Just about everything you say in this post is so fundementally WRONG
Really? What? How?
Go read some of the articles here: http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/
I didn't really understand much of what was written here. Much of it sounds like advertising copy -- all taste, no substance. No references are given. It's sort of a combination of a rant against "The Man" and a commercial for Powerade. I'll definitely bookmark it though. It's not often that you see this quality of fuzzy thinking.
Well, we could impoverish ourselves, and bring everyone down to the same level. We could do what we do now, and give the worst situations a little help. Or, we could actually help poor people around the world, by making birth control a mandatory condition for receiving any aid (after all, why pay people to produce more starving babies?), encouraging private industry to develop in "developing" nations, and demanding certain social standards (not feeding soldiers in the middle of a civil war, making sure that people come before cattle, and not supporting dictatorships).
a large majority don't even have a phone
So? Why not concentrate on helping them pull themselves up to a level where they can afford them?
computers are useless because they can't read
Then they need education, not computers. Walk before you run.
baby boomers waiting for the massive transfer of wealth and anticipate living off the tax-sweat of the next generation of the young
Is grandma on SS really a "technocrat"?
can't afford health care much less the exotic drugs the pharmaceuticals charge to recoup R&D (plus hefty margin) costs (nothing like a captive market
Again, if someone thinks that tribal infighting is more important than feeding their family, I see no reason why I should help them. If drug companies didn't make a profit, they wouldn't be able to stay in business, let alone conduct often-fruitless research. Do you think that every time a drug company spends 10 years researching something, any usefull product results? We only hear about the successes, because they are rare.
still waiting for the US to pay off its $6 trillion dollar debt while addicting third world nations and various corrupt governments to a consumer lifestyle they can't afford
What, exactly, is so "addictive" about American lifestyle? Are people ODing on Dockers and Levis? Are native tribes in the Amazon dying because they can't find a Gap to shop at? If people around the world didn't want to be like Americans, they wouldn't buy our stuff, and we wouldn't bother trying to sell it to them. You know, if someone can't afford something, they don't buy it. That's why McDonalds and Pizza Hut haven't taken over Russia -- most people can't afford it. Are they any worse off for that? If so, am I any worse off because I can't afford $500 to blow at a good resturant?
For what merit is technology without the moral sense to apply it wisely? Too often we see the glitter of a holy grail without realising the price.
DDT,
Which is working to eliminate malaria and yellow fever around the world, mostly in those can't-afford-a-cellphone-and-computer countries that you mentioned earlier. Maybe you should ask them to go back to dying from mosquito bites, and see what they think about it.
nuclear research
Which has led to the demise of quite a few oil and coal-powered electrical plants. I don't know about you, but sulphur dioxide isn't exactly one of my favorite flavors.
We have the moral sense to use technology wisely, and we do. True, not everyone gets the same things at the same time. There isn't any way to ensure "fairness" -- the closest you can get is to make everyone poor. If we spend all of out time and efforts trying to put a computer on every desk and a phone in everyone's hand, we'll never gain anything, for anyone.
Scientific research, funded mostly by private industry, has brought more advances to the poor and downtrodden than anything else. In this case, the glitter of the biotech holy grail is possibly the end of hunger and disease -- no small goal. When the human genome is finally decoded, when the Sahara blooms again, it will be because of those evil, greedy technocrats. Damn them.
There's been a bit of porn from the White House too, hasn't there?
But seriously, how do you define "art"? How can you say "This is art, and therefore is good. That is porn, and therefore is bad."? I remember Jesse Helms saying "I don't know what art is, but I know what I like." Is that what you mean?
Where does "protect the children" stop and book-burning begin?
but moderates don't win elections. You have to have some issue on which you take a stand.
Like President Clinton, right? He's the most pricipled, rock solid man to ever sit in the White House. Fact is, the only "principle" he ever upheld has been the Holy Opinion Poll. I'd have to say that he is the ultimate "moderate".
AltaVista, Yahoo, MSN, Netscape, Excite, and of course AOL all have links to this. All of these guys have money, and it's very probable that at least one of them won't obey this court order through sheer carelessness. Let's get ready to Sue!
Remember that if you decide to do something dumb and wreck your car because you worked on it yourself, your insurance company is going to have to pay for your resulting (possibly quite large) medical bills. That results in high insurance costs for me. So when you do that, you don't just affect yourself, you affect everyone else - the 911 response staff who have to come pick you up instead of someone who may be having a heart attack, the doctors in the emergency room, your insurance company, etc. Unless, of course, you want people to pay for their own mistakes which brings up a whole other set of moral/ethical issues that will only result in different regulation.
