Without them there would be very little incentive to develope new technology.
Without them, the world saw lots of inventions and technological development for hundreds if not thousands of years. There is absolutely no evidence that your assertion is true, while there is a lot of evidence suggesting it is false.
Why spend a 100 million developing a new computer chip when six months from now a competitor can have a knock off on the market and under cut your price because they don't have to repay development costs.
Instead of development costs, they will have the cost of reverse engineering. Not as bad, but can be rather substantial depending on the actual technology involved. You also have those months of lead time during which to corner the market. What is more, when people need some variation on the technology, they are much more likely to turn to someone who actually invented it instead of to someone who only demonstrated he is able to clone someone elses work.
It's one of the reasons China has embraced piracy, it saves a bundle.
Rubbish, Chinese tradition explicitly favored sharing of inventions and other interlectual property for centuries before the Chinese revolution. That attitude towards IP just happens to come in handy in todays world, but the reason why it is there is not what you suggest.
Also, when there is no law forbidding it, you cannot talk about 'piracy' (disregarding if calling it piracy is correct, lets just assume for now it is).
Most of the world is getting tired of it and they are starting to threaten trade sanctions so China is claiming they will stop the piracy.
Better said, the USA has been trying to force its strong IP laws onto the rest of the world, and have been very succesfull in some cases, but not yet in case of China, tho things are starting to look a bit 'better'.
Some industries are abusing the patent system. The worst offenders are actually the drug companies. They aren't happy that patnets actually do run out so once cahs cows go generic they spend tens of millions developing a patentable alternative that maybe less effective but at least they control it and can coerce the doctors into perscribing it so they can go back to charging $10 a pill for something that should sell for $1.
That is not abuse of the patent system, that is conspiracy to keep others out of the market. The coercing doctors is the problem here, not drugs companies developing a inferior alternative. Without the coercion this would be pointless to do to begin with.
Technology we can potentially live without but drugs often mean life or death to people so the drug companies are playing games with people's health just to make an extra buck.
Except for the fact that development of modern drugs pretty much depends on modern technology.
What the tech companies are doing is sleazy but what the drug companies are doing is criminal and costs lives to protect profits.
Maybe, but as pointed out, this is not a problem with the patent system, it is a problem of coercion.
Billions of dollars every year goes into finding replacement drugs rather than finding new cures so they money is wasted.
Drugs companies are there to make money, not to save lives. If they do not see it that way, they can be sure to find themselves in court pretty soon due to failing their responsibilities to their shareholders. If you don't like this, I agree, but to change this, you'll have to address the laws dealing with responsibilities to shareholders and maybe allow for the administration to play a role in directing development.
For now however those companies are that, companies that exist to make money.
Trust me there's far more money going into finding a Viagra replacement for when that patent runs out than is going into an AIDs cure.There's simply more profit in it. 50,000 to 80,000 lives are lost in the US from the flu yet many years there are shortages of the vaccine
Actually, Gulf War 1 is a more accurate analogy than Gulf War 2.
How so? because the first one is inconclusive and doesn't show the no-appeasement argument wrong?
However, please note that in both wars Iraq's army was annihilated in weeks.
Which was never in doubt, but it does not win you a war. Vietnam already clearly showed this, you can win almost every conventional battle, and yet lose the war.
The current situation is the result of long held animosities in Iraq, interference by Iraq's neighbors, and a lack of planning and good judgement on the part of the soon to be former Secretary of Defense. Winning a war is one thing; nation building is quite another.
Not having thought about what to do after overthrowing Saddam is a big part of this, and that that would go wrong was clear from the start. You are not very likely to gain control over a country that uses its substantial (in size, not in actual fighting power) army for internal control with the kind of small invasion force the USA came up with. Try with at least 800k men and a decent plan.
A decent plan will at the very least provide for: - dealing with the enemy army so they don't turn into a decentralized fighting force. - provide security to the population - provide basic needs (food, water, shelter) to the population - organize the local population into managable groups not linked to specific political, etnic or religious background
People blame Rumsfeld for this, and since he was in charge of the operation, that seems correct, but honestly, everyone in the current administration who supported this and overlooked that there simply was no workable plan for the adtermatch is equally guilty of neglect here.
I'm certain that if a blind person went into a Target, they'd be able to get what they need no problem.
Works fine in many shops, doesn't work at all in some others.
The issue here is that the web site is not accessible.
Which is caused by the same issue, unawareness and lack of commercial motivation. It is even more silly in this case because the investment is often smaller and technically there is usually no reason whatsoever for it not being accessable.
I happen to think that accessibility should not be a matter of law, but that's just me.
I happen to think that it is also a matter of law, but that forcing businesses to be accessable is not a workable solution. see http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=205025&cid =16742841 if you'd like to discuss our different views on this.
How does a business build their storefront or design their website in such a way to be available to all disabilities?
That is extremely difficult if not impossible, and is another good reason why forcing businesses to be available to disabled people is not workable I believe.
Encouraging it with tax breaks and information (research can and is largely addressed by the market already so little help is needed there usually) would most likely help companies keeping this in mind where reasonable.
What is reasonable.. well, either print signs rather big, or make sure they are placed such that people can get near them if needed for example. Having spoken information is cool, but can well be replaced by having an employee properly helping the exceptional blind person entering your shop. Simply making use of emergency lighting when a fire alarm goes off could warn deaf people, but then you still have the problem of blind-deaf people who wont see or hear the alarm.. Thinh is that those people very likely won't have the means to get to your shop on their own to begin with so that problem will have solved itself beforehand.
When looking at the article, it is about websites and e-commerce. There the picture becomes a bit different. There are several well known guidelines for making your website available to alternative browsers, where the disabled person can pick whatever kind of technology would make the thing accessable to them. This does however put some limitations on your web design, or requires you to duplicate information and functionality for this specific purpose. There are definitely going to be people who cannot use a computer due to their disability, but there is no good reason (other then cost) why those who can use a computer should not be able to access your online store. The argument about what is practical doesn't work well in this case.
If companies want to attract a certain type of customer then they do what's necessary to attract those customers including marketing their products to those customers and making the purchase process as easy as possible for that customer. Wouldn't the market sort this out if it were left alone?
And this simply does not work for quite a few reasons. The most prominent ones are:
- Too few customers with a specific handicap to make this attractive for virtually any shop (except for a few highly specialized ones). - People tend to forget about this and as a result do things that make it extremely difficult for visually impaired people, even when they could as easily do it slightly differently and not cause a problem at all.
