I missed something somewhere, because I think I'm getting ripped off.
As for your racist argument, yes, my parents are white. But you'll never convince me that race is a means of evaluating a person's worth. My evaluation of a person is based solely on my assessment of their value. I have a high opinion of any person who produces more than they consume. A person's worthiness of opportunity can't be determined by race -- what practical effects does race have on a person's ability? None whatever. Racism is an atrocity to individuals who deserve to be treated like the capable people they are. It's an injustice to all of us.
My answer to your final question is, "does their need somehow give them the right to seize my wealth -- which I have earned and they have not -- by force?" If you *choose* not to work, not to produce, then you have *chosen* to starve and freeze yourself. They've chosen to freeze and starve their children. They apparently hate the lives of themselves and their children so much that they won't even do the bare minimum to ensure their survival. They are horrible parents, horrible people, and deserve to punished for Your need is no claim on my ability, particularly not at the point of a gun.
What I wish some socialist would tell me some day is by what right they seize my wealth to give it to those who don't deserve it. Perhaps then I would understand the motivation of such people. I would also really like to know what exactly it is that the government's doing that's so great that is worth about 50% of my money. People are poorer, people are sicker, and people are worse off than when I was allowed to keep my money. But your faith in the system won't let you see this. When you put aside your blind faith in government and look at the cold, discomforting facts, you'll find that your liberal government has failed to do what it set out to do. For all of their efforts, people are suffering more. Their methods don't work. They've never worked, and they're never going to work. Give it up! They're hurting everyone and helping no one!
Alas, I can't. If I had the money that the government takes from me for social security, I could invest in a bigger retirement fund, which is guaranteed to be exponentially larger than social security. I want to opt-out of social security altogether, because I don't want anyone else deciding how I spend my money. In countries that allow this, usually about 90% opt out of all government retirement plans. I wonder why?
I'm not a libertarian -- I love life, and I couldn't ever hate myself enough to declare a political affiliation.
Now, let's take Enron as an example. The purpose of a corporation is to make a profit. That is the moral imperative of capitalism. Enron has failed to do that -- their entire organization collapsed as a result of the immoral behavior of their executives. By taking more than what they were owed and lying about their lack of production, they doomed thousands of hard-working deserving people to poverty. Furthermore, they have precipitated the collapse of countless other organizations that relied upon Enron as a customer. That is an unspeakable evil, and those people deserve to be punished as severely as the worst serial murderer -- they have murdered the organization, the labor of countless people.
Their crime, more than anything else, was a lack of purpose. It is purposelessness that encourages the belief in one's unearned and unlimited right to the effort of others. That is what the current government advocates. It is a government that, for lack of any definite purpose, has set about doing whatever it is that grabs their attention for even a moment. "Who's responsibility is it to ensure the wellbeing of the people? Surely not the people themselves! It's the government's duty!"
What is lacking in the current government is a fundamental recognition of their purpose. The goal of the government is to implement the constitution, and nothing else. The constitution is the moral imperative of this great nation, and they have insulted it and the great men who created it by punishing individuals for their success. The message of the government is, "you must apologize for your success to all those who haven't achieved. After all, it's not their fault they're not as smart, capable, or driven as you." That is at the core of all systems of taxation, the punishment of achievement.
If you were to ask me what is the greatest crime of the industrialists, I would say that they willingly allow the government to extort their profits, which would have been much better served improving the organization and humanity as a result.
I am rich, and I have not benefited from the government more than anyone else. I went to private schools, but my parents paid for both public and private schooling for me. I only benefitted from one. Please tell me how this is fair.
My parents were rich because they worked for it. They were given no advantages in life. They went to poor -- albeit Catholic -- schools (their parents paid for two schools as well, even though they could ill afford it). They didn't benefit any more than anyone else from the government. The amount of money they, and I, pay in taxes is absurd for the value we've gotten from the government. If I truly wanted to get my money's worth, I would quit work altogether and collect welfare. It is what I have paid for. I have earned it. I deserve to benefit from it.
Furthermore, I am more than willing to pay for what public services I use. I am not willing to let people who don't deserve my money have free reign over it. That is what is not fair.
Oppressive corporations? I get raises based on the ever-rising quality of my work. That has been the most profoundly liberating experience of my life. I am rewared for my hard work. The government rewards those who produce nothing and deserve nothing. If you're being paid for the value of your work, and that value happens to be small, then no injustice has been done.