Can an auto mechanic make a mistake that ends up with the same result as your mistake? Sure. They are human. But I'd wager that an auto mechanic is going to make a lot fewer mistakes fixing my brakes for me than I would if I did it myself.
So why do we continue to allow these auto parts pushers to operate, selling parts to unlicenced mechanics? While it's true that very few deaths are attributed to unlicenced auto repair, it's only a matter of time. We need to stop this practice before innocent lives are lost. After all, if you're too stupid to work on your car, isn't your neighbor?
This is precisely what should be avoided. We should always be prepared to extend the same priviledgesin terms of judgement to others as we expect to be extended to us, be they individuals or organisations, governmental or otherwise.
Quoting from the first part of the complaint: [the FBI] acted pursuant to a policy... to take actions to suppress speech without any judicial determination that the speech is unprotected by law. Well, they certainly extended him all of the courtesty that I extend them, ie, none.
The "get a warrant" approach is the traditional "you're the FBI therefore I hate you until you are sent on a mission from God himself" approach...
No, the "get a warrant" is the "read the Constitution" approach. Since the Constitution was specificaly written to inhibit the power of the Government, I know that this is unpopular with them. Tough, as America isn't quite a police state, yet.
... but you're ignoring the point of my post. I'll repeat it : look at it from their point of view.
From their point of view, it seems to be: "Warrants? We don't need no stinkin' warrants! If you citizens know what's good for you, you'll just cooperate -- otherwise someone might get their feelings hurt."
You're looking at legal rights to free speech, let's also look at legal responsibilities of the FBI.
The first of which is to have a warrant, issued "...upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." In other words, if you can't get a warrant, no "probable cause" exists. Now, there is always a judge who'll issue a warrant for anything, especially to the FBI. If they didn't bother with one, what does that say?
So by standing up so obnoxiously and uncooperatively for your civil rights, you've actually managed to reduce them by demonstrating that their misuse can lead to civil unrest for no apparent reason, and cause the potential loss of life.
Note Niven's Law: F * S = k, or the product of freedom and security is a constant. in other words, to get more security, you need to give up some freedom, and vice versa. You're confusing civil rights with security -- the two are not the same.
On a related point, isn't misrepresentation a crime of some sort in the States? If you claim you believe something came from the army, and it didn't, and you knew it didn't, is that not in some way prosecutable? What about inciting to riot?
Misrepresentation as in lying to certain people (police involved in an investigation) or on certain documents (applying for a loan) is illegal. However, you can claim to be God, or say that the FBI has a microchip implanted in your butt, with which they control your thoughts, and it's not a crime. As has been recently demonstrated, lying is legal, as long as you're not under oath. Charging him with inciting a riot might be possible, but is more tricky. You see, an actual investigation would have to be conducted, and then someone arrested and charged. It's much simpler to just "lean on him a little" -- no muss, no fuss, no paper trail.
If the FBI had a genuine concern given the telephone calls they had received, then the plaintiffs could have set their minds at rest.
They could have, but they have no obligation to.
The easy answer to the question "where did you get the tape" is, "I made it, it's fictional". The easy solution to the problem was to indicate that this was a work of fiction on the front page.
The correct answer would have been "Get a warrant." followed by slamming the door/phone.
Speech is not a crime, no matter how inflamatory it may be. I feel that given the past actions of our government (the Bonus Army, Hoover ignoring the Mafia while inestigating MLK, the Steve Jackson Games case, etc.), the FBI/DEA/BATF et. al. should be presumed guilty until proven innocent, especially against someone with a politically unpopular view.
Patents might have helped with open protocols, because the protocol could be disclosed without it being freely used in ways the company didn't want, but then MS doesn't patent the Word file formats, they obscure them and change them regularly.
Just for the record, MS Word is not an open protocol.
That's something patents should be making open, and they're not. It's sufficient cause to reexamine the whole argument of, "patents advanced discovery much faster".
So, just because Microsoft doesn't patent their file format, patents are bad? Patents aren't legally required, you know. If MS expects various forms of Word to be around in 30 years, it makes sense for them to NOT apply for a patent -- like you said, they can just change the file format and keep it secret.
