Without the piece of paper, the education is meaningless:)
No, it just means the education is what you make of it. While you don't have "proof" of your understanding of the concepts you can leverage the information on a personal level. (eg Steve Jobs "dropping in" to calligraphy class)
i have a problem that those limited benefits have morphed into unlimited benefits. and, you seem to have the same problem. so we agree on the scope of the problem here, and we agree on the nature of the problem. your words and my words have no contradiction
Correct, I agree that there have been many problems (DMCA, extension of copyright time) that have erroded the rights of the public (which are also specifically granted in copyright) in favor of big business profits.
you need a new more nuanced understanding of how things work in the internet age, as your current way of thinking about copyright is like trying to apply sharia law: too harsh and simple, and disregarding of the actual nature of the trangression involved.
Yes, and it's not as simple as "it's free to copy, so there is no impact on the producer." There are things to consider such as potential market to recoup costs. Creating the original isn't free, that's the problem.
there is no argument put forth manufacturing justification for something you are not justified to. because you are justified to that which is free. what needs justification is trying to apply the morality from another age onto the internet age. look at it this way: if you lived in the desert,and you stole someone's canteen, you have committed an immoral act. you are depriving someone of sustenance.
but if you live on the shore of a lake, and you take a glass of water form it, what have you really stolen??
It would be more apt if the water was from a pool, as it costs somebody money to fill the pool in the first place, just as it costs money to make a song/book/etc. Now individual infringements aren't a problem (just as taking a glass of water from a pool isn't a big deal), it's the aggregate that degrades the market (if everybody takes a glass, the guy who owns the pool has nothing to show). People are just as greedy as corporations, if they can get something free, then they won't pay.
but now on the internet, there is no limited resources. what once cost $ to distribute now costs 0. how can you apply the sharia law of chopping off someone's hands for stealing a loaf of bread in this new environment? how can you fine a soccer mom thousands of dollars because her daughter downloaded flipsyde?
Yes the ideas are the limited resource. If you are a blogger do you want Yahoo or Google completely copying what is on your site, and generating ad revenue from your hard work while you get nothing?
you need to pay more attention to how dramatically the internet is changing our society. you're standing on ground you think is quite solid on these questions, when what you are actually standing on when you make your arguments is sand shifting beneath your feet
I fully understand what is going on. What we are seeing goes beyond just lower distribution costs. We are seeing the complete separation of ideas from physical media. The problem is while the cost to reproduce has gone away, the cost to produce hasn't. Before the cost to produce could be recovered because it could be incorporated into the cost for media, unfortunately that's not possible anymore. So what do we get? The industry taking the legal route, and the service route (eg Steam) both of which benifit nobody. All because some people have a sense of entitlement.
however, the corporations have extended and obfuscated the original intention such that copyright, in their view, and apparently also in the view of historically myopic fools like yourself, is now to own everything, for all time
I wasn't arguing that things haven't changed over time where profit has superceded progress. I was pointing out that the underlying values for IP were not arbitrary, but were in fact the result of trying to develop a method for fair compensation.
It's also hypocritical to argue that corporations are greedy, when copyright infringers are the ones taking. There is the option to not listen to the music at all if you think it's overpriced, rather than trying to justify you are entitled to it.
and as for your statement that less money in music will make music more shallow and vapid... PFFFT! that assertion is hilarious, thanks for the laugh;-)
Just pointing out your shortsightedness that erasing copyright will automatically lead to the destruction of big corporations.
How about a system that mimics the real world a little more? How about making your character good at what ever he does... if he goes around swinging a sword... make him a good swordsman. If he tries to cast spells, make him a spellcaster. If he wants to do both, let him, but don't let him be quite as good as someone dedicated to one thing.
Now balance every combination to make sure the backstabbing hypnotist isn't significantly more powerful than the chain wearing fire caster. If you don't balance you end up with everybody maximizing their character stats. Worst case everybody has the exact same uber template. Best case you have a few niche templates, which in practice are no different than archetypes.
notice that these arbitrary rules have nothing to do with morality or right and wrong, they only have to do with a profitable business model from a bygone era.
Copyright does have it's roots in morality. To protect the rights of the original creator of an artistic work. That way nobody else could claim they were the one who wrote a book, or a song and exploit it for their own profit.
music, in quality and quantity, will not change in the least. you could even make the argument that music would get better in quality and quantity, without an artificial financially driven entity sitting between consumer and artist.
and music distributors?
they will die.
No they will change, and the people hurt most will be the original songwriters/artists. The music distibutors will morph into hype machines, ala American Idol. Any talented songwriter will be left with nothing, as their songs will be taken by the hype machine, given to some hot girl or guy with marginal singing talent who will make the millions. At least nowadays the individual songwriter has to be compensated.
