So, let me get this straight, you, a native speaker of German (if I'm understanding your background correctly) think your understanding of the "real" meaning of English words is superior to that of a whole hoard of native English speakers on Slashdot?
I'm pretty sure that any native speaker of English, regardless of where they are from, would find it natural to simply call the U.S. "America." This is indubitably true in the language most here are writing in, US English. This may well be a symptom of our latent (or not-so-latent) self-centeredness, but this has nothing to do with the underlying facts regarding the meanings of words; "America" in US English (and, I'm pretty sure, UK English, though this is really beside the point) most certainly does primarily mean "The US" regardless of the possibly-ugly psychological reasons for it.
The only people I have ever met who would agree with you who live in latin America. I understand that they (you?) are irritated that the US has taken over the name of two entire continents, but that has nothing to do with the actual meanings of words. Sorry. On the other hand I have never met a single native English speaker (from the US, Great Britain, or elsewhere) who would agree with your view on the meaning of the word "America" in the English language.
It seems to me that this general discussion is about Ubuntu's (and apparently by extension other Linux distros') ability to appeal to consumers. And, generally, consumers are won over by the availability and polish of consumer applications. The technical crowd generally seems to be regarded here as having been already won over.
That said, I think you're right to suggest that people broaden their perspective a bit. Linux (and other FOSS) has already seen tremendous success in the technical world. But the significance of that accomplishment tends to be forgotten whenever anyone so much as speaks the word "Flash," or "GIMP."
Here is the problem with the book analogy (that I'm finding myself repeating over an over again; sorry if you've already read this elsewhere). When you buy a book, you do not also sign a contract governing your use of the book. If you bought a book and signed a contract with the seller not to read it to small children, and you did anyway, the seller certainly could sue you. Sure, you own the book free and clear, but that doesn't mean you don't have separate contractual obligations that you voluntarily entered into.
What about contract law? When you install their OS, you accept their EULA. So, while the first sale doctrine allows you to sell your copy regardless of their copyright law claims, it says nothing about your contractual obligations.
What about the following sequence of events is controversial? You have a copy of Mac OS X. I offer you $50 in exchange for your promise to never install it on something other than Apple hardware. You accept, but then install on Psystar hardware anyway. I get to sue you for breach of contract.
This is exactly what happens when you agree to Apple's EULA, except instead of giving you $50, Apple gives you the ability to install the software. (Or maybe this is a better way of looking at it: Apple agrees to sell you the software in the first place in exchange for your promise and $X.)
(Note also that the first sale doctrine does not say you can do whatever you like with something you've bought. It just says that you have a right to resell it.)
Note that the GP's fertility measures is just average number of offspring. This is probably just due to the well known fact that the better educated and the rich often choose to have fewer children. I seriously doubt awkwardness has anything to do with it.
The laws governing sale of a good in a jurisdiction are generally different from the laws regarding possession of that good. How is this moronic and ludicrous?
If we're being technical, property is just anything that you have certain legal rights to do with as you please.
In this country (the US), for example, you do not have a fundamental right to an education. Rather you have a property right in an education. In this case this means just that you cannot be deprived of your education without due process.
So, you see, "property" is really quite an elusive concept. It's true, of course, that the right to exclude is a hallmark of private property. But what isn't true is that the only purpose of private property is to promote the efficient allocation of scarce resources. (Though this is it's most common use). Any public policy goal will do. If we think that our society will not produce enough ideas of a certain sort, then we might just as legitimately create property interests in those to give people an incentive to be creative in the ways we want. Of course, we want to be correct about the utility of the rights we create, but there is nothing in the word "property" that dictates what are acceptable and what are unacceptable public policy goals to be furthered by their creation.
Property rights are just rights in something created by the government to further some public policy goal. This can be to ensure students can't be expelled without due process; to ensure that people don't have to turn to economically inefficient self help to protect their interests (by building fences, etc.); to encourage people to be more thoughtful stewards of resources; or, yes, to encourage the production of new ideas among many other uses.
Good point. Although most contract law scholars will tell you that if there were no transaction costs there would be no need for contract law. Contract law exists to make up for the fact that some bargains would be too costly to reach in the real world. (See Coase's Theorem)
But still, as you say, it certainly interferes in the free market in some sense - although it only does this to allow it to operate more efficiently so the point might be a little misleading.