But this example hasn't got squat to do with "advances in discovery". Who cares if Microsoft software is secret or not? Why should they "make their software open"? What could possibly be so earth-shattering about MS Word file formats that it's keeping scientfic advancement back?
More to the point, suppose that it held the cure for all diseases? Would you force them to give it up? If so, where do you stop? "Software patents are bad, so let's abolish them and make them Open Source" isn't too far from "Technology patents are bad, because they keep valuable information from being used by the poor, oppressed Proletariat. Let's abolish all patents that contain a semiconductor, and make them Open Source".
Ah, yes, those greedy, evil industrialists. Instead of making money, they should be making things "Open". Like IBM, with the PC specification. If only they'd have been more like that great company Apple, things would be better. Or Microsoft -- how dare they make computers easy to use, and cause them to be so popular that everyone wants one! Now that they're a success, they should give all of their years of development time to the Peepul.
Making money has been the only factor that has kept scientific advancement going at the pace it has. Maybe the scientist of engineer didn't see it that way, but the people behind him did -- you know, the ones that built the lab and paid him for three years of research? Scientific research is the one single thing that has consistently made money, over and over again. That's why it can always scrape up some $$ -- can you imagine what the patent for controlled, sustainable Fusion would be worth?
Prove me wrong. Show me how patents discourage technical adancement. Take a society that disregards the profit motive, and has no patents. Show me what they can produce. I can think of two things right away: Lots of pictures of Lenin, and the Yugo.
5. Specify in the new law that software is an expression not an implementation, thus not patentable.
So, software would fall under copyright laws, rather that patent laws? If so, you're opening up a whole new can of worms, since Congress has shown no hesitation whatsoever to extend the lifespans of copyrights. So, not only would some great software idea be unavaliable to you to use now, but it would be unavaliable forever, ala Mickey Mouse.
Ultimately, the idea that someone can own and control something simply because s/he thought of it is a pretty good definition of evil.
That is what a patent is. It allows you to have sole, legal control over your idea.
The universe of techniques, procedures, and mechanisms that could make the world a better place is a bit like natural resources.
Not really. Most natural resources renew themseles slowly enough that if they aren't managed, you have a boom-and-bust cycle (ie, fish out the ocean, fishing is no longer profitable, fishermen do other things, fish population recovers, repeat). Intellectual resources, however, are infinitely renewable. You can't "use up" human creativity. This reminds me of the story of the Patent Office clerk who quit his job around 1900, because everything had already been invented.
Open source, of course, is the solution.;) Why? Because it allows for others, now or in the future, to build on and improve our efforts now. And that's a pretty good definition of Good.
Ha! Patents are the solution, because they allow you to make a buck now, while insuring that your ideas are free to use later on down the road. If patent law didn't exist, no company would ever admit what it had developed, because they'd lose it immediately. As a result, most companies would be re-inventing the wheel, instead of making something useful. Imagine if all of the processes associated with semiconductors were to have been held as corporate secrets. What would the world look like? Who'd own a computer? Not you or me, bud. We might have one of those newfangled transistor radios if we had a month's pay to blow, but vaccuum tubes would be in most of 'em. Rotary phones, leaded gasoline, and kidney stone surgery (with a knife!). So, where's your Linux now?
The title seems to be meant exactly opposite of the traditional "gold digger" definition: They mean it literally.
That is, they see themselves taking raw material (mountain with gold inside > engineer with ideas) and extracting something valuable with their hard labor. After all, isn't lawyering work, too?
At issue is whether a Web site can profit from linking to information contained on a different site.
Isn't this 90% of what Slashdot does? Heck, it's 90% of the Internet. This could hae some really nast implications...(Microsoft, today sued everyone who said anything bad about them, claiming a drop in stock price as a result).
Well? Hasn't every scientific discoery that goes against the established religion's dogmas been branded as "heresy" and "unnatural"? Going even further, doesn't one religion mock another? At the risk of starting a flamewar, can we leave religion out of science?
AOL paid to download the spam. AOL paid lawyers to draft letters to stop the spam. AOL paid people to listen to customer complaints. AOl finally paid to take these putzes to court and stop them. Only if an AOL customer pays by the MB for their e-mail, do they have a claim on the cash.
If Rob moderates your post to -1, kills your account, and prevents any logon from your IP address, it's not censorship. He owns Slashdot, and can do what he wants with it. If you don't like it, start your own forum.
If the government forbids you to write "Bil Gate$ 5ucks A$$" on your web site, it's censorship. They don't own it.
