I appreciate your honesty about having trolled earlier. I'll be equally direct and save you some time -- you are making a straw man argument and the rest of this post will demonstrate why.
For you, this seems to be a question of "who will wield the current total level of power and influence that is being exerted" for which there are only two possible answers: "government" or "corportions" with various euphamisms used for either or both. For me, it's more of a question of "regardless of who is wielding it, is the current level of power and influence being exerted excessive?". If the answer to that question is "yes", then it is a symptom of a deeper problem and there are serious questions about how and why we allowed things to become this way.
You speak of corporations as though they are the epitome of individualism. You don't seem to be saying it like it's your belief but rather like it's what you have always heard. I hate to break it to you, but anyone who claims that with a straight face is either a liar or an idiot. Corporate control and influence is at least as bad as when government does it and is perhaps even worse. In my last post, when I referred to the "globalist military-industrial-media-pharmaceutical-banking complex", what did you suppose I was talking about?
I don't consider the monied interests behind major corporations directing many thousands of employees to be "individualistic" in the slightest. As I've said in other discussions, I think companies are like fire; they are wonderful slaves but terrible masters. I feel the same way about government. They are both our servants but they fancy themselves our masters and for some reason we put up with it.
My idea of individualism has nothing to do with social darwinism or corporate control and everything to do with people thinking for themselves and rejecting all easy answers and efforts to tell them how they should think and what they should feel no matter the source (accomplish that and everything you mentioned will find its own balance). Furthermore, I think that's our natural state, that it took great effort and a long time to convince people to buy into this consumerist, materialist, convenience-is-everything culture of needless dependency and helplessness.
It's my belief that we allow both government and corporations to meddle in too many issues that are not properly their concern. I don't want to reduce the power of government in order to increase the power of corporations, nor do I wish to reduce the power of corporations in order to increase the power of government. Unlike the relatively narrow view you are presenting, It does not have to be a zero-sum game. I would love to see a reduction in the power of both. Both of them have any power at all because we permit it and I think somewhere along the line we've forgotten that. Both, at the same time, have been less powerful and less influential in the past and both, at the same time, can be less powerful and less influential now. The only way to arrange that is for people to stop being so passive and thoughtless and helpless and dependent; simple reform is not going to cut it.
A utopia this is not; in fact this would make life more difficult than it is now in some ways although it would be infinitely better in others. An orthodoxy it certainly is not -- I mean, think about it: what large influential organization who can establish an entire orthodoxy and get people to follow it is going to advocate that we vastly reduce the influence of large organizations and discourage people from so easily following them? You display a certain bias for thinking in terms of one orthodoxy versus another orthodoxy that I do not share. This is twice now that I've tried to tell you that what I am talking about is not what you think I am talking about; that what you think I am talking about is on the list of things I'm tired of. I really think that other people you have heard have used similar concepts because they sound good and could be twisted and misrepresented and used to justify whatever agenda was being veiled and now you are eager to dismiss me on the same grounds. That's called muddying the waters and perhaps you can appreciate how effective it is as a propaganda or "PR" tactic.
i agree w/your concluding statement wholeheartedly and your reply is well thought out. i follow that course of action with regards to wargames and the like, pushing the envelope and all. however, people do this crap in real life also. they try on "alternate" personalities when around strangers or in unfamiliar social situations. i understand the concept but i cannot condone nor advocate such behavior. if a deciding factor in your behavior is "punch distance" (as noted in a previous reply), or your lack of consequences-> i do not have respect for that person. i will put my name behind (and in front of) what i say and/or do. if your gonna do it...OWN it. dont be a pussy. i can accept alot of differences between peoples when it comes to beliefs and morals, but being fake is pretty lame. Wow, seriousness in the middle of all the trolls.
I think the prevalance of people who are faking is because of trends and the way people mindlessly follow them. This was unbelievably common when I was in school and my case was hardly an isolated one. Following a trend already means adopting someone else's idea instead of being yourself and using your own so it's excellent training for how to be plastic people who know how to present a desired image. Most of this really is cowardice of the "don't rock the boat" variety.