More seriously, maybe this reflects a difference in the sort of cases we were working on. My firm was a big national thing that typically only worked federal cases where the dollar amount was too high to entrust to a local counsel or state court judge (typically 7+ figures; the McDonald's suit, had McDonald's been or client, would probably never have even made it too our desks.).
Of course, I have no idea what your firm did, so I can't really compare.
Did you generally win your frivolous suits? (I mean this to include, of course, receiving substantial settlements.) Could you give us a few examples (made suitably generic, of course, to avoid privilege issues) of suits that you regarded as frivolous?
You raise an interesting point. Though I'm not sure what government run care has to do with anything - as you point out yourself, the incentives to get rid of the old and the sick already exist within the private system we have today. I don't see any reason to think that the government would care less about the sick and the elderly than private insurers, which is what your argument would seem to require.
(In fact the very creation of Medicare would seem to contradict your pessimistic view of the government's approach to caring for seniors.)
Obviously I don't know what they're thinking, but as a soon-to-be lawyer I can tell you they can and will be sued if they do what you suggest. And they will lose. Hard.
Don't get me wrong, I think health insurance companies are sleazy. All I'm saying is that one thing you can trust them to do is to look out for their own interests.
But bear in mind that if she's wrong the company's costs, on balance, will be much higher when their insured start showing up in the hospital not having gotten the vaccine. The vaccine, if it works, should be a cost saving measure for them.
It seems to me that they'd want to get this right.
(This is all subject, of course, to speculation on my part regarding the cost of the vaccine, versus the cost and likelihood of hospitalization in its absence. Though I'd point out that, if the vaccine isn't cost effective for the insurer, they could elect not to cover it regardless of its effectiveness.)
Well, you're mostly right. According to my argument we shouldn't allow restaurants to sell undercooked meats without warnings. This is why restaurants in much of the United States now have warnings on their menus about eating raw or undercooked food.
A restaurant that passed along an ecoli or salmonella infection to a customer without warning them of the possibility could almost certainly be sued for negligence.
Of course, there may be a further question here - as there was in the hot coffee case - of whether a reasonable person should know of the dangers of eating a rare steak. If so, then they've assumed the risk by eating it and the restaurant is liability-free. It would seem that this question is coming to be answered in the negative, however (for reasons I don't quite understand).
I understand your point. There are two issues that I see that need addressing: balacing the costs with the benefits, and assumption of risk.
If I use a lighter or charcoal I understand that I am making fire, and fire is dangerously hot. As in, instant serious burns/death if I make a mistake. This is just not true with hot coffee. Yes, you expect it to be hot. In fact, I might even say you expect it to cause some burns if you spill it on yourself. But nearly instant 3rd degree burns, on the other hand, are not such a reasonable expectation.
We also need to ask, what are the costs associated with making a safer product? In the case of lighters and charcoal the answer is "very high." In fact, it might be impossible, in which case you have to look at the costs of eliminating the product altogether. In the case of coffee it costs very very little to sell it at 150 instead of 190 (including the costs to those who, for whatever reason, wanted their coffee that hot). So, when 190-degree-coffee is capable of causing major injuries, we ought to prefer avoiding the massive injuries it occasionally causes to protecting your "right" to buy ridiculously hot coffee. Of course, you're free to ask for it that hot, or get it someplace where you are specifically warned that it's that hot.
I think your meat example is ridiculous, but I'll take it up anyway for the sake of thoroughness: A hot piece of chicken simply does not cause 3rd degree burns if you drop it on yourself. There are a lot of reasons for this, but none of them matter; it is the actual risk that matters. So, we weigh the risk, virtually zero, with the cost of not being able to cook them to a temperature hot enough to kill pathogens, very high. 0 very high, so we keep cooking chicken.
There is nothing innovative about the test I'm applying here. This is just the cost-benefit-analysis courts have been consciously applying since U.S. v. Carroll Towing was decided in 1947. Have charcoal, lighters, or hot meat been banned?
Well I'll give you that there are "plenty" of frivolous lawsuits. But take it from someone with some time in the trenches actually defending large corporations in these sort of suits that "plenty" here is nothing like "most."
