Sorry, but your government is all about supporting a decades old grudge and nothing else - your government deals with and indeed in some cases support regimes far worse than Cuba
Not even that, I'm sure there are many American entrepreneurs who lobby to trade with Cuba. Problem is there is a vocal Cuban community in the key election state of Florida that is strongly against dealing with Castro. Most people in the US don't have a strong opinion on the subject, so you end up with politicians catering to a vocal minority to keep votes.
Exactly. Freedom of speech allows me to print a pamphlet on some cause of my choosing. I can hand my pamphlet out to people or go door to door. However, the first amendment does not allow me to break other laws in distributing them. I cannot break into your house to give you pamphlets. Nor can I just leave a pile on a ground to become litter.
But it does let you place it on people's car windshield, mailbox, and front doors. Spammers aren't breaking into your account to get you information, they are placing it in a publicly accessible location where you will see it.
The way things are going? Just look up the Alien & Sedition Acts - the whole national security vs. individual rights has gone back and forth for 200 years.
You mean, like malpractice insurance for doctors and hospitals, and liability insurance for drug companies, hospitals, and device manufacturers?
So the problem isn't actually the cost of insurance, it's the cost of insurance.
Or am I missing something obvious here?
Again, insurance is a symptom not a cause. Why does everybody in the medical field need insurance? It's because not only are people not willing to accept any possible failure, but if something does go wrong you get sued for huge amounts. Because the entire industry is afraid of the lawyers, enormous amounts of cost are added to make and test products beyond a reasonable level of quality. High medical costs come from companies spending millions of dollars to make sure a product is 99.9% perfect, then they spend even more to cover their ass if by some reason the.1% problem they never thought of hits. From the doctors side, unless a condition is effortless to treat, a general practicioner will send you to a specialist so there's no chance they can get sued.
Ultimately it comes back to the patients. If you want an amazingly high level of medical care, you're going to have to pay for it.
Unless we nationalize every supplier needed to run a healthcare system, there is the chance (and I'd argue the likelihood) of private companies gouging the government for supplies, services, etc.
The problem doesn't have to do with companies gouging under socialization, it has to do with the costs to meet overregulation. The military pays thousands of dollars and years of development for a GPS device when an off the shelf one costs $100 because of more stringent requirements. The off the shelf one, which is usable for 95% of what the military does, has to be customized to pass higher temperature, or greater shock, or sealed better to prevent dust, etc. Companies don't necessarily gouge the government, it just costs a lot to do all the customizing and testing to meet the requirements. Now the government could get away with just using the off the shelf, the problem is if for some reason the equipment fails people will be upset with the military sacrificing soldier lives for the sake of saving money. The exact same thing is happening in the medical industry. Everything has to be tested and made to meet an amazingly high level of quality to get through government regulation; and even if they pass, they always face the threat of huge lawsuits for any failure.
The bottom line is if you can't accept any chance for failure whether from government or private industry, you're going to pay for it.
The government has grown far too large and controls far too much of our lives; we need to get back to the original intent of the founding fathers and focus on a small federal government that honors the constitution.
The founding fathers learned that small federal government doesn't work, which is why they had to ratify the Constitution. A big bloated government doesn't work, but neither does a small one, do you want to have a poor food supply and industrial controls like they have in China?
As long as you are not in the 5% whose premiums go up $12000 per year to make up for giving everyone else their $600 discount. A reverse lottery where losers go bankrupt?!?
What so many people miss is the problem isn't insurance, it's the cost of medical care. Why do so many people insist that the only two options are the individual goes bankrupt, or the standard of living for the entire country must go down. Instead of arguing on how to split the outrageous costs, we should actually focus on fixing the problems leading to the high prices in the first place.
Yes, because we all know that once things start to go better they'll have plenty of cash to pay through their nose for absurd MS licensing fees.
Define absurd. What's wrong with MS licensing fees, it's not out of line from other software. $150 for an OS, compared to $50 for a video game, $500 for home productivity software, $5000 for professional development software. Besides using Windows does not prevent a person from using Linux, and there if the price is too high there is already a thriving underground infrastructure to deliver the same content at lower cost.
