So you're saying writers and singers should get paid by the hour, just like engineers and programmers. That's fine but if people copy the books and songs, rather than pay for them, how will the corporation pay those wages?
To put it bluntly, if someone can't make a living writing or singing without the help of an artificial monopoly, then that's too bad. No, seriously, it is. It's not the end of the world. It's not even the end of that person, since he can get a day job, nor even necessarily his creative efforts, since people working a day job get free time. He doesn't want to write or record if he's not paid? Well, if no one likes his writing or voice well enough to pay him up front, then I guess he won't be doing it anymore.
That's not going to work. I propose an alternative:
- Revert back to the 1790 copyright act where people have a *reasonable* time to earn money (14 years), so those like me who are simply too cheap to buy, can wait for a public domain alternative.
And that's not going to work either, even if you got Disney to go along with it. It won't solve our current problem, since a 14-year long copyright is still going to require enforcement, which is impossible and even any attempt will cause serious problems and perversions to our communications infrastructure. It also won't stay at 14 years, but will be extended whenever a franchise belonging to someone rich and powerful will be about to become public domain - just like it's been going with Mickey Mouse Protection Acts.
Basically, you can have no copyright or infinite copyright. Once created, copyright is unstable and will get extended and expanded until it becomes a monstrosity. It's simply too easily abused to ever amount to more positives than negatives, even in the best of circumstances.
It's the same thing with DRM - it doesn't keep the hardcore pirates off who are there to break it, but it surely keeps casual people from copying to friends and so on.
Mmm... no. What DRM does is make it a nuisance to use a legally-bought copy, making a copy downloaded from a torrent site - which has been disinfected of DRM by a skilled team of professional pirates - superior in every respect. Even disk checks have that effect. And of people can copy games from their friends, they just need to get a crack afterwards.
As for DVDs, every time I see an unskippable "you wouldn't steal a car" piece before getting into actual content, I can't help but think that if a bought car forced me to watch similar propaganda every time before driving, and a stolen one wouldn't, then yes I would steal a car!
That doesn't mean that the population isn't still growing - it just means that it's not growing as fast as it was. World population is expected to continue to grow for quite some time.
Yes, I'd imagine that the world will have plenty of poor countries for quite some time. However, it doesn't have as many poor countries as it used to, so the population is growing slower than it used to. Ergo, your newspaper's is horseshit.
Engine fuel contains a percentage of engine oil left behind in the cylinder when the piston descends into the cylinder.
Yes, I already mentioned it contains carbohydrons. I'd be surprised if any of it was not burnt to carbon dioxide, thought, seeing how it goes through the cylinder during the firing stage. Also understand that we're talking about a few drops lost between changings of oil.
That oil contains a percentage of metal scraped away from the engine components during the course of normal operation.
No metal whatsoever is scraped away from engine components during the course of normal operation, that's kinda the whole point of having oil in the first place. If any does get scraped away, rest assured that the engine in question won't remain in operation for long. However, it's also worth noting that engines are made of iron, which isn't exactly an uber-poison.
This, most of all your statements, makes me think you're trolling, being such an obviously ridiculous claim. Or do you honestly think that the engine blowing little pieces of itself out of its tailpipe, and can continue operating despite that? WTF?
Motor fuel regularly contains compounds known to be harmful to plant and animal life and a certain percentage of it passes out of the tailpipe unburned, usually a much higher percentage for farm equipment and the like than for road-going vehicles, which are subjected to a much higher standard for emissions.
You are reiterating the claim that engine exhaust is harmful to plants, so I ask again: what compounds? Can you name a single one?
And no, in a normally operating engine, no fuel passes through unburnt, unless it's not getting enough air for some reason. It's very unlikely anyone would run their farm equipment that way, simply because it would increase fuel usage and kill power.
There is a reason we have been the dominant financial power in the world for decades, and it's because our government didn't waste as much money as all the other first world countries, which allowed us to be more productive than everybody else.
