After paying Federal, State, Medicare, Social security and Disability I am currently being taxed at about 43% in America (and that's the second to lowest tax bracket), are you saying that Sweden is worse?
"Now, I don't mean to make the Swedish legal system sound whimsical and pointless, it's just that you have to understand it."
Unfortunately your description came out a little garbled and left me somewhat confused.
I think what you were trying to say is that the legal system requires only a basic grasp of the law in order to defend yourself in the preliminary "hearing" (using an american term, also i could have said lower courts), but if your case goes to a higher court (passes the first "hearing") then the standards of law become more formal and require further evidence to prove a case.
"People can still be convicted of this, just not en masse by some sort of automated system like the music distribution representatives would like."
Which makes sense as this would still convict people making thousands of bootleg copies, but someone casually file sharing is not "important" enough to devote police resources.
"If parents can't monitor what their kids are doing and teach them the difference between TV/Video games and the real world then how can children be expected to know."
I think the parent is to blame in more ways that one in this specific instance, turns out the father had beat the child for not cleaning animal stalls "fast enough". This along with letting the child play a video game '''obsessively'' for several months' shows a pattern of abuse and neglect which, to any other parent, should indicate the real reason for the child's actions...
I can't stand to watch gratuitous violence, torture, or even most medical shows. (OK, I'm a wuss.;-)"
Thought I would weigh in myself, I have been a gamer ever since the doom days and I love the violence and gore, love headshotting people in CS, gibbing them in quake3, etc.. the other day my daughter stubbed her toe and part of the skin was pulled back..
Long story short, I made my wife bandage her up... ugh.
I think as rational human being we can make the distinction betwen "cartoon" violence and real trauma and I don't think we are anywhere close to a level of realism that will be able to truely desensitise us to Real gore.
And what exactly defines an unlawful combatant? If it means "everyone who is not a lawful combatant" then I am also truley scared because that describes anyone who objects to this government, or it COULD mean this very shortly.
With the way words have been redefined as of late (conservative, liberal, neocon, democrat, etc..) speaking out against your government could land you labeled as combative against the policies of the current or future administrations...
We should be the example for truth, honesty, and morality when it comes to our actions across the globe, otherwise the far reaching hand of the USA could start to turn inwards to silence those who would speak out against the same.
"The vast majority of my music is stuff from the 60s and 70s"
I have a lot of this stuff also (well 80's and 90's), songs i listened to over and over on the radio, singles I purchased on tape, I consider them part of my cultural heritage and I am partly responsible for their success.
I find it offensive for record execs to call me a criminal because I decided to download "Come On Eileen" by dexy and the midnight runners and relive some of my childhood.
There is a point where art becomes part of culture and (at least to me) seems to be immoral to continue to try and squeeze every last penny they can out of the art from people whose cultural references/upbringing are made up of this art.
(*note the term art is used in a subjective way here, especially when referring to Dexy and the Midnight Runners:P)
ran outta mod points, please mod parent up for this statement:
"File sharing kills off bands that suck. It just does. If you download and sample the other songs from a band besides the hit playing constantly on the radio and find out that they are a one hit wonder, are you going to fork out the full price of a CD for that one song? I wouldn't."
This is exactly the reason I bought a Bare Naked Ladies CD (although the opposite side of his point) I saw a documentary on the band, liked what I saw and heard so I downloaded some of their songs that I found when searching the band name, came to love their stuff and went out the next day and bought a greatest hits CD.
But his point is also true, there are songs that I have heard on VH1 (they do a top20 countdown on saturday mornings) where I find them catchy, go download some other songs from the band's new album and find out the whole CD is mediocre so I pass...
If I find a band I like and an album they have made which has a good compilation of songs I will buy the CD just to add it to my collection...
Too many times have I been burned on a CD with 1 or 2 hits and 10 other dogs...
Of course you can never go wrong with a Pink Floyd CD (any of them) why don't bands put the energy into a full CD worthy of purchase anymore (shakes cane at monitor, mutters about lawn).
Off topic sorta, "This is mostly a result of the deregulation of radio" Can anyone give an example of something that didn't get worse for the "consumer" after it was deregulated?
not that I blame them, but let me give some examples:
FTA:"Here's a shot of Hugh Jackman decypting data and trying to access a worm/virus he stored on a server."
No, he was trying to create a "virus/Worm" that would steal banking data/money
FTA:"So since his P2P file sharing program got stolen, Seth now makes a wire frame program that follows a Mini around perfectly through walls?"
No it was a computer simulation of the distance the mini would have to travel, as long as they had the blueprints of the house, it is not to far of a stretch to make a little car drive through a wireframe model of the layout and calculating distance from that simulation as well as making sure the mini could navigate the passage ways (space wise).