Something far more precious than that - giving Linux to people who had never even seen Windows, and setting them free!!!
Sorry to tell you, many people in the 3rd world OLPC is targetted at have seen Windows (pirated versions). The reason low cost PC's keep trying to cram Windows onto it is because there is underlying demand. The software they use in internet cafes is most likely run under Windows, and once individuals have a computer it's more convenient for them to get pirated software than to try and deal with open source.
Linux could have given them the ability to leap frog ahead! A real opportunity to develop their own technology, to find their own way forward. Children are incredibly adaptable. Give those children Linux, and a few software tools, and there is no telling what could come from it.
They can still have Linux, any motivated kid can get it, adapt it, and create. But not everybody wants to deal with software, they want it as a tool to create something else. There is so much software out there for Windows, it just makes sense people will want to use programs that have been used and refined over the years. Sometimes it's better to buy a hammer, than make one yourself.
The key to getting out from under the Windows umbrella is developing standards, continuing to increase availability of Linux software, and being first into new technologies. The fact that most low cost laptops are launching with Linux is a major step forward. Things won't change overnight, but there is significant progress being made.
For example, the PowerPC core would be perfect for AppleTV and possibly a new Mac nano, where the cost of an Intel chip simply doesn't make sense.
Intel chips aren't necessarily expensive, especially considering the close relationship between the two now (eg custom chips for Macbook Air) I'm guessing there are some discounts involved. Intel also has been making inroads to the low cost side with chips like the upcoming Atom This purchase probably has more to do with the embedded market which has been ignored by Intel because of low margins. There are plenty of chips other than a CPU that go into computers/electronics
I understand Customs agents have a job to do but giving them a blank check of authority is just going to make sure fewer and fewer people visit the US.
Customs & Immigration agents all around the globe have blank check authority. Even beyond personal effects searches many countries do health checks - IR scanners to see body temperature, inquiries if the traveller has visited Africa/South America, more and more are taking biometric information. It's not just a US thing - Canada I've found is worse, and I worry about getting a cold anytime I go to Hong Kong because of the medical inspection a fever could cause.
There is no point of looking at your random business documents except to determine why you are entering the country. I'm certainly not going to recognize, remember, or understand any business secrets that you have on your laptop.
There are certain export controls on software and information (encryption software, technical documents). If a person has visited certain countries like China, the customs officer might be interested in what information you've been transporting.
Also, this isn't a U.S. only issue. Similar searches have happened to me in Canada and Finland; pretty much all countries reserve the right to search anything brought into their borders... hell, that's the whole point of having customs declarations and officers. To take it another step further, when you cross a border you are also subject to health inspections something more invasive IMHO.
As Patton pointed out this works better if few of your own guys die for their country while getting the other poor saps to die for their own.
The irony on the political side is it works better when you keep your own guys willing to die for their country while convincing the other guys not to.
Look at books and newspapers, or A4 printed material - all taller than it is wide. It's naturally easy to read and you don't call it 'thin'. If they printed a book sideways would it be as easy to read? Interesting test, if anyone's got a printing press handy...
I think the difference between reading & pictures is focus and distance. When you read your eyes are focused on a small area that is close, so it is more strain to extend the text too far left and right. While pictures do have a focal point, the periphery is also important so it's easier to "take in" everything when the image is wider.
It is also the filtering of evidence and interpretation of evidence so as to favor one's viewpoint. Quite common in our science today.
It's always common in science. People will trust their theory more than experimental results, because experiments have so many more variables that can throw them off.
The only people who will take advantage of those differences are people who are closed-minded, unhappy, are scared of people who look different, and still believe that correct morals were written 2 thousand years ago.