Some may say that an entity has free will if it is presented genuine choice of possible actions that it could take, and it is entirely up to that entity to decide which action it will take based on the stimulus that it was exposed to. Though I think my fridge exhibits this much free will when it decides whether or not to start its motor. It examines the temperature, and it 'decides' whether or not it needs to work.
If we want to try and determine what constitutes free will we can look at life on earth. It gives a good spectrum of intelligence. At what point would you draw the line for free will? Do dogs have free will? Mosquitos? Plants?
But in another sense, it never really chose. It either was going to run, or it wasn't. Any deterministic system will always come to the same output given the (exact) same input and internal state.
The question then becomes, could humans actually have different outputs given the exact same input? If decisions are entirely made by the brain (a complex deterministic device) then the answer is no. Therefore for there to be true free will there requires something outside of our physical universe (soul/spirit).
A problem with the "magic hand" is the fact that choices are not just made by stimuli, but are also influenced by chemical and physical changes to the body (eg drug use, stroke, etc). Now these chemical influences aren't just inputs, they in fact change the mechanism for decision making. For example alcohol removes levels of concious decision making, so perhaps a normally nice person becomes angry when drunk. Does the alcohol affect the person's decision making spirit, or does the alcohol remove his inhibitions, allowing the true spirit of the person to come through? The alcohol or his physical mind is affecting his free will, in either case you have something physical affecting the decision making process. Now if free will is subject to external influences, it isn't completely free.
I personally believe humans have a level of free-will beyond this. So maybe the question of computer free will is more a question of how much freedom one believes can be achieved in free-will
My personal belief is that people are just far more complex machines. Because decisions cannot be predicted gives the illusion of free will, but this is due to extreme complexity. Just as we cannot predict the weather because there are just too many variables to take into account, neither can we predict people's decisions.
If you can get Madden 2006 for 60 dollars right next to a bin with Madden 2005 for 10, you're going to buy Madden 2005.
Most people won't, because Madden 2005 doesn't have the updated rosters.
Now, if you're looking at a copy of God of War for 50 or Shadow of the Colossus for 40 or Madden 2004 for 10, you're far more likely to go with the awesome original title. The developers will have provided an amazing, original experience, will deserve the cash and will get it.
Innovative games in general aren't what sells. Look at the slump of Psychonauts, Beyond Good & Evil, and other great games in comparison to Pokemon X, or MaddenXX
These attributes of the mind: free will, self awareness, assigning meaning to symbols, and so on, cannot be assigned to a deterministic device. Even if there is some internal variable in a program that indicates a robot has identified itself in a mirror [slashdot.org], this does not demonstrate self awareness in the same way that humans do. Further, that flag has only been assigned the 'meaning' of self-awareness by the eyes of the human observer.
Because humans have not been able to clearly define free will, self awareness, etc. we cannot say whether or not a deterministic device could demonstrate these attributes. How can you say whether something is alive or sentient if you cannot even describe what those things mean? For example it would be difficult for a severely retarded person to demonstrate free will or assigning meaning to symbols, yet it doesn't (in the eyes of most anybody) make them less human.
Doug is right, this is a religious debate. But it is not religion intruding on science turf, rather, as it is a philosophical question, science entering religious turf.
Great point! Some questions like this cannot be answered by science.
There is a similar thing going on with people who study how the human mind works. Some people, for religious reasons, refuse to believe that human beings and machines belong to the same category. Humans have souls, and machines do not. Therefore, a computer can never be programmed to have all the qualities of the human mind. It's harder to see this as a religious issue, since some of the people who hold this position are atheists who claim not to believe in souls or the supernatural. But what makes this a religious issue is that there is no amount of scientific evidence that can ever convince these people otherwise.
It's a philisophical issue, of which religion is a subset. Since science can never prove anything, it falls upon people's philosophy to determine whether a machine even if it exhibits the same behavior as a person, is really alive or sentient.
According to the dualists, strong ai folk believe that humans are just machines, so humans can't be conscious in any real sense, don't have free will, and can't be morally responsible for their own actions. Some (stupid) strong ai folks even agree with these insults directed against them, which makes the debate more complicated, and more infuriating.
Why is that position stupid? To accept that there is free will outside of the electro-chemical mechanisms in the brain requires acceptance of something outside our capability to understand (spirit, soul, etc), to control things. Therefore this would mean that machines cannot be in the same category as humans because we cannot infuse them with a soul. From the morality standpoint there is no reason even if people are machines, that we can't hold them responsible for their actions. Essentially what morality does (at the most basic level), is try prevent individual people from significant deviance that would impact the collective.