No, the reason was that pretty much every other industrial country had been ruined by World War II, and much of Europe was subsequently kept from recovering by the Soviet Union. Now that Soviets are gone, and EU is stopping petty wars from breaking out in the Old Continent, and China is getting its act together, it's pretty obvious that the US can't keep its position anymore - it simply doesn't have the population. Ultracapitalist ideology doesn't help either, being just as irrational as Soviet-style communism, and just a destructive to economy, as demonstrated by constant offshoring and the expense of getting a high-level education and the resulting waste of talent.
Why the hell can't presidents get their heads around the idea of "spend less than you take in"? It's not that hard, any responsible adult can do it. I suppose when you never have to live in the real world you don't have to learn these things.
They aren't spending their own money, and won't be around to pay the bill when it comes due, while they do get the benefits of spending the money now. You are ascribing to incompetence that which is clearly caused by cynical, calculating selfishness.
The best way to "let the problem take care of itself" is to walk away from problem areas and let the natives sort it out among themselves. Aid to starving populations where their past population was unsustainable has led to even more mouths to starve. Not too smart, Sally Struthers.
Add to this the fact that The Economist is a pro-free market publication, which nowadays means ultra-capitalist "taxes are robbery" crowd, and a very nasty picture begins to emerge: less foreign aid => less money spent => less taxes => more profits for the elite.
Of course, those profits come at the cost of humans starving to death, which rises another interesting question: is everyone in power a psychopath? Answering that one, and what to do about it if the answer is "yes", is far more important for our future than a how many children some woman in Africa has.
If you had read the Economist article, you'd know that this assumption has now been proven false. Birth rates start rising again after a certain level of affluence. People figure they can afford a few extra mouths to feed.
According to US Census, world's rate of population growth peaked at the 1960's and has been in decline ever since.
Furthermore, according to its own about page, The Economist has an agenda, so frankly, any claim made by it is suspect (assuming it even made the claim, since the article seems to be still missing). Do you have a link to a scientific study proving your claims?
So when you calculate the toxin buildup, you will end up with fields that are so deadly that nothing will ever grow there again.
Perhaps you might explain which toxins, to be exact, are you talking about? Because engine fuel is carbohydrons and exhaus water and oxidized carbon in various forms, neither of which are the least bit toxic to plants? Really, the only thing toxic to even animals in the exhaust is carbon monoxide, and that can't buildup in the body. Some microparticles might cause lung cancer, but that's because "microparticle" is a fancy name for "fine dust", rather than toxicity.
Women's rights come into it. People have 14 kids because they're not allowed to abort them, or practice safe sex, etc.
People have 14 kids because that way at least some of them are likely to survive to continue the line and take care of their parents in their old age. Population growth usually levels off once medicine reaches the level where surviving to adulthood is the rule rather than exception, and social services provide for you whether you have children or not.
Religion has always been against women's rights.
Some do, some don't. Religions typically reflect the values of the society that spawned them, and some of the older ones have grown more civilized with time. There are people who wish to oppress others in the name of their God, but they'd simply use a different excuse if religion was not available ("one race, one nation, one leader" / "will of the proletariat" / "taxes are robbery" / etc).
While you may compare this to government shutting down legitimate bars that happen to be a gathering place for criminals that sell illegal weapons, there is a difference.
Don't forget that the government only does this because the king has been put under a terrible curse by his trusted advisor, a treacherous magical mouse, and the weapons are being sold to freedom fighters who are preparing to stage a rebellion. The whole thing is being masterminded by an evil undead wizard from his frozen grave.
All the criminals would go elsewhere and you'd have the same damn problem, until the evil warlocks responsible monopolize magic bars.
We call these warlocks "lawyers" around here.
Then we would have to wait for a hero who can wield the sword of Gargatha to slay these evil warlocks. But there's a rumor that these evil warlocks have been killing virgins to gain immunity to the sword. I don't know what this would be analogous to but I though it would be fun to add.
Well, didn't the RIAA sue a 9-year old at some point? I think she might qualify;).