Without commercialization of the Internet, you would't have been able to post a ZDNet Talkback -- ZDNet wouldn't exist! Without commercialization of the Internet, Slashdot wouldn't exist in its present form -- Rob, Hemos, et. al. would have to do "honest work". In fact, without commercialization in general, the computer that you use to post with would be priced out of your reach!
The Internet is about exchanging information and ideas
The thing you don't get is that the "information and ideas" that 90% of the people want are various forms of entertainment! That's why download.com gets a few more hits than, say, iww.org. That's why sex.com is just a leetle more popular than aynrand.org. Taking away the entertainment, and what do you have? ARPANET.
Screw e-commerce. Let the moneygrubbers build their OWN e-commerce network.
They are. It's called the Internet. Without those "money-grubbers", how much infrastructure do you think we'd have? Who'd know or even care what the Internet was?
The Internet is an information resource and a "low barrier to entry" publishing medium that almost anybody can make use of
Including anyone who wants to make a buck or two, but doesn't have the $$$ to put up a store front, or even advertise in the local paper. A "Money-Grubber".
"Let them turn something else into a vast wasteland of advertising and product hawking like television has become."
On my cable package, there are three "home shopping" channels, and three "artsy" channels (PBS, local access, and one from the local Univ.). I don't have to watch Home Shopping. Again, do you think that without commercialization, local access cable would exist? Hell, let's go back the the first broadcast medium, radio. One of the first radio programs was "The Westinghouse Radio Hour". You see, Westinghouse made radios, but there was no programming. So they gave people something to listen to on their new Westinghouse radios. Without "moneygrubbers", radio wouldn't taken off. Without radio (and the vast radio audience), no TV. So, where's your PBS now?
What value does something have if it doesn't have value? Answer: None, obviously.
What good is something if you can't get something from it? Answer: See above.
"Value" is essentially "what this thing will get me". Nothing more. The Internet is obviously valuable, because many people have gotten many things from it. Some people get their message out. Some people show pictures of their dog. Some people get...something from it, even if nobody else gets it!
Just because some people have gotten money from it, doesn't exclude you from getting what you want from it.
The Internet is an infinitely renewable resource. No one has to be exposed to advertising and commercialisim if they don't want to be. You can rant and rail against commercialisim and share some human knowledge on your own web site, and it won't bother me a bit.
There are two ways that guns can prevent a violent attack -- deterence and reaction.
Deterence: If a portion of the populance is armed, and not readily distinguishable from those that are unarmed, a criminal has no way of knowing which person that they may encounter is a Free Lunch, and which one is Bad News. This leads to overall safety. A good example of this is this article which details the Israelis' response to school massacres by the PLO.
Reaction: Of couse, some people are not swayed by the possibility they might get shot. This is where an armed, trained citizen is the answer. In fact, in most cases, simply the fact that the victim posesses a gun is enough to stop the encounter. Rarely is there a need for shooting, but when it happens, it's certainly conclusive.
Just smiling really big isn't going to keep the sharp knives away. Things may be to the point where there isn't any "worse": The.au government already has a stranglehold on Internet access, so why not piss them off? Appeasement is a really poor strategy, after all. Saying to an oppressive government "Just take a few of our liberties" is like saying to Hitler "Just invade Poland, okay?"
Isn't this the tradition for software/tech companies? Don't most EULA's say "We don't guarantee anything, period. If you open this box, you agree that you won't even think anything bad about us. This product is no warranted as useful for anything except removing fifty bucks from your pocket. If it fails, and your business goes under, tough."?
In the 1930's, in the US, you could legally buy a gun and ammunition through the mail. You could buy dynamite and blasting caps over the counter at the hardware store. The depression was in full swing, with people literally starving. Being Black, Oriental, Mexican, Jewish, Gay, etc. in most parts of the country was not, shall we say, a Fun Thing.
Today, in the US, access to guns and explosives is more restricted than ever before. The KKK (over 5 million members in the 20's) can't attract more than a handfull of whackos in New York City. Welfare services and homeless programs ensure a minimum standard of surival. Some kid shoots some people becasue he was "picked on" (note: He wasn't a victim of the Chinese Exclusion act; He didn't get fired because he said it would be nice if Black people got to vote, too; He didn't get treated like a second class citizen because his name ended in a "z"; People didn't believe that he ate babies; He was "teased").
So why are things like this happening today?
I think that it is mainly a breakdown in the general feelings of self-reliance in this country, coupled with the loss of the traditional family.