The large majority of cases I've seen are brought by real plaintiffs that have suffered real injuries. The only questions that typically remain are "who caused it?" and "was it wrongful?"
Now she just makes them make lukewarm coffee like everyone else.
What is it about "causes 3rd degree burns within seconds" that you don't understand? There is a LOT of room between 190-degree-put-you-in-the-hospital hot and lukewarm.
You need to make up your mind.
Um, no. My point is that coffee can be dangerously hot (so hot you can't drink it) AND that you might not know how dengerous it is until it spills in your lap.
What about those of us who want them hot?
I'm still waiting for your explanation of why anyone would want coffee so hot that contact with it will put them in the hospital. I'm all for a hot cup of coffee, but I think 190 degrees is taking this a bit too far.
And it's not as though coffee never spills. McDonalds knew their coffee was dangerous, and they knew that it was likely to spill from time to time. They could have avoided the danger easily, but instead they opted not to to make a few extra cents.
Many people like their coffee piping hot. McDonalds was trying to satisfy their custmers. Some don't like it, some do. Just because there were people complaining about it does not make it wrong.
This is nuts. Have you tried to drink 190 degree (F) coffee? Given that, as the GP pointed out, coffee this temperature causes 3rd degree burns in seconds, I doubt you, or anyone else, would enjoy the experience. Rather, McDonalds was finding that it was simply easier to make coffee at this temperature than at a safe temperature, putting their customers at risk to make a few extra cents per cup.
I also don't see how you can claim that the woman somehow assumed the risk by buying McDonalds coffee. Even if, as you idly speculate, she was a frequent purchaser of their coffee, she probably would not have known that it would cause extremely serious burns if she spilled it on herself.
Slashdot Mirror
A very good question. Somehow I doubt an answer will be forthcoming...
So maybe I can help: "Amerikaner?"
So, let me get this straight, you, a native speaker of German (if I'm understanding your background correctly) think your understanding of the "real" meaning of English words is superior to that of a whole hoard of native English speakers on Slashdot?
I'm pretty sure that any native speaker of English, regardless of where they are from, would find it natural to simply call the U.S. "America." This is indubitably true in the language most here are writing in, US English. This may well be a symptom of our latent (or not-so-latent) self-centeredness, but this has nothing to do with the underlying facts regarding the meanings of words; "America" in US English (and, I'm pretty sure, UK English, though this is really beside the point) most certainly does primarily mean "The US" regardless of the possibly-ugly psychological reasons for it.
The only people I have ever met who would agree with you who live in latin America. I understand that they (you?) are irritated that the US has taken over the name of two entire continents, but that has nothing to do with the actual meanings of words. Sorry. On the other hand I have never met a single native English speaker (from the US, Great Britain, or elsewhere) who would agree with your view on the meaning of the word "America" in the English language.
It seems to me that this general discussion is about Ubuntu's (and apparently by extension other Linux distros') ability to appeal to consumers. And, generally, consumers are won over by the availability and polish of consumer applications. The technical crowd generally seems to be regarded here as having been already won over.
That said, I think you're right to suggest that people broaden their perspective a bit. Linux (and other FOSS) has already seen tremendous success in the technical world. But the significance of that accomplishment tends to be forgotten whenever anyone so much as speaks the word "Flash," or "GIMP."
Point taken, though I'm pretty sure the GP and GGP intended to be talking about consumer applications.
Yes, now that is sensible. But why go on with the stupid book metaphor when this is really the issue?
Here is the problem with the book analogy (that I'm finding myself repeating over an over again; sorry if you've already read this elsewhere). When you buy a book, you do not also sign a contract governing your use of the book. If you bought a book and signed a contract with the seller not to read it to small children, and you did anyway, the seller certainly could sue you. Sure, you own the book free and clear, but that doesn't mean you don't have separate contractual obligations that you voluntarily entered into.
Right, unless you signed a contract when you bought the book saying you wouldn't use it for toilet paper. If you did, then the seller can sue.
What about contract law? When you install their OS, you accept their EULA. So, while the first sale doctrine allows you to sell your copy regardless of their copyright law claims, it says nothing about your contractual obligations.