I like the thing about going after media lawyers with a sword, BTW.
And that assumes it actually WAS set up to be a legal torrent tracker! As others have pointed out, it's called The PIRATE Bay!
The Pirate Party is a legal and official political party where I live (and will get my vote, BTW). There is nothing illegal of calling yourself a pirate. It might not have been wise, but then again, the word "pirate" has pretty much lost all the negative connotations it once had, thanks to Hollywood's pirate movies and anti-piracy campaigns.
I, for one, hold will always side with pirates against robber barons.
No. Gravity has exactly the same effect on all photons
How do we know this is true over long distances? Seems to me a lot of this is conjecture.
Strictly speaking: we don't know it. However, all evidence so far points to that direction, and none points to the other, so it's the best educated guess we can make at this point.
This gets us to the fascinating but pointless philosophical question about how it's possible to know anything, since you never know if you can trust your perceptions and thought processes.
Hmmm. There appears to be something wrong with my history book.
History is written by winners, and thanks to Amazon, it's now easier than ever to rewrite it at will, for a small fee of course. I wonder if Orwell realized that his book would not only become an inspiration for politicians, but also a source of business opportunities?
Besides, it's not your history book, it's Amazons; you have simply been licensed it until such a time that Amazon sees fit to terminate the license. Surely you agree that it's a company's right to update its property as it sees fit?
This bugs me about patents. This sounds like an exact copy of what they've done with maps for years. They add/remove/rename tiny roads in the middle of nowhere and if you distribute maps with those roads then they know you copied their stuff.
Would you mind telling who "they" are, so I'll know who's maps can't be relied on?
Besides, isn't it trivial to work around this method by simply getting three or more maps and using a voting algorithm to get a real, undistorted map/book/whatever?
I love the hypocrisy in this. Being secretive is any person's right - unless said person is working for the government. ONOZ PUBLIC CAMERAS, but at the same time, ONOZ GOVERNMENT HIDING TANK PLANS!!1.
Every person has a right to secrecy on his own affairs. No person has a right to keep from his employer what he's doing at work, thought. And a public servant is working for the public, by definition, so the public should have a right to know what their employee is doing in their name and with their authority.
But I am also well acquainted with folks who work every day on the tech side of the defense industry.
You mean those people who have NDAs and will likely get charged with treason if they tell you anything of what they actually do? Or the people who have no NDAs because they do nothing of importance?
Oh well, never mind, I'm sure either of these would make for an extremely reliable source of information.
Some would argue that the "godless" part makes less evil than other religions.
Fanatical atheists, who react to the word "god" like a vampire to Sun, are just as pathetic as fanatical theists, especially since they claim that their convulsions are caused by logic and reason.
The evil of scientology comes from it's abuse of it's members and it's fifth rate sci-fi "doctrine".
No, the evil of scientology comes entirely from its abuse of its members and others. It's fifth rate sci-fi doctrine merely makes it ridiculous, not evil.
It's also worth considering that according to articles on the subject, health care workers are "notoriously non-compliant" with flu vaccination. That is, the people best equipped to understand the benefits and risks tend to opt against being vaccinated.
In my experience, the people most lax in the use of seatbelts are professional drivers. It could be written down as overconfidence in their own skill, except that they are equally lax when it's someone else - even someone they know has just gotten his driver's license - is driving. That's because they drive a lot everyday, and the more you do something, the less you think of risks while doing so.
Similarly, the health professionals not getting flu shots can be due to careful consideration of risks, or it can be because of a feeling of invulnerability gained from years of being near ill people without dying.
Fair enough. But better would be to have power split, so that none of these are completely in charge. Checks and balances between government and business would serve us better than absolute control by either.
Agreed. In my opinion, business is currently influencing the government too much; in fact I'd say that the two are merging, which gives us the worst of both worlds with additional bad things. That's why I'm against big business: small businesses don't have the resources to bribe the government, and as an added benefit their owners tend to see them as personal possessions, prompting long-term view and allowing normal human conscience to curb the nastier practices.