People used to have a feeling of pride and self-reliance, the feeling that they were responsible for themseles and their family. Beginning in the sixties, this has changed. Nowadays, it's covenient to blame your parents for not loving you, The White Christian Straight Man (a minority) for "oppressing" you, and the government for not supporting your kids and your lottery ticket habit. During the Depression, my grandfather risked jail by poaching deer to feed his family. Welfare is now the name of the game. Even when I was a kid, we kept water and firewood on hand, since we were usually the last ones to get the power turned back on. Now, coming up on the year 2000, it is chic to brag how unprepared you are (Is there anyone who thinks that there won't be civil unrest? That whackos won't be out in force, looking to create trouble? Did you see the WTO meeting?).
The loss of the traditional family(mom, dad, and the extended family) without anything to replace it has given people a rootless existence. Single-parent households allow less time for the kids, which means they get raised by the television. Fewer close family members means that the kids don't go to Aunt Selma's for the weekend, they get a babysitter(who plunks them in front of the TV, of course).
I don't pretend that I know any of the answers, let alone all of 'em. But, I do know this: Kids are getting worse, not better. And this crap didn't happen in the times of regular family meals, discipline, and limited teleision, either.
To paraphrase RAH, when say 'sailboat' or 'cat', it's pretty clear what we're talking about. When you say sailboat, I probably won't think of a furry quadraped with retractile claws. When you say "god", OTOH, it isn't so clear. Given that there really isn't any reference for any God outside of someone's mind, it's a little hard to define your terms.
Larry Niven brought up this point in an article about the (lack) of contact from ET's:
"The odds are that your random ETI developed genetic engineering long before he thought of leaving his planet, because it's so much cheaper. Where are they? They made one mistake."
That might be kind of like saying that a chess game is just math -- oughta be easy enough to figure out, right? Of course, the only real way to know is to try.
Slashdot Mirror
Really? What? How?
Go read some of the articles here: http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/
I didn't really understand much of what was written here. Much of it sounds like advertising copy -- all taste, no substance. No references are given. It's sort of a combination of a rant against "The Man" and a commercial for Powerade. I'll definitely bookmark it though. It's not often that you see this quality of fuzzy thinking.
Well, we could impoverish ourselves, and bring everyone down to the same level. We could do what we do now, and give the worst situations a little help. Or, we could actually help poor people around the world, by making birth control a mandatory condition for receiving any aid (after all, why pay people to produce more starving babies?), encouraging private industry to develop in "developing" nations, and demanding certain social standards (not feeding soldiers in the middle of a civil war, making sure that people come before cattle, and not supporting dictatorships).
a large majority don't even have a phone
So? Why not concentrate on helping them pull themselves up to a level where they can afford them?
computers are useless because they can't read
Then they need education, not computers. Walk before you run.
baby boomers waiting for the massive transfer of wealth and anticipate living off the tax-sweat of the next generation of the young
Is grandma on SS really a "technocrat"?
can't afford health care much less the exotic drugs the pharmaceuticals charge to recoup R&D (plus hefty margin) costs (nothing like a captive market
Again, if someone thinks that tribal infighting is more important than feeding their family, I see no reason why I should help them. If drug companies didn't make a profit, they wouldn't be able to stay in business, let alone conduct often-fruitless research. Do you think that every time a drug company spends 10 years researching something, any usefull product results? We only hear about the successes, because they are rare.
still waiting for the US to pay off its $6 trillion dollar debt while addicting third world nations and various corrupt governments to a consumer lifestyle they can't afford
What, exactly, is so "addictive" about American lifestyle? Are people ODing on Dockers and Levis? Are native tribes in the Amazon dying because they can't find a Gap to shop at? If people around the world didn't want to be like Americans, they wouldn't buy our stuff, and we wouldn't bother trying to sell it to them. You know, if someone can't afford something, they don't buy it. That's why McDonalds and Pizza Hut haven't taken over Russia -- most people can't afford it. Are they any worse off for that? If so, am I any worse off because I can't afford $500 to blow at a good resturant?
For what merit is technology without the moral sense to apply it wisely? Too often we see the glitter of a holy grail without realising the price.
DDT,
Which is working to eliminate malaria and yellow fever around the world, mostly in those can't-afford-a-cellphone-and-computer countries that you mentioned earlier. Maybe you should ask them to go back to dying from mosquito bites, and see what they think about it.
nuclear research
Which has led to the demise of quite a few oil and coal-powered electrical plants. I don't know about you, but sulphur dioxide isn't exactly one of my favorite flavors.
