You're either entitled to be free from unreasonable search and seizure, or you're now.
Problem is with common law, is it is up to a judge not a legislative body. You then have binding precedent based on legal opinion based on broad interpretation which may not be the spirit of the law. Look at how judges have allowed the errosion of search & seizure rights over the years (eg how secure your car is from search), or free speech rights. If you want something more binding and refined it makes sense to properly enumerate it in a statute.
Laws only work if there's someone to enforce them. The inherent checks and balances of the three governmental branches are supposed to do that. But we've replaced the framers' three branches with just two: republicans and democrats. And they both blow smoke up our butts while doing whatever the hell they want.
This arguement has been made for 200+ years, nothing new to see...
That sounds like an assumption of a standing army and navy to me.
Not necessarily a standing national army. Artile I. Sec 8 - To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;
It could be argued the expectation is the state militias would serve as the standing armies and called into national service (and paid for) when needed.
It's like college classes with an attendance policy - if students are not showing up, and attending the class is worthwhile, they're either brilliant and will pass the exams anyway, or they are not brilliant, and will fail the exams because they did not avail themselves of the opportunities presented by class. In those circumstances, an attendance policy is not necessary.
Depends on the class, I had 2 types of classes with attendance policies - humanity type classes that required in class interaction between students to be worthwhile, and hell engineering classes where if you didn't attend you'd fail miserably and the professor wanted to keep students motivated before they bombed the first test and most likely failed the entire course (after the first test the attendance policy was relaxed).
Same goes with homework. If people want to copy each other's homework, who cares - they'll fail the exam anyway. And if they copy homework and don't fail the exam, then the problem is that the homework was a waste of their time, and you shouldn't be blaming the students for not wanting to waste their time, especially when they're paying for an education, not the assignment of useless busy work.
Not everybody is motivated the same way, some people will learn out of just wanting to learn, others will learn when they are challenged. In both cases homework is helpful to give students the chance at gaining experience in applying knowledge gained in the classroom.
I think the prof vs. learning group provides 2 different and valuable experiences. The professor gives you the tools, the study groups help you learn how best to use the tools You have limited time with the professor, so they can't provide experience and familiarity with the material, which is typically why homework is assigned. Sometimes students have problems applying the information from the professor to the homework which is why study groups form, because it brings different perspectives to the problems using the same core tools learned in class. As material becomes more difficult and layered, the more approaches to a problem are available and the more useful different perspectives become. In advanced engineering/science classes there are a number of ways to set up the problem as well as solving the actual equations. For example in transport if I happen to make a small math error in a bunch of equations and assume laminar flow, so after that point would be using the wrong equations to apply to problem and get "stuck," collaborating with another student gives me feedback on where I went wrong applying my "tool box"
If we followed the Constitution exactly as it is written we would have to get rid of things like the Department of Education, the Environmental Protection Agency, Social Security, and many other government programs and agencies that people don't want to see taken away.
We also would have Congress not the Supreme Court decide what is Constitutional, the US would in fact be 2 seperate countries (Union & Confederacy), no standing army, unstable banking, etc.
No patent shall be granted covering the behavior or actions of any person, nor of processes that merely mimic the behavior of any person. ("Person" covers corporate entities too!)
Problem is people are so flexible in their abilities that many actions could be considered mimicking human behavior. For example computers just mimic people doing math.
And really, really, really hammer the point of the KSR case that combining known devices and techniques and getting the expected and predictable result is not protectable on obviousness and novelty grounds.
Which pretty much elminates almost all patents. Most things aren't breakthroughs, they are refinements of what is already known.
It has been rewritten as well as reinterpreted. Things like Sony VHS, copies of programs in RAM, DMCA, etc., have all provided newer interpretations of how copyright and technology coexist.
All the industry has to ask is: how do you compete with free? And the answer: better service
That's like in the 90's when companies who weren't profitable would make up for it in volume You do realize that if content as a service takes off, the service level you're expecting will actually decrease. Content will become more locked down and centralized and you'll only be able to access it under ceratain conditions.
Its not our job to ensure that something becomes increasingly lucrative as time goes on, and that's what hollywood is essentially demanding... that their profits not be allowed to fall... at all... ever.
Since when? Copyright just ensures that there is the opportunity to be profitable, the long line of box office bombs proves it does not guarantee you make money.
Which is precisely why you don't listen to the people. The people do not know anything about military strategy, and survival is a realm in which military strategy is paramount. If you establish a home base you can be destroyed easily. This is one of the more ridiculous parts of the later episodes.
This gets to the fundamental question of how power is granted from the people. At what point does the military requirements step on the very people it is meant to protect. Typically such fundamental conflicts get resolved through civil war, unfortunately with only about 50k people, those in power really can't afford it.