The problem, of course, is that just like it's in the best interests of two shopkeepers to cooperate rather than compete, it's in the best interests of business and government to cooperate. And just like the customers get screwed over in the first scenario, we the people get to bend over in the second.
OTOH, while politicians may have some limited accountability each election, a government bureaucrat has virtually none. No action on your or my part is likely to budge them. Even if they're incompetent the unions make them almost impossible to get fired.
Believe me, I know. A friend of mine got fined because he didn't react to a paper that the tax bureau never bothered to actually send him. The people responsible got away scott free, of course.
I don't think that that has anything to do with unions, thought; it's simply that whoever makes the decision to fire or not is a "good brother" of the culprit.
So if it's a bureaucrat standing in your way, you have even less recourse than with a businessman.
It's not the ones that stand on my way that I worry about; it's those who stand aside, then a year later change their mind, and demand that I pay back the advantage I got from using the road. And yes, that also happened.
If your goal is to show that the government is not the problem with the creation of monopolies then using subsidies, which by definition are from the government, isn't really the best place to start.
My goal, as I clearly stated, was to show that the more power you have, the easier it is to get even more. If there were no government, then the corporation that lobbied for subsidies under it would simply hire thugs to take them directly from the people; the Mafia is a perfect example of this.
Whoever is in charge, they can and will use their power to take from me and give to themselves. And someone will always be in charge, whether it's The Government, John Galt or Don Corleone. However, a democratic government is the the most likely of these to pay even lip service to listening to me every now and then, so I'd rather take it than a businessman or an outright mafioso.
The sad thing is that I'd actually want people to have as much freedom as possible, to live their lives as they will; however, there doesn't seem to be any movement that combines this goal with the understanding that complete economic freedom makes everyone but the richest practically slaves. So I guess I'd go with "socialist libertarianism", if such a thing existed; pity they're all ultracapitalist nuts.
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To put it bluntly, if someone can't make a living writing or singing without the help of an artificial monopoly, then that's too bad. No, seriously, it is. It's not the end of the world. It's not even the end of that person, since he can get a day job, nor even necessarily his creative efforts, since people working a day job get free time. He doesn't want to write or record if he's not paid? Well, if no one likes his writing or voice well enough to pay him up front, then I guess he won't be doing it anymore.
And that's not going to work either, even if you got Disney to go along with it. It won't solve our current problem, since a 14-year long copyright is still going to require enforcement, which is impossible and even any attempt will cause serious problems and perversions to our communications infrastructure. It also won't stay at 14 years, but will be extended whenever a franchise belonging to someone rich and powerful will be about to become public domain - just like it's been going with Mickey Mouse Protection Acts.
Basically, you can have no copyright or infinite copyright. Once created, copyright is unstable and will get extended and expanded until it becomes a monstrosity. It's simply too easily abused to ever amount to more positives than negatives, even in the best of circumstances.
Mmm... no. What DRM does is make it a nuisance to use a legally-bought copy, making a copy downloaded from a torrent site - which has been disinfected of DRM by a skilled team of professional pirates - superior in every respect. Even disk checks have that effect. And of people can copy games from their friends, they just need to get a crack afterwards.
As for DVDs, every time I see an unskippable "you wouldn't steal a car" piece before getting into actual content, I can't help but think that if a bought car forced me to watch similar propaganda every time before driving, and a stolen one wouldn't, then yes I would steal a car!
Yes, I'd imagine that the world will have plenty of poor countries for quite some time. However, it doesn't have as many poor countries as it used to, so the population is growing slower than it used to. Ergo, your newspaper's is horseshit.
Yes, I already mentioned it contains carbohydrons. I'd be surprised if any of it was not burnt to carbon dioxide, thought, seeing how it goes through the cylinder during the firing stage. Also understand that we're talking about a few drops lost between changings of oil.
No metal whatsoever is scraped away from engine components during the course of normal operation, that's kinda the whole point of having oil in the first place. If any does get scraped away, rest assured that the engine in question won't remain in operation for long. However, it's also worth noting that engines are made of iron, which isn't exactly an uber-poison.