We have the moral sense to use technology wisely, and we do. True, not everyone gets the same things at the same time. There isn't any way to ensure "fairness" -- the closest you can get is to make everyone poor. If we spend all of out time and efforts trying to put a computer on every desk and a phone in everyone's hand, we'll never gain anything, for anyone.
Scientific research, funded mostly by private industry, has brought more advances to the poor and downtrodden than anything else. In this case, the glitter of the biotech holy grail is possibly the end of hunger and disease -- no small goal. When the human genome is finally decoded, when the Sahara blooms again, it will be because of those evil, greedy technocrats. Damn them.
But seriously, how do you define "art"? How can you say "This is art, and therefore is good. That is porn, and therefore is bad."? I remember Jesse Helms saying "I don't know what art is, but I know what I like." Is that what you mean?
Where does "protect the children" stop and book-burning begin?
Like President Clinton, right? He's the most pricipled, rock solid man to ever sit in the White House. Fact is, the only "principle" he ever upheld has been the Holy Opinion Poll. I'd have to say that he is the ultimate "moderate".
They still link to it, though.
AltaVista, Yahoo, MSN, Netscape, Excite, and of course AOL all have links to this. All of these guys have money, and it's very probable that at least one of them won't obey this court order through sheer carelessness. Let's get ready to Sue!
Can an auto mechanic make a mistake that ends up with the same result as your mistake? Sure. They are human. But I'd wager that an auto mechanic is going to make a lot fewer mistakes fixing my brakes for me than I would if I did it myself.
So why do we continue to allow these auto parts pushers to operate, selling parts to unlicenced mechanics? While it's true that very few deaths are attributed to unlicenced auto repair, it's only a matter of time. We need to stop this practice before innocent lives are lost. After all, if you're too stupid to work on your car, isn't your neighbor?
Quoting from the first part of the complaint: [the FBI] acted pursuant to a policy ... to take actions to suppress speech without any judicial determination that the speech is unprotected by law. Well, they certainly extended him all of the courtesty that I extend them, ie, none.
The "get a warrant" approach is the traditional "you're the FBI therefore I hate you until you are sent on a mission from God himself" approach...
No, the "get a warrant" is the "read the Constitution" approach. Since the Constitution was specificaly written to inhibit the power of the Government, I know that this is unpopular with them. Tough, as America isn't quite a police state, yet.
From their point of view, it seems to be: "Warrants? We don't need no stinkin' warrants! If you citizens know what's good for you, you'll just cooperate -- otherwise someone might get their feelings hurt."
You're looking at legal rights to free speech, let's also look at legal responsibilities of the FBI.
The first of which is to have a warrant, issued "...upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." In other words, if you can't get a warrant, no "probable cause" exists. Now, there is always a judge who'll issue a warrant for anything, especially to the FBI. If they didn't bother with one, what does that say?
So by standing up so obnoxiously and uncooperatively for your civil rights, you've actually managed to reduce them by demonstrating that their misuse can lead to civil unrest for no apparent reason, and cause the potential loss of life.
Note Niven's Law: F * S = k, or the product of freedom and security is a constant. in other words, to get more security, you need to give up some freedom, and vice versa. You're confusing civil rights with security -- the two are not the same.
On a related point, isn't misrepresentation a crime of some sort in the States? If you claim you believe something came from the army, and it didn't, and you knew it didn't, is that not in some way prosecutable? What about inciting to riot?
Misrepresentation as in lying to certain people (police involved in an investigation) or on certain documents (applying for a loan) is illegal. However, you can claim to be God, or say that the FBI has a microchip implanted in your butt, with which they control your thoughts, and it's not a crime. As has been recently demonstrated, lying is legal, as long as you're not under oath. Charging him with inciting a riot might be possible, but is more tricky. You see, an actual investigation would have to be conducted, and then someone arrested and charged. It's much simpler to just "lean on him a little" -- no muss, no fuss, no paper trail.
They could have, but they have no obligation to.
The easy answer to the question "where did you get the tape" is, "I made it, it's fictional". The easy solution to the problem was to indicate that this was a work of fiction on the front page.
The correct answer would have been "Get a warrant." followed by slamming the door/phone.