That's the problem, there are too many of those sorts of people in the world who will take advantage of any small shred of evidence they can bend towards their cause. Imagine if we discover that race X tends to have genes which make them less intelligent and more aggressive. Doesn't matter that the actual behavior has more to do with environmental factors, the conservative talk radio pundits will point to the "discovery" as evidence certain groups should be jailed or denied job opportunities. Do we allow the entrenched aristocracy to genetically engineer themselves so not only do they have socio-economic advantages, but they also have genetic advantages which further widens the gap between rich and lower class. I'm not saying that scientific study needs to stop, but the philosophical and moral discussions need to also happen.
But anyway, the only way people would use genetics as a reason for some genocide are people who simply didn't have a mom when they grew up, or they have ridiculous fears towards people who look different or follow different philosophies in life.
Not necessarily. Widescale abortions (whether or not somebody considers that genocide is a different discussion) could deplete those genetic lines which are seen as "unfavorable." Many times this will be done because the parents want "what's best" for their child, sacrificing individuality for conformity on the most fundamental level. Too short, not athletic, autistic, social issues... abort or reengineer those "issues" away. Even if there are those who will fight the conformist attitude, they will be in the minority and will face significant social implications
It's important the moral debates on genetic profiling & engineering start now, because things could always backfire
That's fine as long as they are open to potential free market competition and evolution.
We have that. Anybody can start their own institution of higher learning, it's just that most people won't recognize the paper unless the institution is accredited by a well known review board.
That's just not historically accurate. See the ancient library at Alexandria. Knowledge is it's own incentive.
The Library of Alexandria was an example of putting knowledge into a single central repository. The government paid for the cost of gathering the information and as such the information was vulnerable because it was concentrated in one place. What we have today which is a decentralized system where anybody has incentive make their own compilations; so the destruction of a single site (eg Library of Congress) does little to impact the overall wealth of knowledge because it is so widespread.
This work would be efficiently undertaken at one-time market rate labor rates. Royalties are completely superfluous; salaries are wholly satisfactory. The internet is full of "crude" attempts at compilations, lists, reviews, categorizations.
The difference between royalties and one-time labor payments is accurate compensation for output quality. As you say there are plenty of "crude" attempts on the internet, and as such get little to nothing in royalty because that reflects the actual quality in output. The copyright system doesn't care how many hours you put in, it is focused on the quality of what is produced - higher quality creations being used more often net the creator more no matter how much initial effort was put in.
Education *is* personal consumption, personal consumption of knowledge in all its manifest forms. College students downloading music.mp3 files are engaging in educational non-commercial use.
You can claim it is educational use, but that's for the most part handwaving. College students playing an.mp3 in class to discuss modern pop music with in depth analysis of the lyrics are engaged in educational purposes; listening to the song while playing frisbee on the mall is not. There is a clear delination between the uses and specific protections given for education in copyright law.
Creators have no fundamental legitimate right to use government intervention to violently collect taxes on by definition public domain knowledge. That is nothing less than a trespass on the real private property of others, including a trespass on their physical bodies, their ears, their eyes, and their minds. Enforcing copyright by definition leads to people by definition being ignorant, being less educated, contrary to the sole explicit Constitutional justification of advancing the progress of the arts and sciences.
The law defines whether or not something is public, and it states it is private property. Consumers do not have the right to reap the rewards of the sweat of others without compensation - that is the tresspass. If you don't like the rules laid out by the creator, then don't consume it - it's not like a song is essential to a person's survival.
A creator by definition voluntarily gives away their products whenever they engage in trade of those products for other products or services. If you accept a monetary exchange for a copy of a creative work you have by definition given that creative work away. That creative work can be infinitely copied and spread.
No it can't. A monetary exchange just results in an agreement between the creator and consumer, part of that agreement is that the consumer has rights to use of a copy, not to redistribute.
Is there any musician or author who would have chosen ditch digging as a preferred profession to intellectual creation for a median labor market salary even if they couldn't extract by governm
Sure, but competition can bring those costs of proving knowledge way down, especially in professions that don't require hands technical demonstration, like surgery.
But we always end up by default to have some centralized body that people trust to certify. Look at things like ISO certification, it's completely voluntary, and anybody can put together their own standards organization, but in the end organizations and people will move to a central accreditation body.