Bottomline, being visually impaired myself (not blind tho) I can say that the market has shown to not even be able to adapt to this without being told to do so extremely clearly and explicitly, because very few people realize the problem, and it is not a big enough commercial incentive.
That said, I am against forcing companies to make themselves accessable, there are too many things which become impossible that way. I'd however suggest that companies who do put in efford to make themselves accessable for disabled people should get compensation and a small reward for example in the form of tax reduction or some nice subsidies.
Just think about it, 200,000 blind people on a population of 225M? That gives room for a few specialized shops catering to that group only, and if you have to travel to another state in order to be able to do your shopping, it is a lot easier and cheaper to get someone to do your shopping for you locally (just keep in mind that a blind person really cannot jump into his car and drive to another state, so they will need another person for this at any rate)
But you completely glossed over the fact that the Linux interface is less than convenient for the majority of first time users.
Not really, but I do realize that you are a 'first time user' only once.
Sure, a system should be easy to use, things should be somewhat obvious in how they work etc. But, to design a user interface for firsttime users almost always results in a user interface that is not too usefull for an experienced user.
I mean, Let me be the first to shout at all you zealots out there, and MS too, for that matter: How bout just KILWUTB. Keep it Like Windows Used to Be. A desktop, easy menus, easy control panel, easy driver installation....
Sounds a bit limiting, not to mention that whenever things change, even when they objectively change for the better, people will complain because it is not what they are used to.
What the linux crowd doesn't realize is that most people just want it to work first. Security is a nice Second.
I didn't forget the first, hence the comment about you needing a properly configured preinstalled Linux. You are right that for using it, it is not helpfull if you have to figure out support for your hardware first.
You are dead wrong about security however.
First of all, start with making things work correctly (and that means also securely) before you try to make then 'nice', else you are bound to end up with shiney things that don't work well.
I can't entirely blame you if installation and maintenance of computers hasn't been your job, but the cost of lack of security is staggering, and not ensuring that things work correctly and securely first is the main reason why that cost is so high, it results in constantly having to fix things after the fact, and results in a substantial amount of extra infrastructure to deal with the consequences of thousands if not millions of compromised computers.
This is all disregarding the rather obvious issues for the security of your own information. That you don't care about that is your personal choice, but the consequences for everyone else make that good security is not your personal choice.
What the Mac and MS crew don't realize is that shine and gloss are not as cool as stuff that "just works", although to be fair, I have been jealous of some mac heads on a few things lately: Namely iChat and the security of a Solid Unix based Platform.
Ah, but people love shiney things, and how was it about KILWUTB? OSX definitely is not that...
And it IS nice the MS is finally offloading appropriate functions to the graphics card, which will improve a lot of peoples user experience (eventually, I expect a lot of unforeseen issues at release, you heard it here first, ha ha).
Ah, but its not KILWUTB!
Sorry for repeatedly making the point, innovation results in changes. Don't want the changes? fine, but you won't have innovation either.
But if there was a FOSS drop-in windows replacement. Maybe with an online San Andreas Multi-Player Online chat pre installed and Open Office..... A whole lot of people would never look back to windows, mac, or any other OS.
Why?
No OS ever got succesfull by doing the same everyone else already does. This provides absolutely zero reason for people to change.
It'll happen eventually. The corporate interests have already lost and are conceding with "shared source" and the like, but face it, People will pay for unDRMed music and movies over DRMed ones any day, and as long as both options are available, and eventually my imaginary drop in windows replacement WILL exist, complete with WINE, a FOSS skype alternative and FOSS online 3d chess, people will choose the easy path, and then the free one.
Except for that most people do not know what DRM is and seldom run into problems due to DRM.
The free one just isn't good enough yet. I feel like Cartman. Freeze me and wake me up when it is....
How there are stupid little religious wars over gnome and kde, even though they both kinda suck.
There is nothing wrong with having choice, it would be usefull however if the underlying interfaces were standarized so that all applications end up using whatever you decided to use for your desktop. Something which is being worked on.
How different distros are addicted to random non-standard apps that aren't as cool as firefox.
So use one that does use Firefox? I know, having to make choices is somewhat difficult..
the default of not being root,
That might be inconvenient at times, but is a good thing. It stops the user from messing up the system by accident as well as reducing the consequences of possible security problems.
and then having to logout and log back in and problems relating to this....
Learn about the su and sudo commands. Checkout the 'run as user' features in kde and gnome.
In fact this is such a good and effective idea that Microsoft implements it on its Server 2000 and 2003 products, tries to get you to use XP in a similar way, and basicly enforces similar ideas for Vista.
Not one decent native game (I'm picky!).
To name a few, Enemy Territory, UT2004. Ok, maybe not the kind of games you like, but they definitely qualify as decent. This is however the most valid point you make because many decent games are not available on Linux.
No emulators.
Aha? so what is this 'wine' you keep complaining about then? I happen to run a palmos emulator, wine, vice (Commodore PET, C64 and other related machines emulator), dosbox (guess what.. ms-dos emulator), Mame, pdp8 and pdp11 emulators..
Winamp is still the best audio program, but that goes back to Wine not being preinstalled again......
It seems clear to me that you did not look for a decent audio program any more then you looked for 'emulators'.
It also seems to me that if you'd have gotten a well configured pre-installed Linux system, your problems would have been limited to finding a number of games you'd like to play to not run or not run very well.
One of the excuses they use (used) for communism's failure was that communism could not succeed if there were capitalist countries nearby. Really. In other words, the only way communism can be the best system out there is if it is the only system out there.
That it is an excuse and not an actual cause should be obvious from realizing that a revolution along Marxist ideas requires the existance of capital, a class of capital owners, and a working class. In other words, existance of capitalism is a prerequisite.
The 'excuse' is in part based on the fact that many a 'capitalist' society would try to oppress any communist (Marxist, Leninist, Maoist) movements, something which for most of the 20th century was true, but this situation was to be expected in a struggle between the classes.
All one really can conclude from the USSR as well as 'Communist China' is that their way or trying to achieve communism was doomed from the start because the required conditions were not there from the start, most notably the lack of a working class. Since they were at best inspired by the ideas of Marx, but did not implement them, there are really no conclusions about his ideas that one can draw based on the examples of Russia and China.
This is not to say that his ideas can work, that is a different discussion. Imho the main reason for his ideas failing is that he failed to account for how capitalism would develop itself (at least in part due to wrong assumptions).
He was right in noting that the working class was being seriously exploited during his time (and depending on where you are still is).