I buy goods and services from corporations by my consent only. No one forces me to buy a product. It is my choice. I have the power to curtail their profits at any time -- by refusing to buy from them. I have the power, they do not. They have to prove themselves worthy of my dollar. Is this what you call oppressive?
Both the means and the ends of government taxation are immoral. They take people further away from happiness, not closer to it.
Well, I want the *liberty* to spend my money the way I want to. You want the *liberty* to take money you haven't earned and give it to others who haven't earned it. How is that fair to either of us? It's not, so quit pretending taxation is fair, especially when it's leveraged disproportionately on the rich. Libertarians are the only political group with a consistent message -- freedom from the tyranny of government.
I didn't know that! What is Microsoft doing with Linux anyway? Are they running their mission-critical applications on it, too? I guess we're going to have to find another impartial observer, like Wonder Woman. Or me, I'd be more than happy to decide for you all.
In all this name-calling and mud-slinging, has anyone actually asked if code in the Linux kernel is stolen from SCO? Why don't we get an impartial observer, say, Bill Gates, who would just as happily see both SCO and Linux disappear, to decide which one should be wiped off the face of the planet. All of these attacks proceed from the basis that SCO's accusations are groundless. What they need to do is *prove it*. None of us have any means whatever of knowing if SCO is telling the truth.
Let's find out for certain that SCO's lawyers are nitwits, slap them across the face for wasting our time, then call it a day. If SCO is so confident in their accusation, they would have nothing to fear by letting someone *actually compare* the code bases. How do they expect to win a lawsuit if they won't present evidence to support their case?
Why don't they just publish their source code and let us all do diff's on it? If we've all already seen it before anyway (in Linux), then it can't harm them any further!
Yes, the real world is pesky, because it invalidates the ideas of communism -- informational or otherwise. What if I want to use the communal performance venue, but so do twelve hundred other people? Only one or maybe a couple of us can use it at a time. How do we decide who gets to use it? Yeah, hundreds of people can perform over the Internet simultaneously, but they still need the means to get it on the Internet, and the bandwidth to get it to its destination. It's a limited resource that, no matter how much capacity the Internet will ever be able to handle, won't be enough for everyone who wants to use it.
You misunderstand the purpose of money. Money is the consequence of, not the cause for, production. It is the reward for having ability and using it. If you produce nothing, you deserve nothing, whether you, or anyone else, thinks you need it or not. Money is not a static thing. It must be created. When I create a valuable idea, I have created value. Money is the symbol of value. I exchange something of value to you -- my idea -- for something of value to me -- money. We both win! How simple and wonderful! We're both happier in the end! If, on the other hand, you take something of value to me, but give me nothing in return, I lose. Whether you "win" or not is debatable. You may be happier, but you wouldn't have deserved it.
But without money, the venue-builder can't build anything. Observe: the people who *want* to make bricks can produce only so many -- not enough for everyone who wants them and/or needs them. What is the venue-builder's security on the materials he needs to do his job? Again, how do we decide who gets them? Reality sucks, doesn't it?
Yes! Whoop-de-doo! I have a bigger house, a better car, a nicer T.V.! That makes me happy, not because of the thing itself, but because I have earned it. I deserve it.
Let me give you an example. When I was in high school, my parents let me drive one of their cars. After graduation, they wanted to give it to me. I told them that I would refuse, because they simply couldn't afford it -- it would be a major financial hit. Furthermore, all through high school, while I drove a nice car, it wasn't mine. I didn't earn it, and I didn't deserve it. Other people oohed and aahed about how lucky I was, but I though they, who owned their hoopties and POSes, were far luckier. It was theirs to do with as they pleased. Only a few of them knew what they had, or that they had something I didn't.
So long as we live in the real world, and resources are finite, the competition for them will persist -- no matter how "noble" or "altruistic" the intent.
By the way, Alexander Fleming made his discovery quite by accident. His genius is that he knew what it was sitting on the moldy plate in his kitchen sink. And yes, he did amass quite a personal fortune, and he deserved it. Did it benefit society? Undoubtedly. Did it benefit him? Definitely. Were both parties better off? Absolutely. That is the simple genius of capitalism.
Please read the words I wrote, and do not take them out of context to distort them to your own end. You'll find that I have stated quite clearly that civilized folks do not initiate physical force against others -- that is in defiance of their existence as human beings. "A man is an end in himself." I said that, didn't I?
If, in the future, I want a better roof over my head it is because I will have earned it. Need has absolutely nothing to do with it. I have produced, and I will take my payment in the form of a better home for myself. Do you suggest that others ought to determine what I need, and that others ought to give it to me, whether I deserve it or not, and that others ought to prohibit me from having more than I need, simply because they don't think I need it?