If someone is more concerned with their own well-being than with the survival of their species, they are not worth the time and effort to save them
Problem is you can't just toss people aside, as with a limited population they are important assets. You can't just execute the revolters on a refining ship, because then there'd be nobody to refine.
The proper choice in this situation is martial law. Yet we've been brainwashed into having a kneejerk negative reaction to martial law. It is always painted in a fascist light, as if it were something imposed on a whim for the betterment of some evil behind-the-scenes puppetmaster. Martial law is military rule in times of great risk and uncertainty.
And as that was explored, half the people left because even if it's the right choice they refused it. Again it gets back to trying to control people, you can institute martial law, but only if the people are willing to accept it. It's much easier to use existing systems people are used to and make the tough decisions behind the scenes. Further the fear of martial law is that it would continue endlessly. The danger of instituting such a system with centralized power is those in power would never want to give it up, even if the humans survive a thousand years there will still be the Cylon boogey man that could show up any time.
As I stated above, the reason it is particularly ridiculous in this instance is because the situation is black and white. There is no gray. It's man versus ruthless killing machines. There is no room for tweed-wearing, beard-stroking, pipe-smoking post-graduate students sitting around and mulling the 'humanity' of the killing machines.
I guess you ignored the first question that the series begs - are the Cylons still just "machines." At what point must you sit down recognize the sentience and rights of an emergent intelligence?
What happened with "With great power comes great responsibility"? The US is just acting as the schoolyard bully.
Yes the powers in Europe never think of doing such things (Ivory Coast), not to mention meddling in the Balkans. That said, the US was looked upon during the Cold War as the policeman of the world, however times have changed... unfortunately the same old people from that era still rule the country.
They are expecting me to suspend a mountain of disbelief and inconsistency and believe that a civilization capable of creating AI, interstellar travel and other advanced technologies, but they cannot cure cancer and the technological changes had no affect on society?
This reminds me of the people who complain about "where's my flying car?" Human civilization has changed very little over the last 5,000 years with all the technological advances... it's not beyond belief that a space faring civilization would still struggle with the same issues.
If Adama had addressed the civilians and explained to them that, by the way, they're in a struggle for the survival of their entire species against killer cyborgs, the whole voting thing would have appeared very foolish
And most people wouldn't care, they don't want to run, they want to settle down and start a life of normality. Ultimately the question comes up, if you don't stop there, then when?
And as for the prisoners - they should have been executed. Mutiny in a time of war? They're already convicts anyway.
So take an active role in pushing your species to extinction?
The problem is that what should happen isn't as weepy and melodramatic as the hippie fantasy stuff.
What is nice about the show is it explores the different angle. Take the hard line military approach like Admiral Cain and you are killing off your species to fight a war you've already lost. Take a military centric (though not kill civilians in your way) and you end up alienating a portion of the population and they'll head off in their own direction rather than follow military rule - a la the half of the fleet that followed the civilian president rather than the Adama led military. Give in to the will of the people and settle down and you end up having the Cylons show up (as expected) and controlling your society. The show tends towards the more liberal route, just because you have to follow one thread, but it does explore the pros & cons of the other methods of rule. Hell, it even showed that a portion of the remaining humans were ultra-flower power preaching peace with the cylons and sabatoging the military.
The problem with going the wishy-washy "are we really the bad guys?!?" angle is that it gives the show no backbone.
What I like is there is no good, no bad - it preaches one thing, then turns around and reflects on the morality of such choices, all of which have pros and cons. The humans commiting suicide bombing at first pass were seen as martyrs, but looking deeper they were interfering with peace and progress as symbolized by a drink the cylons offered one of the human police officers. I prefer such moral ambiguity over a black and white space opera like Star Wars; or any of the cut & dry Cold War westerns. Sometimes the hero doesn't always do the right thing.
Market price however isn't the same as the real value.
Market price is the best approximation you can have, since everything is valued differently by everybody
The reason performances are expensive is because they can't be duplicated, meaning that the supply is limited. Sure, you can sneak into the back of a concert or movie theater, but people can physically stop you from doing that.
So physical restriction is better than simply a a legal restriction? You're still restricting art from people - and I'm sure the guys at the door don't want you bringing in a camcorder to duplicate the concert.
Actually, in a system without copyright the obscure artists gets a greater piece of the cake for the simple reason that people will try before bying, making them less affected by marketing. That the total cake will be smaller is of course also true.
How will the obscure artist get a greater piece? If there is any piece to be had it will be quickly gobbled by the marketing powers with no compensation. The guy sitting in a club playing will only get the compensation if he's marketable, otherwise his work will just be used by somebody else.
For a country founded upon secular principles it continually amazes me to see how far we have fallen.