It's almost like crazy patents are stifling innovation...Who'da thunk it??
How many drugs do you think would have been made if there were no patents given the extreme cost to get a drug approved. The high cost of regulation is what is stifling innovation, not patents.
The "megahertz race" was a monster of their own creation
Both Intel and AMD created the MHz race (remember 1Ghz being hit by AMD first). Ultimately Intel won the race with Northwood, as AMD's marketshare fell from 20% to 10%. The problem for Intel, they kept in the race too long with Prescott, when the laws of physics finally caught up with their marketing will.
Thousands of independents popped up with very low start up costs. It was the FCC which transformed that hodge-podge of stations into the orderly crowd of today.
So you would prefer electromagnetic anarchy? At an extreme you could see GE being building microwave ovens that interfere with all the stations that aren't NBC (which GE owns). Regular radio stations sending out signals to interfere with satellite radio to prevent competition.
How can you see policies favoring large business as "needed and proper"?
While some policies favor large business, the vast majority of them were established to prevent problems with interference. You wouldn't want some cheap toy manufacturer to use the same wavelength that is used for airplane navigation.
Current price supports for farm crops administered through the USDA, push the price of some foods in supermarkets up. This hurts far more poor people than it helps farmers. Farm price supports and subsidies effectively rob from the poor to pay the rich. There is nothing "needed and proper" about these harmful practices.
What subsidies do economically is artifically keep supply higher. The subsidies are in place to ensure capacity. The reason for this is food is a very important resource and subject to instability (bad weather, insect infestation, etc). What having excess capicity does is help ensure stability to prices in the event of disaster. Just look at oil, which was capacitiy constrained. A couple events like war, and hurricane and prices have skyrocketted. If something similar happened to food supplies, it would greatly impact the poor far more than the rich.
Former officials of the FDA admit that present drug testing policies kill thousands each year by delaying medicines and devices that are ready for market. Many medicines which are already approved in other countries must be approved again in this country. The FDA is killing more people than would have died had they not existed. It takes a pretty warped mind to find this as "needed and proper"?
I disagree. Without regulation, the big healthcare companies would just shove out whatever medicine they think would help people. Or people would just prescribe heroin to fix all your ills, causing massive addiction issues. Look at late 19th century US when you could order heroin from the Sear's catalog. Just look at the problems in the herbal suppliment market with ephedra.
That's the beauty of free trade. It does not need centralized management. In fact, it is retarded by such management. It depends on participants having the freedom to associate with each other without third party interference. It depends on the rule of law to protect the property rights (the body, the mind, the possessions, and the labor) of participants. There is little "necessary and proper" about government regulation of industry.
I believe free trade is a good in theory, but it is far from perfect. The power of free trade is that it leverages our greed to miximize productivity. The downside is as a whole people are more greedy than moral, and would follow profit to our own detriment. Child labor for example is a regulation preventing true free trade. Sure the free market could address this issue by people not buying from companies that use child labor, but in reality, this doesn't happen. People will ignore the issue worrying about their own well being so long as they convince themselves things aren't that bad. Government's job is to protect all its citizens, including protecting the minority from the will of the majority.
So, the OP was also correct in saying "The Federal government had no power to regulate trade -- they were provided to make sure the States didn't set embargoes or tariffs or taxes against other States"
No it's more than just tariffs & taxes, its regulation between states, which could constitue many things (ensure quality, prevent fraud, etc). The conclusion "The completely internal commerce of a State, then, may be considered as reserved for the State itself." means that the federal government does not have jurisdiction if trade occurs completely within a state. Therefore it is legal for the federal government to regulate things such as livestock, banking, medicine, if the goods/services are intended to cross state lines (interstate commerce).
That's from the 16th Amendment. It was ratified in 1909. For more than a hundred years the feds were not allowed to tax without apportionment. So, the OP was correct in saying "The Federal government had no power to tax unless it was a tax that would be provided equally to anyone utilizing a product or service."
"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;" article I sec 8.
Equal protection was not included until the 14th amendment. "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
The first income tax was created to fund the civil war, a time when many unconstitutional things occurred (eg suspension of habeas corpus). After the war the income tax was dissolved and wasn't brought back until the 1890's when it was indeed held unconstitutional by the supreme court and stopped, which is why the 16th amendment was ratified.
This contraversial clause assumes a responsible legislature that will correctly interpret what "necessary and proper" mean. It is doubtful that many federal agencies continue to pass the test of "necessary and proper".
Such as? If any commerce (which nowadays is a lot) occurs over state lines, then it falls under the jurisdiction of the federal government. Given the free trade between states, there would be alot of government agencies required to manage everything.