My job, and my purpose, is to produce ideas. That is what I do, and that is how I earn my living and put a roof over my head and food on my table. If you advocate "sharing" my ideas without my permission, then you have destroyed my means of survival. What I am saying is that an idea is as legitimate a product as a material thing. It costs me as much in time, effort, education, and raw material to produce ideas as it would material things. Therefore, I expect to be paid for them when others benefit from them. If you had it your way, you would be making how I put food on my table your business.
You're talking about using the Internet as a tool for disseminating ideas that I created and that I don't want to you disseminate. I produced them. They are mine. You may not have them unless I sell them to you. A person either owns a thing or he doesn't. There is no "in-between," and you have no claim on that which is not yours. Likewise, I would never break into your house and steal things -- material or otherwise -- if you did not wish to sell them to me.
What you are saying is that I should be *forced* to share my work with you simply because you want it. How am I to survive? Again, how I put food on my table becomes your business.
The truly awful thing is that you consider wanting more for yourself to be "unbridled consumerism". If by "unbridled consumerism," you mean spending the money I have earned on myself in a way that pleases me, then yes. And even more damnably, I'm proud of it, too.
As I've said before, money will take you anywhere you wish to go. My money, which I have earned, takes me to places that make me happy. Yes, money does make a person happy when they use it for that purpose. The people who say that money doesn't buy happiness haven't got any. I'm not competing with anyone but myself. I don't give a damn what you think of my house, my wealth, my things. But I do care what I think about them. Likewise, how you spend your money is your affair. I only hope it makes you happy.
Also, I'd like to point out that capitalism can't exist without a specific form of government to support it. The bloated altruistic government is the reason why capitalism doesn't exist in the U.S. It's a mixed economy, and it's wrong.
In your argument against the selling of art, you state that the art improves its listeners. It does indeed. But how is an artist to create music if you give him no means of producing it? How is he to pay for producing the music, renting the performance venues, buying the computer to share the MP3's on?
But by your argument, why should the listeners even be allowed to listen to music? Why do they need it? I'm quite certain that you wouldn't die if there was no such thing as music. Why should they wish to improve themselves? By what right?
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, the last digit is 4. Pi is exactly 3.14, duh! Transcendental Shmancendental.
Yes, information can be easily copied, but you do diminish my copy by taking yours. You took your copy without my permission. Are you saying you should have access to my credit card number? It's information, and should be totally free! So, your argument implies this: it's my responsibility to produce information for your benefit, and that I have no right to control what I've produced. I have no right to determine what is done with my work. What you're saying is that your unsatiable desire for information -- whether you need it or not -- is more important than my being compensated for producing it.
Here's some free information for you. They have a word for this. It's called SLAVERY. By what right do you deserve my information? It's *mine." If I had never come along and produced it, you wouldn't have it. It wouldn't exist. I demand, not just credit and recognition, but payment. And I have every right to demand it.
If I ever live in a world where this becomes legally acceptable, I would refuse to do any work. I won't work for the benefit of a thief like you. And don't give me any socialistic bullshit about everyone helping everyone. Even on P2P networks there are "seeders" and there are "leechers". Even the people with no regard for intellectual property don't play fair.
Let me put it to you plainly: either we deal with each other through money, or at the point of a gun. There is no other choice. Either we trade by mutual consent, or through coercion and force. But you'll find that when you trade by force, that the producers no longer feel any desire to produce for you. If you need proof, take a peek at any communist country. You want thought policing? Free information at any price is tantamount to thought policing -- after all, all that information that goes against free information must be controlled. We wouldn't want the huddled masses to get the wrong idea about intellectual property. Here's the deal: just because it sounds good doesn't mean it works.
But then we'll all get sued by the AMA, the RIAA, and SCO for copyright infringement for illegally distributing the patented cure virus to complete strangers. They'll demand royalties every time a cell undergoes mitosis!
Either way it's not a very original title. And not to be too anal, the Gettyburg Address is a speech, not a written work, which makes Abraham Lincoln a speaker, not a writer, in this context.
I never said I *liked* "We the Living", just that I've read it :-)
Hmm... "For Us the Living"? Try "We the Living" published four years earlier by Ayn Rand. Title thief! (Actually, for the record, I've never read "For Us the Living", but I have read "We the Living")
Also (and I learned this the hard way) you need to make sure to quit Xcode when it updates that, too. My system hung -- I mean "gray screen of death" hung -- because I was running Xcode when I updated. At least, that's what I've been able to figure out so far.