This, most of all your statements, makes me think you're trolling, being such an obviously ridiculous claim. Or do you honestly think that the engine blowing little pieces of itself out of its tailpipe, and can continue operating despite that? WTF?
You are reiterating the claim that engine exhaust is harmful to plants, so I ask again: what compounds? Can you name a single one?
And no, in a normally operating engine, no fuel passes through unburnt, unless it's not getting enough air for some reason. It's very unlikely anyone would run their farm equipment that way, simply because it would increase fuel usage and kill power.
Where on Earth are you getting this shit from?
No, the reason was that pretty much every other industrial country had been ruined by World War II, and much of Europe was subsequently kept from recovering by the Soviet Union. Now that Soviets are gone, and EU is stopping petty wars from breaking out in the Old Continent, and China is getting its act together, it's pretty obvious that the US can't keep its position anymore - it simply doesn't have the population. Ultracapitalist ideology doesn't help either, being just as irrational as Soviet-style communism, and just a destructive to economy, as demonstrated by constant offshoring and the expense of getting a high-level education and the resulting waste of talent.
They aren't spending their own money, and won't be around to pay the bill when it comes due, while they do get the benefits of spending the money now. You are ascribing to incompetence that which is clearly caused by cynical, calculating selfishness.
Add to this the fact that The Economist is a pro-free market publication, which nowadays means ultra-capitalist "taxes are robbery" crowd, and a very nasty picture begins to emerge: less foreign aid => less money spent => less taxes => more profits for the elite.
Of course, those profits come at the cost of humans starving to death, which rises another interesting question: is everyone in power a psychopath? Answering that one, and what to do about it if the answer is "yes", is far more important for our future than a how many children some woman in Africa has.
According to US Census, world's rate of population growth peaked at the 1960's and has been in decline ever since.
Furthermore, according to its own about page, The Economist has an agenda, so frankly, any claim made by it is suspect (assuming it even made the claim, since the article seems to be still missing). Do you have a link to a scientific study proving your claims?
Perhaps you might explain which toxins, to be exact, are you talking about? Because engine fuel is carbohydrons and exhaus water and oxidized carbon in various forms, neither of which are the least bit toxic to plants? Really, the only thing toxic to even animals in the exhaust is carbon monoxide, and that can't buildup in the body. Some microparticles might cause lung cancer, but that's because "microparticle" is a fancy name for "fine dust", rather than toxicity.
People have 14 kids because that way at least some of them are likely to survive to continue the line and take care of their parents in their old age. Population growth usually levels off once medicine reaches the level where surviving to adulthood is the rule rather than exception, and social services provide for you whether you have children or not.
Some do, some don't. Religions typically reflect the values of the society that spawned them, and some of the older ones have grown more civilized with time. There are people who wish to oppress others in the name of their God, but they'd simply use a different excuse if religion was not available ("one race, one nation, one leader" / "will of the proletariat" / "taxes are robbery" / etc).
Wikipedia is your friend.
Don't forget that the government only does this because the king has been put under a terrible curse by his trusted advisor, a treacherous magical mouse, and the weapons are being sold to freedom fighters who are preparing to stage a rebellion. The whole thing is being masterminded by an evil undead wizard from his frozen grave.
We call these warlocks "lawyers" around here.
Well, didn't the RIAA sue a 9-year old at some point? I think she might qualify ;).
I like the thing about going after media lawyers with a sword, BTW.
The Pirate Party is a legal and official political party where I live (and will get my vote, BTW). There is nothing illegal of calling yourself a pirate. It might not have been wise, but then again, the word "pirate" has pretty much lost all the negative connotations it once had, thanks to Hollywood's pirate movies and anti-piracy campaigns.
I, for one, hold will always side with pirates against robber barons.
With distributed tracker techonology, does that matter?
Strictly speaking: we don't know it. However, all evidence so far points to that direction, and none points to the other, so it's the best educated guess we can make at this point.