Why would you want to play a massively multiplayer game with people you don't know and with whom you can't communicate, with the game itself written in a language you don't understand, when all those things are readily available for less overall cost and better speeds in your native language?
Maybe to learn a language, meet people from different cultures. The people getting kicked out are not necessarily completely unable to communicate, it's just obvious they aren't native speakers.
The federal government should have exactly 50 citizens currently (the states), and a few working on their green cards (PR, Guam, etc.). It should collect a percentage tax from them, and should provide laws only governing them. The people are not under its control. It's scope is as a ruler of states.
By ruling states the federal government rules the people. For the federal government to be strong it would need to be able to force state governments to ratify laws. Which puts things back in the same situation we currently are in, except with more bureaucracy.
So, if you pay a 10% tax, and you live in a city and make $100000 a year (we all wish, right?), you would pay $10000 to the city. The city would pay $1000 to the county. The county would pay $100 to the state. The state would pay $10 to the feds. Multiply by the number of people in each jurisdiction, and you'll see that the money tree does indeed have leaves. You'll also see that the federal budget would (a) no longer have the capacity for pork-barrel crap, and (b) would no longer have the need for such money, since it's drastically out-of-scope for that level of government. The national government shouldn't be paying for local stuff unless it's specifically tied to the needs of that level of government. And they wouldn't under that plan, because they wouldn't have the money for it.
What areas wouldn't be under the scope of the federal governement? You'll still have pork barrel projects like where to put research facilities, where to put highways, where to put military bases, etc. The biggest problem with decentralization is juridiction. How do you calculate taxes, especially with interstate trade without a big legal mess? Already we see issues with states trying to claim taxes on the internet, and trying to figure out which state can claim the sales tax.
But of course, this would be a logical and efficient way of handling things, so not only will it not happen, but people won't even understand the concept because they're too fucking dumb.
I don't see where the efficiency comes from. In general the federal governement doesn't concern itself with local matters (eg building sports stadiums, local law enforcement). It does concern itself with interstate matters (Standards, interstate regulation, etc).
In the end no matter how you set things up there will be a corruptable governing body.
The Federal government had no power to regulate trade -- they were provided to make sure the States didn't set embargoes or tariffs or taxes against other States
"To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;"
The Federal government had no power to tax unless it was a tax that would be provided equally to anyone utilizing a product or service. The Income tax is unconstitutional in every way because it is different for each person.
"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration."
The Federal government had no power to perform many "duties" we now accept: FDA, USDA, FEC, SEC, IRS, FEMA, DOT, OSHA, FCC, FAA, EPA, BATF and so on and so on. Constitutionally all of these agencies are illegal.
"To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof."
The US had a system with a weak central government, the Articles of Confederation, which failed.
As China is proving day after day, there's nothing inherent about Capitalism that prevents non-democratic entities from participating--and competing well even.
Depends on how capitalism plays out. If you have a few elites controlling all the wealth, then yes non-democratic entities can continue. If, however, a strong middle/mercantile class arises, then you have a greater number of people who have property to lose and want a stake in governmental decisions.
After all, business was, for the most part, completely in check at one point in our history under the same basic system we have today
When was this? You had rich cotton farmers influencing the ratification of the Constitution, Rail barons holding cities hostage, and early industrialists influencing against unions.
I'm no expert, but I would pin the problem on a few specific things such as: the lack of congressional term limits (and the rise of professional politicians), the emergence of telecommunications media, the lack of transparency and accountability within public corporations, and the lack of more stringent restrictions on campaign contributions. If any one of these flaws were to fundamentally change, I think we'd definitely see ebbing in the power of big business. Now achieving such changes in our current situation is a big problem indeed...
All of these issues would be null if there was an interested voting populace. If people actually reviewed voting records, rather than voting in order of importance for 1) The incumbant, 2) Their party, 3) The person on TV, or with the most celebrity (the movie Predator has 2 governors!). Right now we have about 25% of the voting population deciding things. Hence vocal special interest groups are over represented.
Slashdot Mirror
"the males have enlarged pelvic fins and exceptionally large muscles that may be used to grasp the females during copulation"
Why didn't this make it into the summary?
Jealousy
Without the piece of paper, the education is meaningless :)
No, it just means the education is what you make of it. While you don't have "proof" of your understanding of the concepts you can leverage the information on a personal level. (eg Steve Jobs "dropping in" to calligraphy class)
When a country sponsors terrorism, we boycott them
Like Saudi Arabia?
When a country massacres certain races in their country, we try to stop them.
Like Iraq in the 80's?
Why, when a country rules by oppression, fear, and many other completely un-Democratic ideals should we make an exception?
Like Chile?