Of course they could have just done this by measure a Mini and checking the blueprints.. but this is the big screen man!
"Either the Soviet Union was "gifted" with a vast supply of the world's greatest natural criminal organizational geniuses that were just biding their time until the USSR fell to get going, or the USSR had well developed criminal organizations, at least some which interpenetrated with the government bureaucracies, well before it fell that just stopped being hidden when it fell."
Which is the point I was making, but better put forth:)
"Might we as well get something positive out of it. In the former Soviet Union, they had the kind of monitoring we do (less the technology), but they also did not have gangs controlling neighborhoods, cities, etc."
Are you seriously saying that the Soviet Mafia is a fairy tale? Why then did it blossom into a full world wide problem once the Soviet union collapsed?
"At least with Duhbya, we know where that devil stands. It was a matter of the devil you know vs. the devil you don't know. He at least does what he says he will do."
What's funny iis that you COULD find out where he stood, if you took the time to look into it but instead you would rather be spoon fed lies by the right wing media.
Are you trying to say that the current president is MORE honest than John Kerry?
I agree with the problems of a two party system, I agree we need to shake up current politics, but when you spew the same false rhetoric that you find on Fox news or Rush Limbaugh you aren't helping the situation.
Personally I lost all respect for John Kerry when he dropped the race for president like a hot potato as soon as it became a challenge (with the vote discrepancies et al) but that doesn't mean I think that a distinguished war veteran and life long diplomat would be less capable of handling a military situation like Iraq then Bush.
"you're quoting a nursery rhyme"
Well in the movie (since you reference it) we are told that the rhyme describes an event from your history of a man (Guy Fawkes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Fawkes) who attempted to assassinate King James I of England (James VI of Scotland) and the members of both houses of the Parliament of England.
This seems to be in retaliation against an oppressive government, to quote another poster "To know that your children are signing nursery rhymes to each other of the importance of fighting for freedom and constant vigilance against governmental control, is very heart warming."
So both the reference to the rhyme and it's relation to this topic seems very poignant and not quite silly at all.
That there won't be any more songs in guitar hero?
I envision instead playing the life of a racker in a house with 5 other rockers battling out to see who will do dishes, arguing over who left the condom floating in the hot tub and trying to get a perfect score by backstabbing the other rockers while dodging any repurcussions...
"But our government insists that organized crime doesn't exist, while at the same time having a division to track organized crime! I'm so confused!"
Well it is BECAUSE they have a division to track organized crime that it doesn't exist, just like how since there is a war on drugs, drug use is virtually non-existant anymore...
Remember when you could go to a concert and see people smoking pot? Or you could find it in high schools, or any night club? Now it's almost impossible to find and if you did (besides being a criminal) it would cost in the thousands of dollars for just a gram of the stuff.
Ah, the old days, the WOD eliminated that scourge once and for all... God bless America.
"So I gather from the description of your examplee, the business graduate is acting in an immoral manner because he is attempting to waste both his future income potential and that of his target."
Actually the decathalon was to determine a winner who would then take over the rights of CEO.
The business man was competing against the son of the current owner of the business.
So using your corporate moral basis, this WAS the "moral" choice as he would ensure his place in the corporate struture while at the same time eliminating any competition.
But of course in the real world (where most of us live) this has real consequences as it would kill another human being and affect the lives who centered around that person.
The comparision i see in the corporate world is quite striking as often times the good of the company is put far beyond the good of anyone else who is effected by the corporation (dow chemical's response in bhopal http://www.dowethics.com/bhopal.com/ immediately springs to mind) because doing the "right" thing (in common moral practices) would hurt the bottom line of the corporation.
"Many of the online data services for the various smartphones already implement lock-down systems."
The blackberry enterprise server (BES) already has this functionality, if a corporate blackberry is lost or stolen, a signal can be sent to the device that wipes it of all info. Sounds like this is just a user based idea of the same functionality.
Billy Madision, where the business graduate is asked to give a speech concerning business ethics in a "decathalon of education", this results in him pulling out a gun and trying to shoot his opponent.
Pretty accurate protrayal of what i've seen in the business world...
Unfortunately, when you work for a corporation whose ONLY motive is profit then moral considerations are barely an afterthought, to the detriment of everyone who uses that corporation's products and are affected by the same and those who work for the corporation.
Slashdot Mirror
After paying Federal, State, Medicare, Social security and Disability I am currently being taxed at about 43% in America (and that's the second to lowest tax bracket), are you saying that Sweden is worse?
"Now, I don't mean to make the Swedish legal system sound whimsical and pointless, it's just that you have to understand it."
Unfortunately your description came out a little garbled and left me somewhat confused.
I think what you were trying to say is that the legal system requires only a basic grasp of the law in order to defend yourself in the preliminary "hearing" (using an american term, also i could have said lower courts), but if your case goes to a higher court (passes the first "hearing") then the standards of law become more formal and require further evidence to prove a case.