What he did not forsee is that a capitalist system has a motivation to reduce this exploitation. When people have time and money to spare, they are much more likely to buy the 'output' of such a capitalist society. Treat your workers well and you help increasing the standard of living for everyone, and as a result you hopefully get more customers who have more to spend.
Its nationalistic principles helped the Soviet Union in WWII as well
That is not correct. Russian nationalism (as well as the orthodox church) were restored during WWII to help 'change the tide'. Till that moment, this nationalism had been suppressed quite thoroughly (as was the church, which got oppressed again as soon as the war was over)
Hmm, I do think Marx was quite correct with regards to the problems of society back when he was living. I think he was wrong however with regards to how to solve them, and at least partially wrong about what was causing those problems.
With regards to the USSR, what they implemented was called communism, but has little to do with the ideas of Marx, if only because the required workers class was non-existant in Russia.
What's wrong with money being paid to a US company. It _does_ help the trade def.
Two things that take priority with regards to the trade deflict..
1. Spend a bit less on stuff made outside the USA 2. Spend a bit more on stuff made inside the USA
Not only does this help the trade deflict, it also helps the job market...
Ah, it does of course mean getting a bit less for your money, but the difference is an investment in your own country in the end.
And no, I'm not American, but I do rather believe there is a point in 'buying American' when you happen to live there (and when it is an option of course)
"Pentagon officials report that 'maliciously placed code' could compromise the security of the Defense Department and, ultimately, hurt its ability to fight wars. The culprits: offshore programmers. While the Pentagon has stepped up its vendor screening and software testing of late, it's becoming more difficult and costly to test every line of software code on increasingly sophisticated weapons systems. The task force assigned to this issue will be soon presenting its report, and most likely will determine that offshoring presents too great a risk."
Of course I could have quoted your entire post, but since you already posted it, there is little point in that. Quoting some specific statements does not mean I responded to them out of context, it merely helps for understanding what I am replying to with my statements.
Then, I think that our ideas about an 'ideal' situation aren't that far apart, but our ideas on how to get there are quite far apart. Bottomline, you seem to see any form of regulation as bad but at times unavoidable, I tend to see it as a powerfull tool that should be used with care.
Last but not least, if we are going to advice eachother about how to have a proper discussion, I'd strongly suggest you refrain from putting words into someone's mouth and claiming people have extreme points of view which they never actually voiced themselves.
Just because anarchy can lead to something doesn't mean it will.
Nope, but its not just a matter of 'can lead', but of 'by far the most likely outcome'.
Any form of government can lead to the destruciton of the human race. Should we avoid them all then?
We should avoid those which have a very high chance in destruction, yes.
Just because you equate anarchy with chaos does not make it so.
Read better, I never equated anarchy with chaos, I said that by far the most likely result of anarchy is chaos. There is an overwhelming amount of historical evidence supporting my claim also.
I consider America's two party system to be chaos, doesn't mean it is.
And what does that have to do with anything? I happen to consider it to be a form of dictatorship, and resulting in oppression, but that still has absolutely nothing to do with discussing the merrits of anarchy.
You have to get beyond the belief that anarchy is people running around trying to rape and kill everyone, trying to become the most powerful human by forming gangs to take advantage of the weak. That is everything that anarchy is not, so there is no connection between the two.
I don't believe that that is what anarchy is, no. I do however believe that those are tendencies present in the large majority of humans, and I also believe that anarchy fails to account for those tendencies. A system that ignores the tendencies of those who are part of that system is going to fail. In this specific case, anarchy does not equate people running around to rape and kill everyone, but it is extremely likely to result in that situation because of failing to account for how people are.
The whole point of me stating that we could not have anarchy now, but it is something to strive towards is because I meant just that, we can't live in anarchy right now. There are still people who would take advantage of the weak, as you can see clear as day in the world today, especially with governments.
Those problems are there in most humans, so the world will never ever be ready for anarchism, regardless of how well it can work in theory. So far it has worked for relatively small communities, but it never managed to scale beyond that.
But if we head in that direction, at least the people in government that I don't trust will have little at their disposal to influence my life or force me to live however they think they should. I did not realize that you trust your government completly.
A proper form of government has checks and balances that make it extremely difficult for a government to take this very far. This provides protection against tyranic government, as do some other things like them having to get re-elected every now and then, and bottomline, the risk of people overthrowing them.
But people don't vote and don't try to overthrow them you say? True, but why trust those same people to behave sane in an anarchy? They only care about what directly affects them and about how to get a bigger car then their neighbor, so they'll extremely likely fall into the exact chaos that you say anarchy is not about..
Saying that I prefer a centralized, democratically elected government and a constitution and some sane regulation does in no way mean I 'completely trust my government'. May I suggest you refrain from such idiotic 'jumping to conclusions' if you actually want to have some discussion?
By learned economist I just meant that I actually have a degree in economics.
You don't understand what I am saying. Whomever you are, whatever degree you have (or don't have) does not change the validity of your message. Your message stands on its own, and has to be judged on its own for validity.
I just liked the way it sounded, sorry if you thought I meant I was some noble prize winning economist, I am not.
I never thought that, I took it to mean that you have some form of formal education in economics. It however is irrele
1. Only on the short term. 2. Being the victor in no way changes the facts. 3. The label terrorist is often used before there is a victor.
The American founding fathers are not considered terrorists, but freedom fighters because they won the Revolutionary War.
What they are is a matter of perspective. To the Brittish at the time, they were terrorists. To those who supported their cause they were definitely not terrorists.
There is another distinction here. Their target was the British. Civilians weren't their target, they were primarily engaged in conventional warfare.
That is a relevant point, but you can commit terrorism without directly attacking civilians, as long as your actions still cause 'terror' for those civilians.
Psychology is certainly one aspect of warfare, but simply because it is applied in conflict doesn't automatically make it terrorism.
It depends on how it is applied.
Terrorism is generally a tactic used by a weaker force, arguably the losing force.
Uh no, if something is terrorism in no way depends on who commits it or what their position is. It depends on what they do.
The goal isn't to meet the enemy soldier in battle, but rather to specifically target the civilian population in order to instill fear.
The word says it all, it is about spreading terror.
The two goals are to force the populace to bend to the will of terrorists or, especially in the case of Iraq, to decimate public support for the conflict.
Similar to how the USA government has been trying to decimate public support for any movement they did not like in the southern Americas and for example Vietnam? Their methods were pretty much the same as well, but on a much larger scale.