The US doesn't care about other countries, it cares about protecting its interests.
i have a problem that those limited benefits have morphed into unlimited benefits. and, you seem to have the same problem. so we agree on the scope of the problem here, and we agree on the nature of the problem. your words and my words have no contradiction
,and you stole someone's canteen, you have committed an immoral act. you are depriving someone of sustenance.
but if you live on the shore of a lake, and you take a glass of water form it, what have you really stolen??
Correct, I agree that there have been many problems (DMCA, extension of copyright time) that have erroded the rights of the public (which are also specifically granted in copyright) in favor of big business profits.
you need a new more nuanced understanding of how things work in the internet age, as your current way of thinking about copyright is like trying to apply sharia law: too harsh and simple, and disregarding of the actual nature of the trangression involved.
Yes, and it's not as simple as "it's free to copy, so there is no impact on the producer." There are things to consider such as potential market to recoup costs. Creating the original isn't free, that's the problem.
there is no argument put forth manufacturing justification for something you are not justified to. because you are justified to that which is free. what needs justification is trying to apply the morality from another age onto the internet age. look at it this way: if you lived in the desert
It would be more apt if the water was from a pool, as it costs somebody money to fill the pool in the first place, just as it costs money to make a song/book/etc. Now individual infringements aren't a problem (just as taking a glass of water from a pool isn't a big deal), it's the aggregate that degrades the market (if everybody takes a glass, the guy who owns the pool has nothing to show). People are just as greedy as corporations, if they can get something free, then they won't pay.
but now on the internet, there is no limited resources. what once cost $ to distribute now costs 0. how can you apply the sharia law of chopping off someone's hands for stealing a loaf of bread in this new environment? how can you fine a soccer mom thousands of dollars because her daughter downloaded flipsyde?
Yes the ideas are the limited resource. If you are a blogger do you want Yahoo or Google completely copying what is on your site, and generating ad revenue from your hard work while you get nothing?
you need to pay more attention to how dramatically the internet is changing our society. you're standing on ground you think is quite solid on these questions, when what you are actually standing on when you make your arguments is sand shifting beneath your feet
I fully understand what is going on. What we are seeing goes beyond just lower distribution costs. We are seeing the complete separation of ideas from physical media.
The problem is while the cost to reproduce has gone away, the cost to produce hasn't. Before the cost to produce could be recovered because it could be incorporated into the cost for media, unfortunately that's not possible anymore.
So what do we get? The industry taking the legal route, and the service route (eg Steam) both of which benifit nobody. All because some people have a sense of entitlement.
however, the corporations have extended and obfuscated the original intention such that copyright, in their view, and apparently also in the view of historically myopic fools like yourself, is now to own everything, for all time
;-)
I wasn't arguing that things haven't changed over time where profit has superceded progress. I was pointing out that the underlying values for IP were not arbitrary, but were in fact the result of trying to develop a method for fair compensation.
It's also hypocritical to argue that corporations are greedy, when copyright infringers are the ones taking. There is the option to not listen to the music at all if you think it's overpriced, rather than trying to justify you are entitled to it.
and as for your statement that less money in music will make music more shallow and vapid... PFFFT! that assertion is hilarious, thanks for the laugh
Just pointing out your shortsightedness that erasing copyright will automatically lead to the destruction of big corporations.
How about a system that mimics the real world a little more? How about making your character good at what ever he does... if he goes around swinging a sword... make him a good swordsman. If he tries to cast spells, make him a spellcaster. If he wants to do both, let him, but don't let him be quite as good as someone dedicated to one thing.
Now balance every combination to make sure the backstabbing hypnotist isn't significantly more powerful than the chain wearing fire caster.
If you don't balance you end up with everybody maximizing their character stats. Worst case everybody has the exact same uber template. Best case you have a few niche templates, which in practice are no different than archetypes.
notice that these arbitrary rules have nothing to do with morality or right and wrong, they only have to do with a profitable business model from a bygone era.
Copyright does have it's roots in morality. To protect the rights of the original creator of an artistic work. That way nobody else could claim they were the one who wrote a book, or a song and exploit it for their own profit.
music, in quality and quantity, will not change in the least. you could even make the argument that music would get better in quality and quantity, without an artificial financially driven entity sitting between consumer and artist.
and music distributors?
they will die.
No they will change, and the people hurt most will be the original songwriters/artists. The music distibutors will morph into hype machines, ala American Idol. Any talented songwriter will be left with nothing, as their songs will be taken by the hype machine, given to some hot girl or guy with marginal singing talent who will make the millions. At least nowadays the individual songwriter has to be compensated.
No it breaks down into 3 groups. Those who know computers and are afraid, those who don't know computers and are afraid, and politicians.