Speech is not a crime, no matter how inflamatory it may be. I feel that given the past actions of our government (the Bonus Army, Hoover ignoring the Mafia while inestigating MLK, the Steve Jackson Games case, etc.), the FBI/DEA/BATF et. al. should be presumed guilty until proven innocent, especially against someone with a politically unpopular view.
Just for the record, MS Word is not an open protocol.
That's something patents should be making open, and they're not. It's sufficient cause to reexamine the whole argument of, "patents advanced discovery much faster".
So, just because Microsoft doesn't patent their file format, patents are bad? Patents aren't legally required, you know. If MS expects various forms of Word to be around in 30 years, it makes sense for them to NOT apply for a patent -- like you said, they can just change the file format and keep it secret.
But this example hasn't got squat to do with "advances in discovery". Who cares if Microsoft software is secret or not? Why should they "make their software open"? What could possibly be so earth-shattering about MS Word file formats that it's keeping scientfic advancement back?
More to the point, suppose that it held the cure for all diseases? Would you force them to give it up? If so, where do you stop? "Software patents are bad, so let's abolish them and make them Open Source" isn't too far from "Technology patents are bad, because they keep valuable information from being used by the poor, oppressed Proletariat. Let's abolish all patents that contain a semiconductor, and make them Open Source".
Ah, yes, those greedy, evil industrialists. Instead of making money, they should be making things "Open". Like IBM, with the PC specification. If only they'd have been more like that great company Apple, things would be better. Or Microsoft -- how dare they make computers easy to use, and cause them to be so popular that everyone wants one! Now that they're a success, they should give all of their years of development time to the Peepul.
Making money has been the only factor that has kept scientific advancement going at the pace it has. Maybe the scientist of engineer didn't see it that way, but the people behind him did -- you know, the ones that built the lab and paid him for three years of research? Scientific research is the one single thing that has consistently made money, over and over again. That's why it can always scrape up some $$ -- can you imagine what the patent for controlled, sustainable Fusion would be worth?
Prove me wrong. Show me how patents discourage technical adancement. Take a society that disregards the profit motive, and has no patents. Show me what they can produce. I can think of two things right away: Lots of pictures of Lenin, and the Yugo.
So, software would fall under copyright laws, rather that patent laws? If so, you're opening up a whole new can of worms, since Congress has shown no hesitation whatsoever to extend the lifespans of copyrights. So, not only would some great software idea be unavaliable to you to use now, but it would be unavaliable forever, ala Mickey Mouse.
That is what a patent is. It allows you to have sole, legal control over your idea.
The universe of techniques, procedures, and mechanisms that could make the world a better place is a bit like natural resources.
Not really. Most natural resources renew themseles slowly enough that if they aren't managed, you have a boom-and-bust cycle (ie, fish out the ocean, fishing is no longer profitable, fishermen do other things, fish population recovers, repeat). Intellectual resources, however, are infinitely renewable. You can't "use up" human creativity. This reminds me of the story of the Patent Office clerk who quit his job around 1900, because everything had already been invented.
Open source, of course, is the solution. ;) Why? Because it allows for others, now or in the future, to build on and improve our efforts now. And that's a pretty good definition of Good.
Ha! Patents are the solution, because they allow you to make a buck now, while insuring that your ideas are free to use later on down the road. If patent law didn't exist, no company would ever admit what it had developed, because they'd lose it immediately. As a result, most companies would be re-inventing the wheel, instead of making something useful. Imagine if all of the processes associated with semiconductors were to have been held as corporate secrets. What would the world look like? Who'd own a computer? Not you or me, bud. We might have one of those newfangled transistor radios if we had a month's pay to blow, but vaccuum tubes would be in most of 'em. Rotary phones, leaded gasoline, and kidney stone surgery (with a knife!). So, where's your Linux now?
That is, they see themselves taking raw material (mountain with gold inside > engineer with ideas) and extracting something valuable with their hard labor. After all, isn't lawyering work, too?
Isn't this 90% of what Slashdot does? Heck, it's 90% of the Internet. This could hae some really nast implications...(Microsoft, today sued everyone who said anything bad about them, claiming a drop in stock price as a result).
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If the government forbids you to write "Bil Gate$ 5ucks A$$" on your web site, it's censorship. They don't own it.
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The Internet is about exchanging information and ideas
The thing you don't get is that the "information and ideas" that 90% of the people want are various forms of entertainment! That's why download.com gets a few more hits than, say, iww.org. That's why sex.com is just a leetle more popular than aynrand.org. Taking away the entertainment, and what do you have? ARPANET.