They create a sense of hopelessness by dragging on a conflict and blend into the civilian population in order to make it difficult for the superior force to effectively engage them.
That is one specific technique, not a definition.
It's basically a public relations campaign conducted in the worst imaginable way. And they can only operate effectively when the superior force is forced to exercise restraint. If the US swept through Iraq with impunity the terrorists would be forced into a conventional war.
Hahaha, if you really believe that, please go learn something about the situations where the USA or any other country tried that.
The biggest problem the USA faced in for example Vietnam is not being able to engage in conventional warfare no matter how hard they tried, and no matter how much resources and lack of rules they threw at it. Maybe pay a bit of attention there...
So, by that specific definition the US is not a terrorist state.
Yeah, by some definition specifically made to ensure it only applies to those you regard as 'evil'... Changing definitions to suit your argument does not make for having a good argument however.
It may make for potent soundbites, but it's not the truth. The US is trying to engage in conventional warfare, which is probably a losing proposition in this case. They aren't intentionally targeting them; accidental killings don't qualify as terrorism. You may not like what the US is doing, but it's a far cry from what terrorists do.
You see, ETA generally warns about bombings beforehand. Whenever they explicitly target someone it is always either policemen, military or politicians, never civilians. Of course civilians do get caught up by accident at times.
So by your definition, ETA are not terrorists.
Threatening to bomb a country back into the stoneage, and thereby hoping to press the population of that country into overthrowing their own government does make for terrorism in your definition. Why are you ignoring that this is exactly what the USA has tried? Why doesn't this make for terrorism?
You see, you are not only changing the definition to suit your argument, you are also inconsistent in applying it.
Anarchy does indeed mean a life without government(more a life without someone to rule over you, no hierarchy), but it has nothing to do with chaos, disorder, and destruction
Anarchy does not require those indeed, but it almost always results in chaos, disorder and destruction.
Anarachy does not say people can't ban together to form societies, tribes, communities, or anything like that. It isn't all individual. I will admit that to live in a state of anarchy today would be a complete disaster. The human race as a whole is not ready for that. But ideally, it is what our society should be striving toward. To suggest differently is to admit that you do not possess the attributes to live on your own without an authority figure to watch over you.
No, to suggest differently is admitting that you do not trust everyone to behave and live without authority watching over them.
Secondly, and I say this as a learned economist, no monopoly that has been broken up by the government has ever benefitted the people. I ask for you to provide an example of this. No, the phone monolopy broken up decades ago does not support your view, it supports mine.
That is a nice claim, where is your proof?
For me (not living in the USA but in Europe) the breaking up of the phone monopolies has brought lots and lots of benefits. Better service, more choice, better prices. Pretty much all reasearch into the situation by economists suggests that those benefits are shared by virtually all people in the affected areas also, so that does prove your point wrong.
Now, it would be nice if you actually presented some kind of argument, and untill you do, your statement is just that, a statement. Who you are (learned economist? what the hell is that anyway) does not matter at all for this.
So, I live in the north-western part of Europe (the Netherlands specifically), and our situation is slightly different from that in the USA with regards to the telco market. Nonetheless, I'm sure our situation gives a good idea of what proper regulation can do (as well as how improper regulation can mess things up)
Early in the 20th century, when telephone got broad adaptation here, most countries setup a national telco. This national telco was state owned, usually because of cost involved in providing telephony services throughout the country with disregard of if it would be economically viable to service every location initially. (I believe this is similar actually to the state granted monopoly that AT&T enjoyed for a long time)
Over time, those state owned telcos started being very slow in adapting new technology, and were often quite inefficient, resulting in high costs for both the state and their customers. (which is quite what you'd expect also from such a non-competitive market)
Some 2 or so decades ago, there was a push for privatizing the state telco (still going on in some neighboring countries), and to make sure there would be competition.
Now, without basicly stripping the telco of the last mile, or allowing everyone to run cables everywhere, this idea of competition became a rather difficult one. How to compete when there is effectively a single party that for historical and practical reasons has a monopoly on a resource that every possible competitor with them would need?
The answer is.... a specific form of regulation that makes that every competitor to the former state telco gets access to those required resources for a reasonable price, and that denies the possibility to anyone holding such a monopoly to dictate prices.
Consequence:
I can get phone services (landline) from at least 3 different companies. I have a choice between at least 6 (!) DSL providers, and an uncountable number of ISPs that cooperate with those DSL providers. And.. the former state telco actually turned itself into a company that is worth dealing with, they have some good ideas and decent prices now.
So.. it started out with a state enforced monopoly for some explainable reasons, but this did not work out well in the end. To solve the problems resulting from natural and state provided monopolies, regulation was put in place that basicly undoes the effects of said monopolies.
When you plant explosives, you deserve anything you get. And yes, an attempt is sufficient. Thanks for playing.
Hmm, it has been argued that those who founded the USA were in fact terrorists. I'm sure the Brits saw it that way back then, and I'd hope you are consistant enough to apply your argument to them as well?
For that matter, the current government of the USA, as well as that of many other countries, seem to be terrorists and should be shot on the spot according to your argument..
Oh, I can hangup the phone perfectly fine, but really, why does freedom of speech make that people think they have the right to disturb me with their nonsense whenever they want? Even when I hangup on them, they have still taken my time and interrupted whatever I was doing.
If you are really a fan of a free market, you'd understand the reality that regulation means that it isn't free. Restrictions mean it isn't free. Taxation means it isn't free. Licensing means it isn't free.
You seem to want 'absolute freedom', which is nice in theory, but it doesn't work . An unregulated, untaxed, unlicensed market with only one player which can keep others out of that market is not free, despite all your conditions being matched.
A free market is a market free of anti-competative influences. This may in fact require regulation.
Political speech is more protected than mere commercial speech, so while it may be able to stop sales call harrassment, it won't stop solicitations for political organizations.
Freedom of speech, political or otherwise, does not include the right to force people to listen to you.
but your own candidate or... nonprofit organizations? "Sorry Mr. Smith, we can't provide your insulin shots this month because we've been sued while looking for contributions." This seems a little sick.
Very simple, stop looking for contributions in ways that piss people off.
Slashdot Mirror
Without them there would be very little incentive to develope new technology.
Without them, the world saw lots of inventions and technological development for hundreds if not thousands of years.
There is absolutely no evidence that your assertion is true, while there is a lot of evidence suggesting it is false.
Why spend a 100 million developing a new computer chip when six months from now a competitor can have a knock off on the market and under cut your price because they don't have to repay development costs.