So cut the graphics first. You won't sell as many copies, but you'll make a better game. And isn't that what's most important in the end?
Money of course.
How many people have made professional gaming an actual career? I don't mean 2 years of income. I mean at least 10 years of steady income.
It's not about the money man... It's about the chicks... errr the fame... err the free Mountain Dew sponsorship deals, that's it.
Some may say that an entity has free will if it is presented genuine choice of possible actions that it could take, and it is entirely up to that entity to decide which action it will take based on the stimulus that it was exposed to. Though I think my fridge exhibits this much free will when it decides whether or not to start its motor. It examines the temperature, and it 'decides' whether or not it needs to work.
If we want to try and determine what constitutes free will we can look at life on earth. It gives a good spectrum of intelligence. At what point would you draw the line for free will? Do dogs have free will? Mosquitos? Plants?
But in another sense, it never really chose. It either was going to run, or it wasn't. Any deterministic system will always come to the same output given the (exact) same input and internal state.
The question then becomes, could humans actually have different outputs given the exact same input? If decisions are entirely made by the brain (a complex deterministic device) then the answer is no. Therefore for there to be true free will there requires something outside of our physical universe (soul/spirit).
A problem with the "magic hand" is the fact that choices are not just made by stimuli, but are also influenced by chemical and physical changes to the body (eg drug use, stroke, etc). Now these chemical influences aren't just inputs, they in fact change the mechanism for decision making. For example alcohol removes levels of concious decision making, so perhaps a normally nice person becomes angry when drunk. Does the alcohol affect the person's decision making spirit, or does the alcohol remove his inhibitions, allowing the true spirit of the person to come through? The alcohol or his physical mind is affecting his free will, in either case you have something physical affecting the decision making process. Now if free will is subject to external influences, it isn't completely free.
I personally believe humans have a level of free-will beyond this. So maybe the question of computer free will is more a question of how much freedom one believes can be achieved in free-will
My personal belief is that people are just far more complex machines. Because decisions cannot be predicted gives the illusion of free will, but this is due to extreme complexity. Just as we cannot predict the weather because there are just too many variables to take into account, neither can we predict people's decisions.
If you can get Madden 2006 for 60 dollars right next to a bin with Madden 2005 for 10, you're going to buy Madden 2005.
Most people won't, because Madden 2005 doesn't have the updated rosters.
Now, if you're looking at a copy of God of War for 50 or Shadow of the Colossus for 40 or Madden 2004 for 10, you're far more likely to go with the awesome original title. The developers will have provided an amazing, original experience, will deserve the cash and will get it.
Again you are wrong, most people go for sequel rehases. Look at the 2005 video game sales chart
Innovative games in general aren't what sells. Look at the slump of Psychonauts, Beyond Good & Evil, and other great games in comparison to Pokemon X, or MaddenXX
These attributes of the mind: free will, self awareness, assigning meaning to symbols, and so on, cannot be assigned to a deterministic device. Even if there is some internal variable in a program that indicates a robot has identified itself in a mirror [slashdot.org], this does not demonstrate self awareness in the same way that humans do. Further, that flag has only been assigned the 'meaning' of self-awareness by the eyes of the human observer.
Because humans have not been able to clearly define free will, self awareness, etc. we cannot say whether or not a deterministic device could demonstrate these attributes. How can you say whether something is alive or sentient if you cannot even describe what those things mean? For example it would be difficult for a severely retarded person to demonstrate free will or assigning meaning to symbols, yet it doesn't (in the eyes of most anybody) make them less human.
Doug is right, this is a religious debate. But it is not religion intruding on science turf, rather, as it is a philosophical question, science entering religious turf.
Great point! Some questions like this cannot be answered by science.
When a machine can say "I am."
It's easy for a machine to say "I am," it's difficult to know when it really means it.
There is a similar thing going on with people who study how the human mind works. Some people, for religious reasons, refuse to believe that human beings and machines belong to the same category. Humans have souls, and machines do not. Therefore, a computer can never be programmed to have all the qualities of the human mind. It's harder to see this as a religious issue, since some of the people who hold this position are atheists who claim not to believe in souls or the supernatural. But what makes this a religious issue is that there is no amount of scientific evidence that can ever convince these people otherwise.
It's a philisophical issue, of which religion is a subset. Since science can never prove anything, it falls upon people's philosophy to determine whether a machine even if it exhibits the same behavior as a person, is really alive or sentient.
According to the dualists, strong ai folk believe that humans are just machines, so humans can't be conscious in any real sense, don't have free will, and can't be morally responsible for their own actions. Some (stupid) strong ai folks even agree with these insults directed against them, which makes the debate more complicated, and more infuriating.