What about the following sequence of events is controversial? You have a copy of Mac OS X. I offer you $50 in exchange for your promise to never install it on something other than Apple hardware. You accept, but then install on Psystar hardware anyway. I get to sue you for breach of contract.
This is exactly what happens when you agree to Apple's EULA, except instead of giving you $50, Apple gives you the ability to install the software. (Or maybe this is a better way of looking at it: Apple agrees to sell you the software in the first place in exchange for your promise and $X.)
(Note also that the first sale doctrine does not say you can do whatever you like with something you've bought. It just says that you have a right to resell it.)
Note that the GP's fertility measures is just average number of offspring. This is probably just due to the well known fact that the better educated and the rich often choose to have fewer children. I seriously doubt awkwardness has anything to do with it.
My favorite thing about the /. moderation system is that it sometimes results in comments like these standing alone and totally without context.
The laws governing sale of a good in a jurisdiction are generally different from the laws regarding possession of that good. How is this moronic and ludicrous?
If we're being technical, property is just anything that you have certain legal rights to do with as you please.
In this country (the US), for example, you do not have a fundamental right to an education. Rather you have a property right in an education. In this case this means just that you cannot be deprived of your education without due process.
So, you see, "property" is really quite an elusive concept. It's true, of course, that the right to exclude is a hallmark of private property. But what isn't true is that the only purpose of private property is to promote the efficient allocation of scarce resources. (Though this is it's most common use). Any public policy goal will do. If we think that our society will not produce enough ideas of a certain sort, then we might just as legitimately create property interests in those to give people an incentive to be creative in the ways we want. Of course, we want to be correct about the utility of the rights we create, but there is nothing in the word "property" that dictates what are acceptable and what are unacceptable public policy goals to be furthered by their creation.
Property rights are just rights in something created by the government to further some public policy goal. This can be to ensure students can't be expelled without due process; to ensure that people don't have to turn to economically inefficient self help to protect their interests (by building fences, etc.); to encourage people to be more thoughtful stewards of resources; or, yes, to encourage the production of new ideas among many other uses.
Good point. Although most contract law scholars will tell you that if there were no transaction costs there would be no need for contract law. Contract law exists to make up for the fact that some bargains would be too costly to reach in the real world. (See Coase's Theorem)
But still, as you say, it certainly interferes in the free market in some sense - although it only does this to allow it to operate more efficiently so the point might be a little misleading.
LOL. Well, you have us fooled! Well done.
More seriously, maybe this reflects a difference in the sort of cases we were working on. My firm was a big national thing that typically only worked federal cases where the dollar amount was too high to entrust to a local counsel or state court judge (typically 7+ figures; the McDonald's suit, had McDonald's been or client, would probably never have even made it too our desks.).
Of course, I have no idea what your firm did, so I can't really compare.
Did you generally win your frivolous suits? (I mean this to include, of course, receiving substantial settlements.) Could you give us a few examples (made suitably generic, of course, to avoid privilege issues) of suits that you regarded as frivolous?
You raise an interesting point. Though I'm not sure what government run care has to do with anything - as you point out yourself, the incentives to get rid of the old and the sick already exist within the private system we have today. I don't see any reason to think that the government would care less about the sick and the elderly than private insurers, which is what your argument would seem to require.
(In fact the very creation of Medicare would seem to contradict your pessimistic view of the government's approach to caring for seniors.)
Obviously I don't know what they're thinking, but as a soon-to-be lawyer I can tell you they can and will be sued if they do what you suggest. And they will lose. Hard.
Don't get me wrong, I think health insurance companies are sleazy. All I'm saying is that one thing you can trust them to do is to look out for their own interests.
But bear in mind that if she's wrong the company's costs, on balance, will be much higher when their insured start showing up in the hospital not having gotten the vaccine. The vaccine, if it works, should be a cost saving measure for them.
It seems to me that they'd want to get this right.
(This is all subject, of course, to speculation on my part regarding the cost of the vaccine, versus the cost and likelihood of hospitalization in its absence. Though I'd point out that, if the vaccine isn't cost effective for the insurer, they could elect not to cover it regardless of its effectiveness.)