Instead of development costs, they will have the cost of reverse engineering. Not as bad, but can be rather substantial depending on the actual technology involved. You also have those months of lead time during which to corner the market. What is more, when people need some variation on the technology, they are much more likely to turn to someone who actually invented it instead of to someone who only demonstrated he is able to clone someone elses work.
It's one of the reasons China has embraced piracy, it saves a bundle.
Rubbish, Chinese tradition explicitly favored sharing of inventions and other interlectual property for centuries before the Chinese revolution. That attitude towards IP just happens to come in handy in todays world, but the reason why it is there is not what you suggest.
Also, when there is no law forbidding it, you cannot talk about 'piracy' (disregarding if calling it piracy is correct, lets just assume for now it is).
Most of the world is getting tired of it and they are starting to threaten trade sanctions so China is claiming they will stop the piracy.
Better said, the USA has been trying to force its strong IP laws onto the rest of the world, and have been very succesfull in some cases, but not yet in case of China, tho things are starting to look a bit 'better'.
Some industries are abusing the patent system. The worst offenders are actually the drug companies. They aren't happy that patnets actually do run out so once cahs cows go generic they spend tens of millions developing a patentable alternative that maybe less effective but at least they control it and can coerce the doctors into perscribing it so they can go back to charging $10 a pill for something that should sell for $1.
That is not abuse of the patent system, that is conspiracy to keep others out of the market. The coercing doctors is the problem here, not drugs companies developing a inferior alternative. Without the coercion this would be pointless to do to begin with.
Technology we can potentially live without but drugs often mean life or death to people so the drug companies are playing games with people's health just to make an extra buck.
Except for the fact that development of modern drugs pretty much depends on modern technology.
What the tech companies are doing is sleazy but what the drug companies are doing is criminal and costs lives to protect profits.
Maybe, but as pointed out, this is not a problem with the patent system, it is a problem of coercion.
Billions of dollars every year goes into finding replacement drugs rather than finding new cures so they money is wasted.
Drugs companies are there to make money, not to save lives. If they do not see it that way, they can be sure to find themselves in court pretty soon due to failing their responsibilities to their shareholders. If you don't like this, I agree, but to change this, you'll have to address the laws dealing with responsibilities to shareholders and maybe allow for the administration to play a role in directing development.
For now however those companies are that, companies that exist to make money.
Trust me there's far more money going into finding a Viagra replacement for when that patent runs out than is going into an AIDs cure.There's simply more profit in it. 50,000 to 80,000 lives are lost in the US from the flu yet many years there are shortages of the vaccine
Actually, Gulf War 1 is a more accurate analogy than Gulf War 2.
How so? because the first one is inconclusive and doesn't show the no-appeasement argument wrong?
However, please note that in both wars Iraq's army was annihilated in weeks.
Which was never in doubt, but it does not win you a war. Vietnam already clearly showed this, you can win almost every conventional battle, and yet lose the war.
The current situation is the result of long held animosities in Iraq, interference by Iraq's neighbors, and a lack of planning and good judgement on the part of the soon to be former Secretary of Defense. Winning a war is one thing; nation building is quite another.
Not having thought about what to do after overthrowing Saddam is a big part of this, and that that would go wrong was clear from the start. You are not very likely to gain control over a country that uses its substantial (in size, not in actual fighting power) army for internal control with the kind of small invasion force the USA came up with. Try with at least 800k men and a decent plan.
A decent plan will at the very least provide for:
- dealing with the enemy army so they don't turn into a decentralized fighting force.
- provide security to the population
- provide basic needs (food, water, shelter) to the population
- organize the local population into managable groups not linked to specific political, etnic or religious background
People blame Rumsfeld for this, and since he was in charge of the operation, that seems correct, but honestly, everyone in the current administration who supported this and overlooked that there simply was no workable plan for the adtermatch is equally guilty of neglect here.
I'm certain that if a blind person went into a Target, they'd be able to get what they need no problem.
d =16742841 if you'd like to discuss our different views on this.
Works fine in many shops, doesn't work at all in some others.
The issue here is that the web site is not accessible.
Which is caused by the same issue, unawareness and lack of commercial motivation. It is even more silly in this case because the investment is often smaller and technically there is usually no reason whatsoever for it not being accessable.
I happen to think that accessibility should not be a matter of law, but that's just me.
I happen to think that it is also a matter of law, but that forcing businesses to be accessable is not a workable solution.
see http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=205025&ci
How does a business build their storefront or design their website in such a way to be available to all disabilities?
That is extremely difficult if not impossible, and is another good reason why forcing businesses to be available to disabled people is not workable I believe.
Encouraging it with tax breaks and information (research can and is largely addressed by the market already so little help is needed there usually) would most likely help companies keeping this in mind where reasonable.
What is reasonable.. well, either print signs rather big, or make sure they are placed such that people can get near them if needed for example. Having spoken information is cool, but can well be replaced by having an employee properly helping the exceptional blind person entering your shop. Simply making use of emergency lighting when a fire alarm goes off could warn deaf people, but then you still have the problem of blind-deaf people who wont see or hear the alarm.. Thinh is that those people very likely won't have the means to get to your shop on their own to begin with so that problem will have solved itself beforehand.
When looking at the article, it is about websites and e-commerce. There the picture becomes a bit different. There are several well known guidelines for making your website available to alternative browsers, where the disabled person can pick whatever kind of technology would make the thing accessable to them. This does however put some limitations on your web design, or requires you to duplicate information and functionality for this specific purpose. There are definitely going to be people who cannot use a computer due to their disability, but there is no good reason (other then cost) why those who can use a computer should not be able to access your online store. The argument about what is practical doesn't work well in this case.
If companies want to attract a certain type of customer then they do what's necessary to attract those customers including marketing their products to those customers and making the purchase process as easy as possible for that customer. Wouldn't the market sort this out if it were left alone?
And this simply does not work for quite a few reasons. The most prominent ones are:
- Too few customers with a specific handicap to make this attractive for virtually any shop (except for a few highly specialized ones).
- People tend to forget about this and as a result do things that make it extremely difficult for visually impaired people, even when they could as easily do it slightly differently and not cause a problem at all.
Bottomline, being visually impaired myself (not blind tho) I can say that the market has shown to not even be able to adapt to this without being told to do so extremely clearly and explicitly, because very few people realize the problem, and it is not a big enough commercial incentive.