Why is that position stupid? To accept that there is free will outside of the electro-chemical mechanisms in the brain requires acceptance of something outside our capability to understand (spirit, soul, etc), to control things. Therefore this would mean that machines cannot be in the same category as humans because we cannot infuse them with a soul.
From the morality standpoint there is no reason even if people are machines, that we can't hold them responsible for their actions. Essentially what morality does (at the most basic level), is try prevent individual people from significant deviance that would impact the collective.
It's almost like crazy patents are stifling innovation...Who'da thunk it??
How many drugs do you think would have been made if there were no patents given the extreme cost to get a drug approved. The high cost of regulation is what is stifling innovation, not patents.
The "megahertz race" was a monster of their own creation
Both Intel and AMD created the MHz race (remember 1Ghz being hit by AMD first). Ultimately Intel won the race with Northwood, as AMD's marketshare fell from 20% to 10%. The problem for Intel, they kept in the race too long with Prescott, when the laws of physics finally caught up with their marketing will.
Thousands of independents popped up with very low start up costs. It was the FCC which transformed that hodge-podge of stations into the orderly crowd of today.
So you would prefer electromagnetic anarchy? At an extreme you could see GE being building microwave ovens that interfere with all the stations that aren't NBC (which GE owns). Regular radio stations sending out signals to interfere with satellite radio to prevent competition.
How can you see policies favoring large business as "needed and proper"?
While some policies favor large business, the vast majority of them were established to prevent problems with interference. You wouldn't want some cheap toy manufacturer to use the same wavelength that is used for airplane navigation.
Current price supports for farm crops administered through the USDA, push the price of some foods in supermarkets up. This hurts far more poor people than it helps farmers. Farm price supports and subsidies effectively rob from the poor to pay the rich. There is nothing "needed and proper" about these harmful practices.
What subsidies do economically is artifically keep supply higher. The subsidies are in place to ensure capacity. The reason for this is food is a very important resource and subject to instability (bad weather, insect infestation, etc). What having excess capicity does is help ensure stability to prices in the event of disaster.
Just look at oil, which was capacitiy constrained. A couple events like war, and hurricane and prices have skyrocketted. If something similar happened to food supplies, it would greatly impact the poor far more than the rich.
Former officials of the FDA admit that present drug testing policies kill thousands each year by delaying medicines and devices that are ready for market. Many medicines which are already approved in other countries must be approved again in this country. The FDA is killing more people than would have died had they not existed. It takes a pretty warped mind to find this as "needed and proper"?
I disagree. Without regulation, the big healthcare companies would just shove out whatever medicine they think would help people. Or people would just prescribe heroin to fix all your ills, causing massive addiction issues. Look at late 19th century US when you could order heroin from the Sear's catalog. Just look at the problems in the herbal suppliment market with ephedra.
That's the beauty of free trade. It does not need centralized management. In fact, it is retarded by such management. It depends on participants having the freedom to associate with each other without third party interference. It depends on the rule of law to protect the property rights (the body, the mind, the possessions, and the labor) of participants. There is little "necessary and proper" about government regulation of industry.
I believe free trade is a good in theory, but it is far from perfect. The power of free trade is that it leverages our greed to miximize productivity. The downside is as a whole people are more greedy than moral, and would follow profit to our own detriment. Child labor for example is a regulation preventing true free trade. Sure the free market could address this issue by people not buying from companies that use child labor, but in reality, this doesn't happen. People will ignore the issue worrying about their own well being so long as they convince themselves things aren't that bad. Government's job is to protect all its citizens, including protecting the minority from the will of the majority.
So, the OP was also correct in saying "The Federal government had no power to regulate trade -- they were provided to make sure the States didn't set embargoes or tariffs or taxes against other States"
No it's more than just tariffs & taxes, its regulation between states, which could constitue many things (ensure quality, prevent fraud, etc). The conclusion "The completely internal commerce of a State, then, may be considered as reserved for the State itself." means that the federal government does not have jurisdiction if trade occurs completely within a state. Therefore it is legal for the federal government to regulate things such as livestock, banking, medicine, if the goods/services are intended to cross state lines (interstate commerce).
That's from the 16th Amendment. It was ratified in 1909. For more than a hundred years the feds were not allowed to tax without apportionment. So, the OP was correct in saying "The Federal government had no power to tax unless it was a tax that would be provided equally to anyone utilizing a product or service."
"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;" article I sec 8.
Equal protection was not included until the 14th amendment.
"No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
The first income tax was created to fund the civil war, a time when many unconstitutional things occurred (eg suspension of habeas corpus). After the war the income tax was dissolved and wasn't brought back until the 1890's when it was indeed held unconstitutional by the supreme court and stopped, which is why the 16th amendment was ratified.