This gets us to the fascinating but pointless philosophical question about how it's possible to know anything, since you never know if you can trust your perceptions and thought processes.
History is written by winners, and thanks to Amazon, it's now easier than ever to rewrite it at will, for a small fee of course. I wonder if Orwell realized that his book would not only become an inspiration for politicians, but also a source of business opportunities?
Besides, it's not your history book, it's Amazons; you have simply been licensed it until such a time that Amazon sees fit to terminate the license. Surely you agree that it's a company's right to update its property as it sees fit?
Would you mind telling who "they" are, so I'll know who's maps can't be relied on?
Besides, isn't it trivial to work around this method by simply getting three or more maps and using a voting algorithm to get a real, undistorted map/book/whatever?
Every person has a right to secrecy on his own affairs. No person has a right to keep from his employer what he's doing at work, thought. And a public servant is working for the public, by definition, so the public should have a right to know what their employee is doing in their name and with their authority.
You mean those people who have NDAs and will likely get charged with treason if they tell you anything of what they actually do? Or the people who have no NDAs because they do nothing of importance?
Oh well, never mind, I'm sure either of these would make for an extremely reliable source of information.
Then why don't you? The grandparent complained SSA for having a poor return on investment; what specific things are you talking about?
Fanatical atheists, who react to the word "god" like a vampire to Sun, are just as pathetic as fanatical theists, especially since they claim that their convulsions are caused by logic and reason.
No, the evil of scientology comes entirely from its abuse of its members and others. It's fifth rate sci-fi doctrine merely makes it ridiculous, not evil.
You hate losing some money more than the secret police wannabe? Seriously?
In my experience, the people most lax in the use of seatbelts are professional drivers. It could be written down as overconfidence in their own skill, except that they are equally lax when it's someone else - even someone they know has just gotten his driver's license - is driving. That's because they drive a lot everyday, and the more you do something, the less you think of risks while doing so.
Similarly, the health professionals not getting flu shots can be due to careful consideration of risks, or it can be because of a feeling of invulnerability gained from years of being near ill people without dying.
Someone has, it's called "transparency", and it has once again proved its efficiency by nipping this infection in the bud.
Agreed. In my opinion, business is currently influencing the government too much; in fact I'd say that the two are merging, which gives us the worst of both worlds with additional bad things. That's why I'm against big business: small businesses don't have the resources to bribe the government, and as an added benefit their owners tend to see them as personal possessions, prompting long-term view and allowing normal human conscience to curb the nastier practices.
The problem, of course, is that just like it's in the best interests of two shopkeepers to cooperate rather than compete, it's in the best interests of business and government to cooperate. And just like the customers get screwed over in the first scenario, we the people get to bend over in the second.
Believe me, I know. A friend of mine got fined because he didn't react to a paper that the tax bureau never bothered to actually send him. The people responsible got away scott free, of course.
I don't think that that has anything to do with unions, thought; it's simply that whoever makes the decision to fire or not is a "good brother" of the culprit.
It's not the ones that stand on my way that I worry about; it's those who stand aside, then a year later change their mind, and demand that I pay back the advantage I got from using the road. And yes, that also happened.
My goal, as I clearly stated, was to show that the more power you have, the easier it is to get even more. If there were no government, then the corporation that lobbied for subsidies under it would simply hire thugs to take them directly from the people; the Mafia is a perfect example of this.
Whoever is in charge, they can and will use their power to take from me and give to themselves. And someone will always be in charge, whether it's The Government, John Galt or Don Corleone. However, a democratic government is the the most likely of these to pay even lip service to listening to me every now and then, so I'd rather take it than a businessman or an outright mafioso.
The sad thing is that I'd actually want people to have as much freedom as possible, to live their lives as they will; however, there doesn't seem to be any movement that combines this goal with the understanding that complete economic freedom makes everyone but the richest practically slaves. So I guess I'd go with "socialist libertarianism", if such a thing existed; pity they're all ultracapitalist nuts.