That said, I am against forcing companies to make themselves accessable, there are too many things which become impossible that way. I'd however suggest that companies who do put in efford to make themselves accessable for disabled people should get compensation and a small reward for example in the form of tax reduction or some nice subsidies.
Just think about it, 200,000 blind people on a population of 225M? That gives room for a few specialized shops catering to that group only, and if you have to travel to another state in order to be able to do your shopping, it is a lot easier and cheaper to get someone to do your shopping for you locally (just keep in mind that a blind person really cannot jump into his car and drive to another state, so they will need another person for this at any rate)
All nice and well, but porn sites are not the only source of those things, and nowadays not the biggest source either.
Affiniate programs and celebrity websites are by far the biggest source of such junk now, adn who knows what it will be tomorrow.
But you completely glossed over the fact that the Linux interface is less than convenient for the majority of first time users.
Not really, but I do realize that you are a 'first time user' only once.
Sure, a system should be easy to use, things should be somewhat obvious in how they work etc. But, to design a user interface for firsttime users almost always results in a user interface that is not too usefull for an experienced user.
I mean, Let me be the first to shout at all you zealots out there, and MS too, for that matter: How bout just KILWUTB. Keep it Like Windows Used to Be. A desktop, easy menus, easy control panel, easy driver installation....
Sounds a bit limiting, not to mention that whenever things change, even when they objectively change for the better, people will complain because it is not what they are used to.
What the linux crowd doesn't realize is that most people just want it to work first. Security is a nice Second.
I didn't forget the first, hence the comment about you needing a properly configured preinstalled Linux. You are right that for using it, it is not helpfull if you have to figure out support for your hardware first.
You are dead wrong about security however.
First of all, start with making things work correctly (and that means also securely) before you try to make then 'nice', else you are bound to end up with shiney things that don't work well.
I can't entirely blame you if installation and maintenance of computers hasn't been your job, but the cost of lack of security is staggering, and not ensuring that things work correctly and securely first is the main reason why that cost is so high, it results in constantly having to fix things after the fact, and results in a substantial amount of extra infrastructure to deal with the consequences of thousands if not millions of compromised computers.
This is all disregarding the rather obvious issues for the security of your own information. That you don't care about that is your personal choice, but the consequences for everyone else make that good security is not your personal choice.
What the Mac and MS crew don't realize is that shine and gloss are not as cool as stuff that "just works", although to be fair, I have been jealous of some mac heads on a few things lately: Namely iChat and the security of a Solid Unix based Platform.
Ah, but people love shiney things, and how was it about KILWUTB? OSX definitely is not that...
And it IS nice the MS is finally offloading appropriate functions to the graphics card, which will improve a lot of peoples user experience (eventually, I expect a lot of unforeseen issues at release, you heard it here first, ha ha).
Ah, but its not KILWUTB!
Sorry for repeatedly making the point, innovation results in changes. Don't want the changes? fine, but you won't have innovation either.
But if there was a FOSS drop-in windows replacement. Maybe with an online San Andreas Multi-Player Online chat pre installed and Open Office..... A whole lot of people would never look back to windows, mac, or any other OS.
Why?
No OS ever got succesfull by doing the same everyone else already does. This provides absolutely zero reason for people to change.
It'll happen eventually. The corporate interests have already lost and are conceding with "shared source" and the like, but face it, People will pay for unDRMed music and movies over DRMed ones any day, and as long as both options are available, and eventually my imaginary drop in windows replacement WILL exist, complete with WINE, a FOSS skype alternative and FOSS online 3d chess, people will choose the easy path, and then the free one.
Except for that most people do not know what DRM is and seldom run into problems due to DRM.
The free one just isn't good enough yet. I feel like Cartman. Freeze me and wake me up when it is....
The free one is more then good enough, but r
How there are stupid little religious wars over gnome and kde, even though they both kinda suck.
.....
There is nothing wrong with having choice, it would be usefull however if the underlying interfaces were standarized so that all applications end up using whatever you decided to use for your desktop. Something which is being worked on.
How different distros are addicted to random non-standard apps that aren't as cool as firefox.
So use one that does use Firefox? I know, having to make choices is somewhat difficult..
the default of not being root,
That might be inconvenient at times, but is a good thing. It stops the user from messing up the system by accident as well as reducing the consequences of possible security problems.
and then having to logout and log back in and problems relating to this....
Learn about the su and sudo commands. Checkout the 'run as user' features in kde and gnome.
In fact this is such a good and effective idea that Microsoft implements it on its Server 2000 and 2003 products, tries to get you to use XP in a similar way, and basicly enforces similar ideas for Vista.
Not one decent native game (I'm picky!).
To name a few, Enemy Territory, UT2004. Ok, maybe not the kind of games you like, but they definitely qualify as decent. This is however the most valid point you make because many decent games are not available on Linux.
No emulators.
Aha? so what is this 'wine' you keep complaining about then?
I happen to run a palmos emulator, wine, vice (Commodore PET, C64 and other related machines emulator), dosbox (guess what.. ms-dos emulator), Mame, pdp8 and pdp11 emulators..
Winamp is still the best audio program, but that goes back to Wine not being preinstalled again.
It seems clear to me that you did not look for a decent audio program any more then you looked for 'emulators'.
It also seems to me that if you'd have gotten a well configured pre-installed Linux system, your problems would have been limited to finding a number of games you'd like to play to not run or not run very well.
One of the excuses they use (used) for communism's failure was that communism could not succeed if there were capitalist countries nearby. Really. In other words, the only way communism can be the best system out there is if it is the only system out there.
That it is an excuse and not an actual cause should be obvious from realizing that a revolution along Marxist ideas requires the existance of capital, a class of capital owners, and a working class. In other words, existance of capitalism is a prerequisite.
The 'excuse' is in part based on the fact that many a 'capitalist' society would try to oppress any communist (Marxist, Leninist, Maoist) movements, something which for most of the 20th century was true, but this situation was to be expected in a struggle between the classes.
All one really can conclude from the USSR as well as 'Communist China' is that their way or trying to achieve communism was doomed from the start because the required conditions were not there from the start, most notably the lack of a working class. Since they were at best inspired by the ideas of Marx, but did not implement them, there are really no conclusions about his ideas that one can draw based on the examples of Russia and China.
This is not to say that his ideas can work, that is a different discussion.
Imho the main reason for his ideas failing is that he failed to account for how capitalism would develop itself (at least in part due to wrong assumptions).
He was right in noting that the working class was being seriously exploited during his time (and depending on where you are still is).