Just one: he grasps the bulb firmly while the world spins around him.
Just have to say, that is the *weirdest* plane I've ever seen in my whole life. I love it! It's an engineering marvel! Seems only appropriate that a fellow who "thinks different" should be using a Mac :-)
Thanks much. Only too bad she's dead :-(
I would argue that to make something that f**king works is much better than getting paid to produce crap exactly because you have an interest in making the thing f**king work. The problem is that Microsoft hires people who are content to accept money in exchange for producing total sh*t. That they would take money for doing poor work shows you what kind of thieves and moochers they are. If Microsoft had made it a policy never to hire crappy programmers, no matter how far behind schedule that may put them, they would be exponentially richer today, and we wouldn't even be having this discussion.
Furthermore, the open source folks release the source code in the confidence that others will find a way to extend it and make it better, which more often than not benefits the original developer. More rewards!
Open source developers *ought* to feel good about the stuff they've done. Why? Because they've used their minds to make their lives easier! They shouldn't feel good simply because they've written a program that *someone* finds useful. They should be proud because they've written something *they* find useful.
I'm a staunch captialist, and you all might find it contradictory that I support the open-source movement, but what you must realize is that capitalism is about the exchange of value for value for mutual advantage. The value could be money, or it could be code that helps you accomplish some task in a better way. If you ask me, which I guess in all honesty you haven't, the open source programmer is much more selfish than the person who programs only for the money. He does it out of love, I'll agree, but for himself, not for other people. That, ladies and gentlemen, is a truly moral person -- the kind that *ought* to be getting paid sh*tloads of money.
...or better yet, for himself! He could make a lot of money at this.
Hey, don't you all love the warning to the shareholders that says, "we have no intention of ever making a profit. Invest in us!" Pure genius, I tell ya.
What our taxes are paying for, primarily, are things that the government has no business in. I've said many times that I'm willing to pay for the protection of my freedom -- police, military, and courts. I'm not willing to pay for inferior schools, lousy streets, the welfare state, environmental programs, etc., etc. The government sponsors tobacco farmer subsidies, but also supports stop-smoking programs. These programs contradict each other! We could achieve the same effect by spending *nothing.* I think it ought to be my choice what government programs -- if any -- I support.
You wouldn't go to the grocery store to put food in your house that your family doesn't like, so why should I be paying for programs that offend me? Ask any person if there's some government program that they don't like, and there you'll find a person who is made unhappy by paying taxes. Let the people who want this stuff pay for it. I'll buy the things I really want for myself. I'm not a whiny brat, I'm a person who hates to see his effort go to waste.
If the government didn't waste money, I'd have no problem paying my taxes, but they do. That means that the effort it took me to produce that money is going down the drain. On average, six months of my effort (due to the 50% net tax we all pay, when you add it all up), is wasted. If you'd like, I'd rather have a six month vacation, or better yet, the benefit of all twelve months of my effort. Who needs communism? America's halfway there already!
But at the same time, your taxation argument demands that I owe other people for their existence. "We exist and are too lazy to work. Feed us. We deserve it. We were born." What you are suggesting is that no one has a fundamental *right* to exist, because everyone else does. Do you see the contradiction here? You think it's our responsibility to arm our oppressors!
I reject your assertion that the government has benefitted me. If they have, have they benefitted me for the exact amount of my taxes? Otherwise, I think I missed something somewhere, because I think I'm getting ripped off.
As for your racist argument, yes, my parents are white. But you'll never convince me that race is a means of evaluating a person's worth. My evaluation of a person is based solely on my assessment of their value. I have a high opinion of any person who produces more than they consume. A person's worthiness of opportunity can't be determined by race -- what practical effects does race have on a person's ability? None whatever. Racism is an atrocity to individuals who deserve to be treated like the capable people they are. It's an injustice to all of us.
My answer to your final question is, "does their need somehow give them the right to seize my wealth -- which I have earned and they have not -- by force?" If you *choose* not to work, not to produce, then you have *chosen* to starve and freeze yourself. They've chosen to freeze and starve their children. They apparently hate the lives of themselves and their children so much that they won't even do the bare minimum to ensure their survival. They are horrible parents, horrible people, and deserve to punished for Your need is no claim on my ability, particularly not at the point of a gun.