Copyright doesn't "give" any new incentive that doesn't already a priori exist without copyright protection.
Encyclopedias, journals, textbooks, are all compilations made for the purpose of sales. The problem with your argument is there's nothing now stopping people from writing such compilations and giving them away. The problem is most people won't take the time and money to create such publications without incentive - knowledge would be free but less accessible.
A perfect example is seen in music.mp3 files which are shared on the internet. No prior generation before has come close to having this much music knowledge. And copyright is preventing it from being better categorized, remixed, reviewed, and displayed. Having access to the entire music catalog created throughout history is cheaper than ever, by definition making it more accessible and therefore the population better educated. This has all occurred *in spite of* copyright suppressing this knowledge
Copyright already makes exceptions for educational use. People can study the entire catalog of movies and music for educational purposes... the current issues with copyright have to do with people using things for personal consumption.
The absence of copyright doesn't prevent anyone from voluntarily rewarding anybody they want to voluntarily reward, nor from creators seeking voluntary payment to continue creating. It certainly massively frees competition and results in higher quality and lower prices.
The existance of copyright doesn't preclude a creator from voluntarily giving away their products. So getting rid of copyright wouldn't increase the number of creators since those giving things away can do so under the current rules
There's nothing preventing all sorts of competing wikipedias, with all sorts of differing filters and contribution requirements. If you are a professor of economics, you could restrict your economics knowledge super editing qualifications to those with PhDs.
Then it isn't truly peer review by the masses, it is peer review by the selected... which is what we have now.
Or maybe other students are too weak, and are allowing themselves to be distracted by "keyboard and mouse clicks". Take a look at workplace cubicles. You can hear keyboard and mouse clicks, phone conversations, employee to employee conversations. Ever visit a floor trading exchange like the NYSE? Voluntary arrangements could solve classroom problems, such as those that don't want to see computer screens sit up front, those that want to use computers and look at screens sit in back.
Difference is in the workplace the person is being paid to deal with those distractions, in a classroom the student is paying. Just like cellphones in a movie theater, or telemarketers calling your phone... there are situations where you don't have to "just deal with it."
Slashdot Mirror
GDP represents the value of goods & services produced not wages. It is realistic for somebody to earn $20 a year to produce goods worth $375 a year
mmmmm baby back ribs
Pez
High medical costs come from companies spending millions of dollars to make sure a product is 99.9% perfect, then they spend even more to cover their ass if by some reason the
Ultimately it comes back to the patients. If you want an amazingly high level of medical care, you're going to have to pay for it.
The military pays thousands of dollars and years of development for a GPS device when an off the shelf one costs $100 because of more stringent requirements. The off the shelf one, which is usable for 95% of what the military does, has to be customized to pass higher temperature, or greater shock, or sealed better to prevent dust, etc. Companies don't necessarily gouge the government, it just costs a lot to do all the customizing and testing to meet the requirements. Now the government could get away with just using the off the shelf, the problem is if for some reason the equipment fails people will be upset with the military sacrificing soldier lives for the sake of saving money.
The exact same thing is happening in the medical industry. Everything has to be tested and made to meet an amazingly high level of quality to get through government regulation; and even if they pass, they always face the threat of huge lawsuits for any failure.
The bottom line is if you can't accept any chance for failure whether from government or private industry, you're going to pay for it.
The founding fathers learned that small federal government doesn't work, which is why they had to ratify the Constitution. A big bloated government doesn't work, but neither does a small one, do you want to have a poor food supply and industrial controls like they have in China?
Besides using Windows does not prevent a person from using Linux, and there if the price is too high there is already a thriving underground infrastructure to deliver the same content at lower cost.
They can still have Linux, any motivated kid can get it, adapt it, and create. But not everybody wants to deal with software, they want it as a tool to create something else. There is so much software out there for Windows, it just makes sense people will want to use programs that have been used and refined over the years. Sometimes it's better to buy a hammer, than make one yourself.