This contraversial clause assumes a responsible legislature that will correctly interpret what "necessary and proper" mean. It is doubtful that many federal agencies continue to pass the test of "necessary and proper".
Such as? If any commerce (which nowadays is a lot) occurs over state lines, then it falls under the jurisdiction of the federal government. Given the free trade between states, there would be alot of government agencies required to manage everything.
Why would you want to play a massively multiplayer game with people you don't know and with whom you can't communicate, with the game itself written in a language you don't understand, when all those things are readily available for less overall cost and better speeds in your native language?
Maybe to learn a language, meet people from different cultures. The people getting kicked out are not necessarily completely unable to communicate, it's just obvious they aren't native speakers.
I just wondered a second or two about what "Two tablespaces of mountain dew" could be..
;)
Given the weight of most geeks, two tablespaces is just about right
The federal government should have exactly 50 citizens currently (the states), and a few working on their green cards (PR, Guam, etc.). It should collect a percentage tax from them, and should provide laws only governing them. The people are not under its control. It's scope is as a ruler of states.
By ruling states the federal government rules the people. For the federal government to be strong it would need to be able to force state governments to ratify laws. Which puts things back in the same situation we currently are in, except with more bureaucracy.
So, if you pay a 10% tax, and you live in a city and make $100000 a year (we all wish, right?), you would pay $10000 to the city. The city would pay $1000 to the county. The county would pay $100 to the state. The state would pay $10 to the feds. Multiply by the number of people in each jurisdiction, and you'll see that the money tree does indeed have leaves. You'll also see that the federal budget would (a) no longer have the capacity for pork-barrel crap, and (b) would no longer have the need for such money, since it's drastically out-of-scope for that level of government. The national government shouldn't be paying for local stuff unless it's specifically tied to the needs of that level of government. And they wouldn't under that plan, because they wouldn't have the money for it.
What areas wouldn't be under the scope of the federal governement? You'll still have pork barrel projects like where to put research facilities, where to put highways, where to put military bases, etc.
The biggest problem with decentralization is juridiction. How do you calculate taxes, especially with interstate trade without a big legal mess? Already we see issues with states trying to claim taxes on the internet, and trying to figure out which state can claim the sales tax.
But of course, this would be a logical and efficient way of handling things, so not only will it not happen, but people won't even understand the concept because they're too fucking dumb.
I don't see where the efficiency comes from. In general the federal governement doesn't concern itself with local matters (eg building sports stadiums, local law enforcement). It does concern itself with interstate matters (Standards, interstate regulation, etc).
In the end no matter how you set things up there will be a corruptable governing body.
The Federal government had no power to regulate trade -- they were provided to make sure the States didn't set embargoes or tariffs or taxes against other States
"To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;"
The Federal government had no power to tax unless it was a tax that would be provided equally to anyone utilizing a product or service. The Income tax is unconstitutional in every way because it is different for each person.
"The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration."
The Federal government had no power to perform many "duties" we now accept: FDA, USDA, FEC, SEC, IRS, FEMA, DOT, OSHA, FCC, FAA, EPA, BATF and so on and so on. Constitutionally all of these agencies are illegal.
"To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof."
The US had a system with a weak central government, the Articles of Confederation, which failed.
As China is proving day after day, there's nothing inherent about Capitalism that prevents non-democratic entities from participating--and competing well even.
Depends on how capitalism plays out. If you have a few elites controlling all the wealth, then yes non-democratic entities can continue. If, however, a strong middle/mercantile class arises, then you have a greater number of people who have property to lose and want a stake in governmental decisions.
After all, business was, for the most part, completely in check at one point in our history under the same basic system we have today
When was this? You had rich cotton farmers influencing the ratification of the Constitution, Rail barons holding cities hostage, and early industrialists influencing against unions.
I'm no expert, but I would pin the problem on a few specific things such as: the lack of congressional term limits (and the rise of professional politicians), the emergence of telecommunications media, the lack of transparency and accountability within public corporations, and the lack of more stringent restrictions on campaign contributions. If any one of these flaws were to fundamentally change, I think we'd definitely see ebbing in the power of big business. Now achieving such changes in our current situation is a big problem indeed...
All of these issues would be null if there was an interested voting populace. If people actually reviewed voting records, rather than voting in order of importance for 1) The incumbant, 2) Their party, 3) The person on TV, or with the most celebrity (the movie Predator has 2 governors!).
Right now we have about 25% of the voting population deciding things. Hence vocal special interest groups are over represented.
If Congress was severely limited in power, infinite money in bribes would get the briber nothing.
And would render government ineffective, so that it wouldn't have the power to serve the people.