Depends on your views - the relgious zealots are also the ones responsible for the start of the anti-slavery movement, stopping child labor, women's rights, public education. If you look at US history the role of religion is cyclical throughout. The US makes excellent scientific & technological progress, then an era of religious revival occurs usually to address the social problems arising out of such change. Religion is the crutch for the difficulties in keeping up with change.
But you leave out the impact on other aspects of society. Option 1 - Allows low density population distribution so people have things like backyards and lower cost housing.
For starters, settling on a planet makes no sense when your enemy is space-borne and can hunt you down. That violates sound military doctrine in the context of the show.
People often don't know what's good for them. Somebody preaches "we've found a new home" and the masses are happy, sound military doctine be damned.
Second, how do you apply terror tactics against an enemy who is effectively immortal?
Terror isn't about killing your enemy it's about shocking them. The cylons come to New Caprica offering peace and help because they follow "God", and the humans blow themselves up in response. It is something shocking & confusing - the humans deny the peace the Cylons are seeking to appease their conscience.
When you are the last few thousand people of an extinct species, running for your lives, you don't need greater 'rights and privileges'. You don't need elections and protests and labor laws. You need everybody pulling in the same direction to try to keep yourselves alive and destroy the enemy.
You need to convice several thousand people, who are used to various rights to pull together in the same direction. It's easier to control people using the existing system than go through the storming process of getting people to follow a new method of rule. That's why the Secretary of Garbage Collecting is in line to become president if a bunch of other people die... not because of any merit, but just to keep the masses under control.
When the workers rebel in a classic Marx revolution, the stupid president just brushes them off, and never really addresses their concerns.. somehow the problem just sort of goes away and the workers happily go back to working dangerous, repetitive jobs 16 hours a day, every day for years with no weekends.
What was the alternative for the workers? Yes they revolted and they got a handwaving response to meet their demands, but ultimately they didn't have much choice seeing as their own survival also depended on them to work. It's like looking back at slavery or caste systems and wondering why people generally accept such inequality.
Also I hate how they constantly abuse the cylons.. I mean yeah they're the enemy but they're obviously intelligent and sentient and they're not even given basic human rights.
Becuase its easy for people to dehumanize the enemy, especially when they aren't human. At what point are rights deserved? Is overclocking your CPU inhumane?
I can't help but keep that abuse in mind when watching the "light" parts of the episodes.. as if I'm supposed to sympathize with the humans? They're more vicious than the cylons..
You're not supposed to sympathize with either side, you're supposed to reflect on to what ends would you work towards your own survival and maintain your own ideals. The cyclons did horrible things on New Caprica, the humans do horrible things as well. Both sides have blood on their hands and both sides feel justified that their cause is "right"
But the price we pay for those works of art is simply to big. We may have gotten some more unique pieces of art, but in return we as a whole had less actual access to art as a whole.
I would argue the price of performances are far more out of line than the price of a CD. $50 a ticket for an hour long performance vs. $15 for music I can experience over and over again. As for access, I think locking the art to distributed media is preferable than locking it behind a concert door.
Concerts and performances are one such uniqueness. Being the original creator of a work is another uniqueness. Which is why lots of people focus on those.
Problem comes when through massive marketing the former overshadows the latter. A creative music maker composes an amazing song only to have a massive marketing company use it, and have it peformed by 3 marginal singers with a big breasts. The performance overshadows the true art - those who are flashy and marketable live the highlife on the back of those with talent. Pretty much same at it is now, except at least in the current system the obscure artist gets compensated.
That's the way (in my opinion) music and a lot of other art should be made
Luckily the current system allows artists the freedom to choose how they want to make music and money.
As soon as independent music starts to catch on, the radio stations will have to follow. Who'll listen to a radio station that has only some RIAA-promoted garbage on it while there are other sources that play high(er) quality music?
Pretty much most people. The system as it is doesn't prevent independent music from being distributed, in fact it's easier to distribute without the claws of the RIAA. Unfortunately, independent music lacks the value that the big labels do offer, massive marketing.
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If you want something more binding and refined it makes sense to properly enumerate it in a statute.
Artile I. Sec 8 - To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;
It could be argued the expectation is the state militias would serve as the standing armies and called into national service (and paid for) when needed.
Not everybody is motivated the same way, some people will learn out of just wanting to learn, others will learn when they are challenged. In both cases homework is helpful to give students the chance at gaining experience in applying knowledge gained in the classroom.
I think the prof vs. learning group provides 2 different and valuable experiences. The professor gives you the tools, the study groups help you learn how best to use the tools
You have limited time with the professor, so they can't provide experience and familiarity with the material, which is typically why homework is assigned. Sometimes students have problems applying the information from the professor to the homework which is why study groups form, because it brings different perspectives to the problems using the same core tools learned in class. As material becomes more difficult and layered, the more approaches to a problem are available and the more useful different perspectives become. In advanced engineering/science classes there are a number of ways to set up the problem as well as solving the actual equations. For example in transport if I happen to make a small math error in a bunch of equations and assume laminar flow, so after that point would be using the wrong equations to apply to problem and get "stuck," collaborating with another student gives me feedback on where I went wrong applying my "tool box"
Which pretty much elminates almost all patents. Most things aren't breakthroughs, they are refinements of what is already known.