The key to getting out from under the Windows umbrella is developing standards, continuing to increase availability of Linux software, and being first into new technologies. The fact that most low cost laptops are launching with Linux is a major step forward. Things won't change overnight, but there is significant progress being made.
This purchase probably has more to do with the embedded market which has been ignored by Intel because of low margins. There are plenty of chips other than a CPU that go into computers/electronics
It's not just a US thing - Canada I've found is worse, and I worry about getting a cold anytime I go to Hong Kong because of the medical inspection a fever could cause.
Also, this isn't a U.S. only issue. Similar searches have happened to me in Canada and Finland; pretty much all countries reserve the right to search anything brought into their borders... hell, that's the whole point of having customs declarations and officers.
To take it another step further, when you cross a border you are also subject to health inspections something more invasive IMHO.
But at least the tank would give us something interesting to watch on CNN.
Do we allow the entrenched aristocracy to genetically engineer themselves so not only do they have socio-economic advantages, but they also have genetic advantages which further widens the gap between rich and lower class.
I'm not saying that scientific study needs to stop, but the philosophical and moral discussions need to also happen.
Not necessarily. Widescale abortions (whether or not somebody considers that genocide is a different discussion) could deplete those genetic lines which are seen as "unfavorable." Many times this will be done because the parents want "what's best" for their child, sacrificing individuality for conformity on the most fundamental level. Too short, not athletic, autistic, social issues... abort or reengineer those "issues" away.
Even if there are those who will fight the conformist attitude, they will be in the minority and will face significant social implications
It's important the moral debates on genetic profiling & engineering start now, because things could always backfire
We have that. Anybody can start their own institution of higher learning, it's just that most people won't recognize the paper unless the institution is accredited by a well known review board.
The Library of Alexandria was an example of putting knowledge into a single central repository. The government paid for the cost of gathering the information and as such the information was vulnerable because it was concentrated in one place. What we have today which is a decentralized system where anybody has incentive make their own compilations; so the destruction of a single site (eg Library of Congress) does little to impact the overall wealth of knowledge because it is so widespread.
The difference between royalties and one-time labor payments is accurate compensation for output quality. As you say there are plenty of "crude" attempts on the internet, and as such get little to nothing in royalty because that reflects the actual quality in output. The copyright system doesn't care how many hours you put in, it is focused on the quality of what is produced - higher quality creations being used more often net the creator more no matter how much initial effort was put in.
You can claim it is educational use, but that's for the most part handwaving. College students playing an .mp3 in class to discuss modern pop music with in depth analysis of the lyrics are engaged in educational purposes; listening to the song while playing frisbee on the mall is not. There is a clear delination between the uses and specific protections given for education in copyright law.
The law defines whether or not something is public, and it states it is private property. Consumers do not have the right to reap the rewards of the sweat of others without compensation - that is the tresspass. If you don't like the rules laid out by the creator, then don't consume it - it's not like a song is essential to a person's survival.
No it can't. A monetary exchange just results in an agreement between the creator and consumer, part of that agreement is that the consumer has rights to use of a copy, not to redistribute.
Gave us great franchises like G.I. Joe, He-Man & Transformers
Encyclopedias, journals, textbooks, are all compilations made for the purpose of sales. The problem with your argument is there's nothing now stopping people from writing such compilations and giving them away. The problem is most people won't take the time and money to create such publications without incentive - knowledge would be free but less accessible.
Copyright already makes exceptions for educational use. People can study the entire catalog of movies and music for educational purposes... the current issues with copyright have to do with people using things for personal consumption.
The existance of copyright doesn't preclude a creator from voluntarily giving away their products. So getting rid of copyright wouldn't increase the number of creators since those giving things away can do so under the current rules
Then it isn't truly peer review by the masses, it is peer review by the selected... which is what we have now.
Difference is in the workplace the person is being paid to deal with those distractions, in a classroom the student is paying. Just like cellphones in a movie theater, or telemarketers calling your phone... there are situations where you don't have to "just deal with it."