What he did not forsee is that a capitalist system has a motivation to reduce this exploitation. When people have time and money to spare, they are much more likely to buy the 'output' of such a capitalist society. Treat your workers well and you help increasing the standard of living for everyone, and as a result you hopefully get more customers who have more to spend.
Hmm, technically you are right, they supposedly were on their way to communism, but never got there.
Its nationalistic principles helped the Soviet Union in WWII as well
That is not correct. Russian nationalism (as well as the orthodox church) were restored during WWII to help 'change the tide'. Till that moment, this nationalism had been suppressed quite thoroughly (as was the church, which got oppressed again as soon as the war was over)
Hmm, I do think Marx was quite correct with regards to the problems of society back when he was living. I think he was wrong however with regards to how to solve them, and at least partially wrong about what was causing those problems.
With regards to the USSR, what they implemented was called communism, but has little to do with the ideas of Marx, if only because the required workers class was non-existant in Russia.
What's wrong with money being paid to a US company. It _does_ help the trade def.
Two things that take priority with regards to the trade deflict..
1. Spend a bit less on stuff made outside the USA
2. Spend a bit more on stuff made inside the USA
Not only does this help the trade deflict, it also helps the job market...
Ah, it does of course mean getting a bit less for your money, but the difference is an investment in your own country in the end.
And no, I'm not American, but I do rather believe there is a point in 'buying American' when you happen to live there (and when it is an option of course)
"Pentagon officials report that 'maliciously placed code' could compromise the security of the Defense Department and, ultimately, hurt its ability to fight wars. The culprits: offshore programmers. While the Pentagon has stepped up its vendor screening and software testing of late, it's becoming more difficult and costly to test every line of software code on increasingly sophisticated weapons systems. The task force assigned to this issue will be soon presenting its report, and most likely will determine that offshoring presents too great a risk."
Ah, and this is news somehow?
Did they ever read their own trusted computer systems evaluation guide?
Of course I could have quoted your entire post, but since you already posted it, there is little point in that. Quoting some specific statements does not mean I responded to them out of context, it merely helps for understanding what I am replying to with my statements.
Then, I think that our ideas about an 'ideal' situation aren't that far apart, but our ideas on how to get there are quite far apart. Bottomline, you seem to see any form of regulation as bad but at times unavoidable, I tend to see it as a powerfull tool that should be used with care.
Last but not least, if we are going to advice eachother about how to have a proper discussion, I'd strongly suggest you refrain from putting words into someone's mouth and claiming people have extreme points of view which they never actually voiced themselves.
Just because anarchy can lead to something doesn't mean it will.
Nope, but its not just a matter of 'can lead', but of 'by far the most likely outcome'.
Any form of government can lead to the destruciton of the human race. Should we avoid them all then?
We should avoid those which have a very high chance in destruction, yes.
Just because you equate anarchy with chaos does not make it so.
Read better, I never equated anarchy with chaos, I said that by far the most likely result of anarchy is chaos. There is an overwhelming amount of historical evidence supporting my claim also.
I consider America's two party system to be chaos, doesn't mean it is.
And what does that have to do with anything? I happen to consider it to be a form of dictatorship, and resulting in oppression, but that still has absolutely nothing to do with discussing the merrits of anarchy.
You have to get beyond the belief that anarchy is people running around trying to rape and kill everyone, trying to become the most powerful human by forming gangs to take advantage of the weak. That is everything that anarchy is not, so there is no connection between the two.
I don't believe that that is what anarchy is, no. I do however believe that those are tendencies present in the large majority of humans, and I also believe that anarchy fails to account for those tendencies. A system that ignores the tendencies of those who are part of that system is going to fail. In this specific case, anarchy does not equate people running around to rape and kill everyone, but it is extremely likely to result in that situation because of failing to account for how people are.
The whole point of me stating that we could not have anarchy now, but it is something to strive towards is because I meant just that, we can't live in anarchy right now. There are still people who would take advantage of the weak, as you can see clear as day in the world today, especially with governments.
Those problems are there in most humans, so the world will never ever be ready for anarchism, regardless of how well it can work in theory. So far it has worked for relatively small communities, but it never managed to scale beyond that.
But if we head in that direction, at least the people in government that I don't trust will have little at their disposal to influence my life or force me to live however they think they should. I did not realize that you trust your government completly.
A proper form of government has checks and balances that make it extremely difficult for a government to take this very far. This provides protection against tyranic government, as do some other things like them having to get re-elected every now and then, and bottomline, the risk of people overthrowing them.
But people don't vote and don't try to overthrow them you say? True, but why trust those same people to behave sane in an anarchy? They only care about what directly affects them and about how to get a bigger car then their neighbor, so they'll extremely likely fall into the exact chaos that you say anarchy is not about..
Saying that I prefer a centralized, democratically elected government and a constitution and some sane regulation does in no way mean I 'completely trust my government'. May I suggest you refrain from such idiotic 'jumping to conclusions' if you actually want to have some discussion?
By learned economist I just meant that I actually have a degree in economics.
You don't understand what I am saying. Whomever you are, whatever degree you have (or don't have) does not change the validity of your message. Your message stands on its own, and has to be judged on its own for validity.
I just liked the way it sounded, sorry if you thought I meant I was some noble prize winning economist, I am not.
I never thought that, I took it to mean that you have some form of formal education in economics. It however is irrele
History is written by the victor, not the loser.
1. Only on the short term.
2. Being the victor in no way changes the facts.
3. The label terrorist is often used before there is a victor.
The American founding fathers are not considered terrorists, but freedom fighters because they won the Revolutionary War.
What they are is a matter of perspective. To the Brittish at the time, they were terrorists. To those who supported their cause they were definitely not terrorists.
There is another distinction here. Their target was the British. Civilians weren't their target, they were primarily engaged in conventional warfare.
That is a relevant point, but you can commit terrorism without directly attacking civilians, as long as your actions still cause 'terror' for those civilians.
Psychology is certainly one aspect of warfare, but simply because it is applied in conflict doesn't automatically make it terrorism.
It depends on how it is applied.
Terrorism is generally a tactic used by a weaker force, arguably the losing force.
Uh no, if something is terrorism in no way depends on who commits it or what their position is. It depends on what they do.
The goal isn't to meet the enemy soldier in battle, but rather to specifically target the civilian population in order to instill fear.
The word says it all, it is about spreading terror.
The two goals are to force the populace to bend to the will of terrorists or, especially in the case of Iraq, to decimate public support for the conflict.