What I wish some socialist would tell me some day is by what right they seize my wealth to give it to those who don't deserve it. Perhaps then I would understand the motivation of such people. I would also really like to know what exactly it is that the government's doing that's so great that is worth about 50% of my money. People are poorer, people are sicker, and people are worse off than when I was allowed to keep my money. But your faith in the system won't let you see this. When you put aside your blind faith in government and look at the cold, discomforting facts, you'll find that your liberal government has failed to do what it set out to do. For all of their efforts, people are suffering more. Their methods don't work. They've never worked, and they're never going to work. Give it up! They're hurting everyone and helping no one!
Alas, I can't. If I had the money that the government takes from me for social security, I could invest in a bigger retirement fund, which is guaranteed to be exponentially larger than social security. I want to opt-out of social security altogether, because I don't want anyone else deciding how I spend my money. In countries that allow this, usually about 90% opt out of all government retirement plans. I wonder why?
Now, let's take Enron as an example. The purpose of a corporation is to make a profit. That is the moral imperative of capitalism. Enron has failed to do that -- their entire organization collapsed as a result of the immoral behavior of their executives. By taking more than what they were owed and lying about their lack of production, they doomed thousands of hard-working deserving people to poverty. Furthermore, they have precipitated the collapse of countless other organizations that relied upon Enron as a customer. That is an unspeakable evil, and those people deserve to be punished as severely as the worst serial murderer -- they have murdered the organization, the labor of countless people.
Their crime, more than anything else, was a lack of purpose. It is purposelessness that encourages the belief in one's unearned and unlimited right to the effort of others. That is what the current government advocates. It is a government that, for lack of any definite purpose, has set about doing whatever it is that grabs their attention for even a moment. "Who's responsibility is it to ensure the wellbeing of the people? Surely not the people themselves! It's the government's duty!"
What is lacking in the current government is a fundamental recognition of their purpose. The goal of the government is to implement the constitution, and nothing else. The constitution is the moral imperative of this great nation, and they have insulted it and the great men who created it by punishing individuals for their success. The message of the government is, "you must apologize for your success to all those who haven't achieved. After all, it's not their fault they're not as smart, capable, or driven as you." That is at the core of all systems of taxation, the punishment of achievement.
If you were to ask me what is the greatest crime of the industrialists, I would say that they willingly allow the government to extort their profits, which would have been much better served improving the organization and humanity as a result.
My parents were rich because they worked for it. They were given no advantages in life. They went to poor -- albeit Catholic -- schools (their parents paid for two schools as well, even though they could ill afford it). They didn't benefit any more than anyone else from the government. The amount of money they, and I, pay in taxes is absurd for the value we've gotten from the government. If I truly wanted to get my money's worth, I would quit work altogether and collect welfare. It is what I have paid for. I have earned it. I deserve to benefit from it.
Furthermore, I am more than willing to pay for what public services I use. I am not willing to let people who don't deserve my money have free reign over it. That is what is not fair.
Oppressive corporations? I get raises based on the ever-rising quality of my work. That has been the most profoundly liberating experience of my life. I am rewared for my hard work. The government rewards those who produce nothing and deserve nothing. If you're being paid for the value of your work, and that value happens to be small, then no injustice has been done.
I buy goods and services from corporations by my consent only. No one forces me to buy a product. It is my choice. I have the power to curtail their profits at any time -- by refusing to buy from them. I have the power, they do not. They have to prove themselves worthy of my dollar. Is this what you call oppressive?
Both the means and the ends of government taxation are immoral. They take people further away from happiness, not closer to it.
Well, I want the *liberty* to spend my money the way I want to. You want the *liberty* to take money you haven't earned and give it to others who haven't earned it. How is that fair to either of us? It's not, so quit pretending taxation is fair, especially when it's leveraged disproportionately on the rich. Libertarians are the only political group with a consistent message -- freedom from the tyranny of government.
I didn't know that! What is Microsoft doing with Linux anyway? Are they running their mission-critical applications on it, too? I guess we're going to have to find another impartial observer, like Wonder Woman. Or me, I'd be more than happy to decide for you all.
Let's find out for certain that SCO's lawyers are nitwits, slap them across the face for wasting our time, then call it a day. If SCO is so confident in their accusation, they would have nothing to fear by letting someone *actually compare* the code bases. How do they expect to win a lawsuit if they won't present evidence to support their case?
Why don't they just publish their source code and let us all do diff's on it? If we've all already seen it before anyway (in Linux), then it can't harm them any further!