Well, you're mostly right. According to my argument we shouldn't allow restaurants to sell undercooked meats without warnings. This is why restaurants in much of the United States now have warnings on their menus about eating raw or undercooked food.
A restaurant that passed along an ecoli or salmonella infection to a customer without warning them of the possibility could almost certainly be sued for negligence.
Of course, there may be a further question here - as there was in the hot coffee case - of whether a reasonable person should know of the dangers of eating a rare steak. If so, then they've assumed the risk by eating it and the restaurant is liability-free. It would seem that this question is coming to be answered in the negative, however (for reasons I don't quite understand).
I understand your point. There are two issues that I see that need addressing: balacing the costs with the benefits, and assumption of risk.
If I use a lighter or charcoal I understand that I am making fire, and fire is dangerously hot. As in, instant serious burns/death if I make a mistake. This is just not true with hot coffee. Yes, you expect it to be hot. In fact, I might even say you expect it to cause some burns if you spill it on yourself. But nearly instant 3rd degree burns, on the other hand, are not such a reasonable expectation.
We also need to ask, what are the costs associated with making a safer product? In the case of lighters and charcoal the answer is "very high." In fact, it might be impossible, in which case you have to look at the costs of eliminating the product altogether. In the case of coffee it costs very very little to sell it at 150 instead of 190 (including the costs to those who, for whatever reason, wanted their coffee that hot). So, when 190-degree-coffee is capable of causing major injuries, we ought to prefer avoiding the massive injuries it occasionally causes to protecting your "right" to buy ridiculously hot coffee. Of course, you're free to ask for it that hot, or get it someplace where you are specifically warned that it's that hot.
I think your meat example is ridiculous, but I'll take it up anyway for the sake of thoroughness: A hot piece of chicken simply does not cause 3rd degree burns if you drop it on yourself. There are a lot of reasons for this, but none of them matter; it is the actual risk that matters. So, we weigh the risk, virtually zero, with the cost of not being able to cook them to a temperature hot enough to kill pathogens, very high. 0 very high, so we keep cooking chicken.
There is nothing innovative about the test I'm applying here. This is just the cost-benefit-analysis courts have been consciously applying since U.S. v. Carroll Towing was decided in 1947. Have charcoal, lighters, or hot meat been banned?
Balkanization please!
Yeah, so in other words, it detects people who are any good at blackjack so they can be removed. Nice.
Well I'll give you that there are "plenty" of frivolous lawsuits. But take it from someone with some time in the trenches actually defending large corporations in these sort of suits that "plenty" here is nothing like "most."
The large majority of cases I've seen are brought by real plaintiffs that have suffered real injuries. The only questions that typically remain are "who caused it?" and "was it wrongful?"
Now she just makes them make lukewarm coffee like everyone else.
What is it about "causes 3rd degree burns within seconds" that you don't understand? There is a LOT of room between 190-degree-put-you-in-the-hospital hot and lukewarm.
You need to make up your mind.
Um, no. My point is that coffee can be dangerously hot (so hot you can't drink it) AND that you might not know how dengerous it is until it spills in your lap.
What about those of us who want them hot?
I'm still waiting for your explanation of why anyone would want coffee so hot that contact with it will put them in the hospital. I'm all for a hot cup of coffee, but I think 190 degrees is taking this a bit too far.
And it's not as though coffee never spills. McDonalds knew their coffee was dangerous, and they knew that it was likely to spill from time to time. They could have avoided the danger easily, but instead they opted not to to make a few extra cents.
Many people like their coffee piping hot. McDonalds was trying to satisfy their custmers. Some don't like it, some do. Just because there were people complaining about it does not make it wrong.
This is nuts. Have you tried to drink 190 degree (F) coffee? Given that, as the GP pointed out, coffee this temperature causes 3rd degree burns in seconds, I doubt you, or anyone else, would enjoy the experience. Rather, McDonalds was finding that it was simply easier to make coffee at this temperature than at a safe temperature, putting their customers at risk to make a few extra cents per cup.
I also don't see how you can claim that the woman somehow assumed the risk by buying McDonalds coffee. Even if, as you idly speculate, she was a frequent purchaser of their coffee, she probably would not have known that it would cause extremely serious burns if she spilled it on herself.