Is that right?
"People can still be convicted of this, just not en masse by some sort of automated system like the music distribution representatives would like."
Which makes sense as this would still convict people making thousands of bootleg copies, but someone casually file sharing is not "important" enough to devote police resources.
KORfan said:
"Minor correction: Ranch foreman slapped child, not father"
Actually, MAJOR correction:
The Ranch foreman WAS the father...
FTA:
"Posey had told police he shot his family after his father, the ranch foreman, slapped him for not cleaning horse stalls fast enough."
"Firefox's image.animation_mode=none"
You sir are my hero, I wish I had mod point's as you would definitely get a +1 informative from me.
Bugs me to no end to have to hit esc all day long when viewing a website with these annoying gif ads...
"It's the irrational ones I'm concerned about. The rational ones don't typically go on shooting rampages. :-P"
;)
Or sue video game companies for bad parenting
"If parents can't monitor what their kids are doing and teach them the difference between TV/Video games and the real world then how can children be expected to know."
I think the parent is to blame in more ways that one in this specific instance, turns out the father had beat the child for not cleaning animal stalls "fast enough". This along with letting the child play a video game '''obsessively'' for several months' shows a pattern of abuse and neglect which, to any other parent, should indicate the real reason for the child's actions...
"How do you reconcile those two?
;-)"
I can't stand to watch gratuitous violence, torture, or even most medical shows. (OK, I'm a wuss.
Thought I would weigh in myself, I have been a gamer ever since the doom days and I love the violence and gore, love headshotting people in CS, gibbing them in quake3, etc.. the other day my daughter stubbed her toe and part of the skin was pulled back..
Long story short, I made my wife bandage her up... ugh.
I think as rational human being we can make the distinction betwen "cartoon" violence and real trauma and I don't think we are anywhere close to a level of realism that will be able to truely desensitise us to Real gore.
"They're unlawful combatants"
And what exactly defines an unlawful combatant? If it means "everyone who is not a lawful combatant" then I am also truley scared because that describes anyone who objects to this government, or it COULD mean this very shortly.
With the way words have been redefined as of late (conservative, liberal, neocon, democrat, etc..) speaking out against your government could land you labeled as combative against the policies of the current or future administrations...
We should be the example for truth, honesty, and morality when it comes to our actions across the globe, otherwise the far reaching hand of the USA could start to turn inwards to silence those who would speak out against the same.
"The vast majority of my music is stuff from the 60s and 70s"
:P)
I have a lot of this stuff also (well 80's and 90's), songs i listened to over and over on the radio, singles I purchased on tape, I consider them part of my cultural heritage and I am partly responsible for their success.
I find it offensive for record execs to call me a criminal because I decided to download "Come On Eileen" by dexy and the midnight runners and relive some of my childhood.
There is a point where art becomes part of culture and (at least to me) seems to be immoral to continue to try and squeeze every last penny they can out of the art from people whose cultural references/upbringing are made up of this art.
(*note the term art is used in a subjective way here, especially when referring to Dexy and the Midnight Runners
ran outta mod points, please mod parent up for this statement:
"File sharing kills off bands that suck. It just does. If you download and sample the other songs from a band besides the hit playing constantly on the radio and find out that they are a one hit wonder, are you going to fork out the full price of a CD for that one song? I wouldn't."
This is exactly the reason I bought a Bare Naked Ladies CD (although the opposite side of his point) I saw a documentary on the band, liked what I saw and heard so I downloaded some of their songs that I found when searching the band name, came to love their stuff and went out the next day and bought a greatest hits CD.
But his point is also true, there are songs that I have heard on VH1 (they do a top20 countdown on saturday mornings) where I find them catchy, go download some other songs from the band's new album and find out the whole CD is mediocre so I pass...
If I find a band I like and an album they have made which has a good compilation of songs I will buy the CD just to add it to my collection...
Too many times have I been burned on a CD with 1 or 2 hits and 10 other dogs...
Of course you can never go wrong with a Pink Floyd CD (any of them) why don't bands put the energy into a full CD worthy of purchase anymore (shakes cane at monitor, mutters about lawn).
Off topic sorta, "This is mostly a result of the deregulation of radio" Can anyone give an example of something that didn't get worse for the "consumer" after it was deregulated?
not that I blame them, but let me give some examples:
FTA:"Here's a shot of Hugh Jackman decypting data and trying to access a worm/virus he stored on a server."
No, he was trying to create a "virus/Worm" that would steal banking data/money
FTA:"So since his P2P file sharing program got stolen, Seth now makes a wire frame program that follows a Mini around perfectly through walls?"