Screw e-commerce. Let the moneygrubbers build their OWN e-commerce network.
They are. It's called the Internet. Without those "money-grubbers", how much infrastructure do you think we'd have? Who'd know or even care what the Internet was?
The Internet is an information resource and a "low barrier to entry" publishing medium that almost anybody can make use of
Including anyone who wants to make a buck or two, but doesn't have the $$$ to put up a store front, or even advertise in the local paper. A "Money-Grubber".
"Let them turn something else into a vast wasteland of advertising and product hawking like television has become."
On my cable package, there are three "home shopping" channels, and three "artsy" channels (PBS, local access, and one from the local Univ.). I don't have to watch Home Shopping. Again, do you think that without commercialization, local access cable would exist? Hell, let's go back the the first broadcast medium, radio. One of the first radio programs was "The Westinghouse Radio Hour". You see, Westinghouse made radios, but there was no programming. So they gave people something to listen to on their new Westinghouse radios. Without "moneygrubbers", radio wouldn't taken off. Without radio (and the vast radio audience), no TV. So, where's your PBS now?
What value does something have if it doesn't have value?
Answer: None, obviously.
What good is something if you can't get something from it?
Answer: See above.
"Value" is essentially "what this thing will get me". Nothing more. The Internet is obviously valuable, because many people have gotten many things from it. Some people get their message out. Some people show pictures of their dog. Some people get...something from it, even if nobody else gets it!
Just because some people have gotten money from it, doesn't exclude you from getting what you want from it.
The Internet is an infinitely renewable resource. No one has to be exposed to advertising and commercialisim if they don't want to be. You can rant and rail against commercialisim and share some human knowledge on your own web site, and it won't bother me a bit.
Me, I'm gonna go to www.lickinlesbos.com.
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Deterence: If a portion of the populance is armed, and not readily distinguishable from those that are unarmed, a criminal has no way of knowing which person that they may encounter is a Free Lunch, and which one is Bad News. This leads to overall safety. A good example of this is this article which details the Israelis' response to school massacres by the PLO.
Reaction: Of couse, some people are not swayed by the possibility they might get shot. This is where an armed, trained citizen is the answer. In fact, in most cases, simply the fact that the victim posesses a gun is enough to stop the encounter. Rarely is there a need for shooting, but when it happens, it's certainly conclusive.
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Today, in the US, access to guns and explosives is more restricted than ever before. The KKK (over 5 million members in the 20's) can't attract more than a handfull of whackos in New York City. Welfare services and homeless programs ensure a minimum standard of surival. Some kid shoots some people becasue he was "picked on" (note: He wasn't a victim of the Chinese Exclusion act; He didn't get fired because he said it would be nice if Black people got to vote, too; He didn't get treated like a second class citizen because his name ended in a "z"; People didn't believe that he ate babies; He was "teased").
So why are things like this happening today?
I think that it is mainly a breakdown in the general feelings of self-reliance in this country, coupled with the loss of the traditional family.
People used to have a feeling of pride and self-reliance, the feeling that they were responsible for themseles and their family. Beginning in the sixties, this has changed. Nowadays, it's covenient to blame your parents for not loving you, The White Christian Straight Man (a minority) for "oppressing" you, and the government for not supporting your kids and your lottery ticket habit. During the Depression, my grandfather risked jail by poaching deer to feed his family. Welfare is now the name of the game. Even when I was a kid, we kept water and firewood on hand, since we were usually the last ones to get the power turned back on. Now, coming up on the year 2000, it is chic to brag how unprepared you are (Is there anyone who thinks that there won't be civil unrest? That whackos won't be out in force, looking to create trouble? Did you see the WTO meeting?).
The loss of the traditional family(mom, dad, and the extended family) without anything to replace it has given people a rootless existence. Single-parent households allow less time for the kids, which means they get raised by the television. Fewer close family members means that the kids don't go to Aunt Selma's for the weekend, they get a babysitter(who plunks them in front of the TV, of course).
I don't pretend that I know any of the answers, let alone all of 'em. But, I do know this: Kids are getting worse, not better. And this crap didn't happen in the times of regular family meals, discipline, and limited teleision, either.
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So, how high is up?
"The odds are that your random ETI developed genetic engineering long before he thought of leaving his planet, because it's so much cheaper. Where are they? They made one mistake."
That might be kind of like saying that a chess game is just math -- oughta be easy enough to figure out, right? Of course, the only real way to know is to try.