"Get your ass to Mars"
You do realize that if content as a service takes off, the service level you're expecting will actually decrease. Content will become more locked down and centralized and you'll only be able to access it under ceratain conditions.
Since when? Copyright just ensures that there is the opportunity to be profitable, the long line of box office bombs proves it does not guarantee you make money.
Problem is you can't just toss people aside, as with a limited population they are important assets. You can't just execute the revolters on a refining ship, because then there'd be nobody to refine.
And as that was explored, half the people left because even if it's the right choice they refused it. Again it gets back to trying to control people, you can institute martial law, but only if the people are willing to accept it. It's much easier to use existing systems people are used to and make the tough decisions behind the scenes.
Further the fear of martial law is that it would continue endlessly. The danger of instituting such a system with centralized power is those in power would never want to give it up, even if the humans survive a thousand years there will still be the Cylon boogey man that could show up any time.
I guess you ignored the first question that the series begs - are the Cylons still just "machines." At what point must you sit down recognize the sentience and rights of an emergent intelligence?
That said, the US was looked upon during the Cold War as the policeman of the world, however times have changed... unfortunately the same old people from that era still rule the country.
Human civilization has changed very little over the last 5,000 years with all the technological advances... it's not beyond belief that a space faring civilization would still struggle with the same issues.
So take an active role in pushing your species to extinction?
What is nice about the show is it explores the different angle. Take the hard line military approach like Admiral Cain and you are killing off your species to fight a war you've already lost. Take a military centric (though not kill civilians in your way) and you end up alienating a portion of the population and they'll head off in their own direction rather than follow military rule - a la the half of the fleet that followed the civilian president rather than the Adama led military. Give in to the will of the people and settle down and you end up having the Cylons show up (as expected) and controlling your society.
The show tends towards the more liberal route, just because you have to follow one thread, but it does explore the pros & cons of the other methods of rule. Hell, it even showed that a portion of the remaining humans were ultra-flower power preaching peace with the cylons and sabatoging the military.
What I like is there is no good, no bad - it preaches one thing, then turns around and reflects on the morality of such choices, all of which have pros and cons. The humans commiting suicide bombing at first pass were seen as martyrs, but looking deeper they were interfering with peace and progress as symbolized by a drink the cylons offered one of the human police officers.
I prefer such moral ambiguity over a black and white space opera like Star Wars; or any of the cut & dry Cold War westerns. Sometimes the hero doesn't always do the right thing.
So physical restriction is better than simply a a legal restriction? You're still restricting art from people - and I'm sure the guys at the door don't want you bringing in a camcorder to duplicate the concert.
How will the obscure artist get a greater piece? If there is any piece to be had it will be quickly gobbled by the marketing powers with no compensation. The guy sitting in a club playing will only get the compensation if he's marketable, otherwise his work will just be used by somebody else.
If you look at US history the role of religion is cyclical throughout. The US makes excellent scientific & technological progress, then an era of religious revival occurs usually to address the social problems arising out of such change.
Religion is the crutch for the difficulties in keeping up with change.
But you leave out the impact on other aspects of society.
Option 1 - Allows low density population distribution so people have things like backyards and lower cost housing.
Terror isn't about killing your enemy it's about shocking them. The cylons come to New Caprica offering peace and help because they follow "God", and the humans blow themselves up in response. It is something shocking & confusing - the humans deny the peace the Cylons are seeking to appease their conscience.
Becuase its easy for people to dehumanize the enemy, especially when they aren't human. At what point are rights deserved? Is overclocking your CPU inhumane?
You're not supposed to sympathize with either side, you're supposed to reflect on to what ends would you work towards your own survival and maintain your own ideals. The cyclons did horrible things on New Caprica, the humans do horrible things as well. Both sides have blood on their hands and both sides feel justified that their cause is "right"
Problem comes when through massive marketing the former overshadows the latter. A creative music maker composes an amazing song only to have a massive marketing company use it, and have it peformed by 3 marginal singers with a big breasts. The performance overshadows the true art - those who are flashy and marketable live the highlife on the back of those with talent. Pretty much same at it is now, except at least in the current system the obscure artist gets compensated.
Pretty much most people. The system as it is doesn't prevent independent music from being distributed, in fact it's easier to distribute without the claws of the RIAA. Unfortunately, independent music lacks the value that the big labels do offer, massive marketing.