No it was a computer simulation of the distance the mini would have to travel, as long as they had the blueprints of the house, it is not to far of a stretch to make a little car drive through a wireframe model of the layout and calculating distance from that simulation as well as making sure the mini could navigate the passage ways (space wise).
Of course they could have just done this by measure a Mini and checking the blueprints.. but this is the big screen man!
"Either the Soviet Union was "gifted" with a vast supply of the world's greatest natural criminal organizational geniuses that were just biding their time until the USSR fell to get going, or the USSR had well developed criminal organizations, at least some which interpenetrated with the government bureaucracies, well before it fell that just stopped being hidden when it fell."
:)
Which is the point I was making, but better put forth
"Might we as well get something positive out of it. In the former Soviet Union, they had the kind of monitoring we do (less the technology), but they also did not have gangs controlling neighborhoods, cities, etc."
Are you seriously saying that the Soviet Mafia is a fairy tale? Why then did it blossom into a full world wide problem once the Soviet union collapsed?
"At least with Duhbya, we know where that devil stands. It was a matter of the devil you know vs. the devil you don't know. He at least does what he says he will do."
What's funny iis that you COULD find out where he stood, if you took the time to look into it but instead you would rather be spoon fed lies by the right wing media.
Are you trying to say that the current president is MORE honest than John Kerry?
I agree with the problems of a two party system, I agree we need to shake up current politics, but when you spew the same false rhetoric that you find on Fox news or Rush Limbaugh you aren't helping the situation.
Personally I lost all respect for John Kerry when he dropped the race for president like a hot potato as soon as it became a challenge (with the vote discrepancies et al) but that doesn't mean I think that a distinguished war veteran and life long diplomat would be less capable of handling a military situation like Iraq then Bush.
um, yah my sig is kind of a disclaimer ;) (also responding to parent)
"you're quoting a nursery rhyme" Well in the movie (since you reference it) we are told that the rhyme describes an event from your history of a man (Guy Fawkes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Fawkes) who attempted to assassinate King James I of England (James VI of Scotland) and the members of both houses of the Parliament of England. This seems to be in retaliation against an oppressive government, to quote another poster "To know that your children are signing nursery rhymes to each other of the importance of fighting for freedom and constant vigilance against governmental control, is very heart warming." So both the reference to the rhyme and it's relation to this topic seems very poignant and not quite silly at all.
That there won't be any more songs in guitar hero?
I envision instead playing the life of a racker in a house with 5 other rockers battling out to see who will do dishes, arguing over who left the condom floating in the hot tub and trying to get a perfect score by backstabbing the other rockers while dodging any repurcussions...
I can't wait.
Parent is right, otherwise to play multiplayer you'd have to buy 2 bundled copies of the game.
"But our government insists that organized crime doesn't exist, while at the same time having a division to track organized crime! I'm so confused!"
Well it is BECAUSE they have a division to track organized crime that it doesn't exist, just like how since there is a war on drugs, drug use is virtually non-existant anymore...
Remember when you could go to a concert and see people smoking pot? Or you could find it in high schools, or any night club? Now it's almost impossible to find and if you did (besides being a criminal) it would cost in the thousands of dollars for just a gram of the stuff.
Ah, the old days, the WOD eliminated that scourge once and for all... God bless America.
"Hence, it is a moral system, though a repugnant one."
;)
Sorry, I meant to add that we both agree on this point
"So I gather from the description of your examplee, the business graduate is acting in an immoral manner because he is attempting to waste both his future income potential and that of his target."
Actually the decathalon was to determine a winner who would then take over the rights of CEO.
The business man was competing against the son of the current owner of the business.
So using your corporate moral basis, this WAS the "moral" choice as he would ensure his place in the corporate struture while at the same time eliminating any competition.
But of course in the real world (where most of us live) this has real consequences as it would kill another human being and affect the lives who centered around that person.
The comparision i see in the corporate world is quite striking as often times the good of the company is put far beyond the good of anyone else who is effected by the corporation (dow chemical's response in bhopal http://www.dowethics.com/bhopal.com/ immediately springs to mind) because doing the "right" thing (in common moral practices) would hurt the bottom line of the corporation.
"Many of the online data services for the various smartphones already implement lock-down systems."
The blackberry enterprise server (BES) already has this functionality, if a corporate blackberry is lost or stolen, a signal can be sent to the device that wipes it of all info. Sounds like this is just a user based idea of the same functionality.
Billy Madision, where the business graduate is asked to give a speech concerning business ethics in a "decathalon of education", this results in him pulling out a gun and trying to shoot his opponent.
Pretty accurate protrayal of what i've seen in the business world...
Unfortunately, when you work for a corporation whose ONLY motive is profit then moral considerations are barely an afterthought, to the detriment of everyone who uses that corporation's products and are affected by the same and those who work for the corporation.