You misunderstand the purpose of money. Money is the consequence of, not the cause for, production. It is the reward for having ability and using it. If you produce nothing, you deserve nothing, whether you, or anyone else, thinks you need it or not. Money is not a static thing. It must be created. When I create a valuable idea, I have created value. Money is the symbol of value. I exchange something of value to you -- my idea -- for something of value to me -- money. We both win! How simple and wonderful! We're both happier in the end! If, on the other hand, you take something of value to me, but give me nothing in return, I lose. Whether you "win" or not is debatable. You may be happier, but you wouldn't have deserved it.
But without money, the venue-builder can't build anything. Observe: the people who *want* to make bricks can produce only so many -- not enough for everyone who wants them and/or needs them. What is the venue-builder's security on the materials he needs to do his job? Again, how do we decide who gets them? Reality sucks, doesn't it?
Yes! Whoop-de-doo! I have a bigger house, a better car, a nicer T.V.! That makes me happy, not because of the thing itself, but because I have earned it. I deserve it.
Let me give you an example. When I was in high school, my parents let me drive one of their cars. After graduation, they wanted to give it to me. I told them that I would refuse, because they simply couldn't afford it -- it would be a major financial hit. Furthermore, all through high school, while I drove a nice car, it wasn't mine. I didn't earn it, and I didn't deserve it. Other people oohed and aahed about how lucky I was, but I though they, who owned their hoopties and POSes, were far luckier. It was theirs to do with as they pleased. Only a few of them knew what they had, or that they had something I didn't.
So long as we live in the real world, and resources are finite, the competition for them will persist -- no matter how "noble" or "altruistic" the intent.
By the way, Alexander Fleming made his discovery quite by accident. His genius is that he knew what it was sitting on the moldy plate in his kitchen sink. And yes, he did amass quite a personal fortune, and he deserved it. Did it benefit society? Undoubtedly. Did it benefit him? Definitely. Were both parties better off? Absolutely. That is the simple genius of capitalism.
If, in the future, I want a better roof over my head it is because I will have earned it. Need has absolutely nothing to do with it. I have produced, and I will take my payment in the form of a better home for myself. Do you suggest that others ought to determine what I need, and that others ought to give it to me, whether I deserve it or not, and that others ought to prohibit me from having more than I need, simply because they don't think I need it?
My job, and my purpose, is to produce ideas. That is what I do, and that is how I earn my living and put a roof over my head and food on my table. If you advocate "sharing" my ideas without my permission, then you have destroyed my means of survival. What I am saying is that an idea is as legitimate a product as a material thing. It costs me as much in time, effort, education, and raw material to produce ideas as it would material things. Therefore, I expect to be paid for them when others benefit from them. If you had it your way, you would be making how I put food on my table your business.
You're talking about using the Internet as a tool for disseminating ideas that I created and that I don't want to you disseminate. I produced them. They are mine. You may not have them unless I sell them to you. A person either owns a thing or he doesn't. There is no "in-between," and you have no claim on that which is not yours. Likewise, I would never break into your house and steal things -- material or otherwise -- if you did not wish to sell them to me.
What you are saying is that I should be *forced* to share my work with you simply because you want it. How am I to survive? Again, how I put food on my table becomes your business.
The truly awful thing is that you consider wanting more for yourself to be "unbridled consumerism". If by "unbridled consumerism," you mean spending the money I have earned on myself in a way that pleases me, then yes. And even more damnably, I'm proud of it, too.
As I've said before, money will take you anywhere you wish to go. My money, which I have earned, takes me to places that make me happy. Yes, money does make a person happy when they use it for that purpose. The people who say that money doesn't buy happiness haven't got any. I'm not competing with anyone but myself. I don't give a damn what you think of my house, my wealth, my things. But I do care what I think about them. Likewise, how you spend your money is your affair. I only hope it makes you happy.
Also, I'd like to point out that capitalism can't exist without a specific form of government to support it. The bloated altruistic government is the reason why capitalism doesn't exist in the U.S. It's a mixed economy, and it's wrong.
In your argument against the selling of art, you state that the art improves its listeners. It does indeed. But how is an artist to create music if you give him no means of producing it? How is he to pay for producing the music, renting the performance venues, buying the computer to share the MP3's on?
But by your argument, why should the listeners even be allowed to listen to music? Why do they need it? I'm quite certain that you wouldn't die if there was no such thing as music. Why should they wish to improve themselves? By what right?
The new iMac's still the best looking of the Apple family, anyway.
Oops... I meant to reference the original comment, thanking Teller. Sorry for any confusion.
Yes indeed. Well put.