Similar to how the USA government has been trying to decimate public support for any movement they did not like in the southern Americas and for example Vietnam? Their methods were pretty much the same as well, but on a much larger scale.
They create a sense of hopelessness by dragging on a conflict and blend into the civilian population in order to make it difficult for the superior force to effectively engage them.
That is one specific technique, not a definition.
It's basically a public relations campaign conducted in the worst imaginable way. And they can only operate effectively when the superior force is forced to exercise restraint. If the US swept through Iraq with impunity the terrorists would be forced into a conventional war.
Hahaha, if you really believe that, please go learn something about the situations where the USA or any other country tried that.
The biggest problem the USA faced in for example Vietnam is not being able to engage in conventional warfare no matter how hard they tried, and no matter how much resources and lack of rules they threw at it. Maybe pay a bit of attention there...
So, by that specific definition the US is not a terrorist state.
Yeah, by some definition specifically made to ensure it only applies to those you regard as 'evil'...
Changing definitions to suit your argument does not make for having a good argument however.
It may make for potent soundbites, but it's not the truth. The US is trying to engage in conventional warfare, which is probably a losing proposition in this case. They aren't intentionally targeting them; accidental killings don't qualify as terrorism. You may not like what the US is doing, but it's a far cry from what terrorists do.
You see, ETA generally warns about bombings beforehand. Whenever they explicitly target someone it is always either policemen, military or politicians, never civilians. Of course civilians do get caught up by accident at times.
So by your definition, ETA are not terrorists.
Threatening to bomb a country back into the stoneage, and thereby hoping to press the population of that country into overthrowing their own government does make for terrorism in your definition. Why are you ignoring that this is exactly what the USA has tried? Why doesn't this make for terrorism?
You see, you are not only changing the definition to suit your argument, you are also inconsistent in applying it.
Anarchy does indeed mean a life without government(more a life without someone to rule over you, no hierarchy), but it has nothing to do with chaos, disorder, and destruction
Anarchy does not require those indeed, but it almost always results in chaos, disorder and destruction.
Anarachy does not say people can't ban together to form societies, tribes, communities, or anything like that. It isn't all individual. I will admit that to live in a state of anarchy today would be a complete disaster. The human race as a whole is not ready for that. But ideally, it is what our society should be striving toward. To suggest differently is to admit that you do not possess the attributes to live on your own without an authority figure to watch over you.
No, to suggest differently is admitting that you do not trust everyone to behave and live without authority watching over them.
Secondly, and I say this as a learned economist, no monopoly that has been broken up by the government has ever benefitted the people. I ask for you to provide an example of this. No, the phone monolopy broken up decades ago does not support your view, it supports mine.
That is a nice claim, where is your proof?
For me (not living in the USA but in Europe) the breaking up of the phone monopolies has brought lots and lots of benefits. Better service, more choice, better prices. Pretty much all reasearch into the situation by economists suggests that those benefits are shared by virtually all people in the affected areas also, so that does prove your point wrong.
Now, it would be nice if you actually presented some kind of argument, and untill you do, your statement is just that, a statement. Who you are (learned economist? what the hell is that anyway) does not matter at all for this.
So, I live in the north-western part of Europe (the Netherlands specifically), and our situation is slightly different from that in the USA with regards to the telco market. Nonetheless, I'm sure our situation gives a good idea of what proper regulation can do (as well as how improper regulation can mess things up)
Early in the 20th century, when telephone got broad adaptation here, most countries setup a national telco. This national telco was state owned, usually because of cost involved in providing telephony services throughout the country with disregard of if it would be economically viable to service every location initially. (I believe this is similar actually to the state granted monopoly that AT&T enjoyed for a long time)
Over time, those state owned telcos started being very slow in adapting new technology, and were often quite inefficient, resulting in high costs for both the state and their customers. (which is quite what you'd expect also from such a non-competitive market)
Some 2 or so decades ago, there was a push for privatizing the state telco (still going on in some neighboring countries), and to make sure there would be competition.
Now, without basicly stripping the telco of the last mile, or allowing everyone to run cables everywhere, this idea of competition became a rather difficult one. How to compete when there is effectively a single party that for historical and practical reasons has a monopoly on a resource that every possible competitor with them would need?
The answer is.... a specific form of regulation that makes that every competitor to the former state telco gets access to those required resources for a reasonable price, and that denies the possibility to anyone holding such a monopoly to dictate prices.
Consequence:
I can get phone services (landline) from at least 3 different companies. I have a choice between at least 6 (!) DSL providers, and an uncountable number of ISPs that cooperate with those DSL providers. And.. the former state telco actually turned itself into a company that is worth dealing with, they have some good ideas and decent prices now.
So.. it started out with a state enforced monopoly for some explainable reasons, but this did not work out well in the end. To solve the problems resulting from natural and state provided monopolies, regulation was put in place that basicly undoes the effects of said monopolies.
When you plant explosives, you deserve anything you get. And yes, an attempt is sufficient. Thanks for playing.
Hmm, it has been argued that those who founded the USA were in fact terrorists. I'm sure the Brits saw it that way back then, and I'd hope you are consistant enough to apply your argument to them as well?
For that matter, the current government of the USA, as well as that of many other countries, seem to be terrorists and should be shot on the spot according to your argument..
No one's forcing you not to hang up the phone.
By the time I can hangup, they already took some of my time, forced me to listen to whom they are, disturbed whatever I was doing and such.
So while I can hangup the phone, that does not solve the problem.
Oh, I can hangup the phone perfectly fine, but really, why does freedom of speech make that people think they have the right to disturb me with their nonsense whenever they want? Even when I hangup on them, they have still taken my time and interrupted whatever I was doing.
If you are really a fan of a free market, you'd understand the reality that regulation means that it isn't free. Restrictions mean it isn't free. Taxation means it isn't free. Licensing means it isn't free.
You seem to want 'absolute freedom', which is nice in theory, but it doesn't work . An unregulated, untaxed, unlicensed market with only one player which can keep others out of that market is not free, despite all your conditions being matched.
A free market is a market free of anti-competative influences. This may in fact require regulation.
Political speech is more protected than mere commercial speech, so while it may be able to stop sales call harrassment, it won't stop solicitations for political organizations.
Freedom of speech, political or otherwise, does not include the right to force people to listen to you.
but your own candidate or ... nonprofit organizations? "Sorry Mr. Smith, we can't provide your insulin shots this month because we've been sued while looking for contributions." This seems a little sick.
Very simple, stop looking for contributions in ways that piss people off.