It's disgusting the way so many allow their style of clothing, choice of food, taste in music, manner of speech, attitude and philosophy and far too many other things to be determined by a mob mentality. This is where choices and behavior patterns have implications that people don't consider. Like so many things that are widespread, it's most certainly not the result of a careful consideration of the merits of all options. I suppose the irony is that most of these trends that are thought to be cool and original are the creations of suits with marketing degrees who would be regarded as neither by the people who follow them.
Most people are leaves in the wind who unnecessarily surrender their lives to the media, their peers, or random chance. They have neither the determination nor the courage to learn to take responsibility for their actions which is why they want so badly to believe that they can work with what they do not understand and somehow obtain a good result (nowhere is this more obvious than computers and networking). They get suprised by eventualities and foreseeable circumstances. They do not act deliberately, with an appreciation for the Law of Unintended Consequences and a clear sense of purpose but instead they act on whim in a helter-skelter fashion and things "just happen". They don't understand the difference between causing a problem and allowing a problem to happen when they have the power to avoid both. They don't understand the concept of due diligence or they assume that it somehow doesn't apply to them. They are victims and subjects when they could choose to be bystanders and citizens. And it's always someone else's fault.
So yeah, you could say I'm not crazy about the status quo and the cowardice and the fakers. I used to find it a constant irritant before I learned to accept that people must live their lives the way they see fit. I still don't like it one bit, but I have decided that I needn't allow the poor decision-making of other people to bring negativity into my life. I suppose my remaining objection is that I live in a constitutional republic and I don't desire the kind of government that they deserve, which seems inevitable.
From your two posts, it sounds like we agree far more than we disagree.
You very well might be right, but I wouldn't be too quick to judge that one.
I'll give an analogy. It may be a poor one but hopefully it'll illustrate my point. Let's say you have a video game, something a lot like Second Life but assume that the money in this game is completely in-game and has no ties whatsoever to real-life currency (and in this way, it would be unlike Second Life). In that game you decide to go into serious debt by spending many thousands of virtual "dollars" that your character doesn't really have to buy a sports car that your character can't really afford. It's just a game, so who cares? If you decide that doing the same thing in real life is a bad idea, does that make you a coward? Is it necessary to feel an emotion of fear and run away in terror from the idea of doing the same thing in real life, or could you not decide against it with a simple cost-benefit analysis?
Real life is full of people who refuse to allow pesky facts to get in the way of what they want to believe. People whom you won't convince of anything no matter how much unnecessary flak you are willing to take to try to do it. People who will be more concerned about feeling right and saving face than learning and increasing their wisdom. The Internet is full of such people as well; the difference is that it is much easier to reach a wider audience, increasing your chances of communication with people who have gotten over themselves and their silly pettiness (yes, they are out there). The Internet, compared to real life, is much more of a free-for-all of ideas where it is often understood that expecting to never be offended or challenged is unrealistic.
It's not absurd that someone might use different standards for online interaction and meatspace interaction. Can there be cowardly motives for this? Certainly. Are all possible motives for this based on fear? Not a chance.
Stop making out with Ayn Rand's corpse. It's gross. Besides, there are tons of elected officials who believe this objectivist tripe. I think your half-baked ideology is actually in control at the moment.
I've actually never read any of Rand's works, although a few people on Slashdot seem to think it's the ultimate "hah, I sure told him off!" to mention her instead of refuting what I say. Perhaps I will pick up one of her works just to see what all the fuss is about. At any rate, nothing is easier than calling something half-baked and tripe without ever explaining your implied superior point of view that makes you say so. If you were expecting me to start "defending my good name" from the labels you've tried to apply, you will be disappointed. I will merely see whether you will accept my challenge to tell me why you believe I am wrong. If you cannot or will not, then I know all I need to know about your position. If you will do that, and if you do a good job, perhaps I will learn something new or discard a false belief that I thought was true, in which case you would have my gratitude.
I certainly don't need Rand or anyone else to see with my own eyes that there is such a thing as ego and that overcoming it to explore new possibilities is not what the collectivists have in mind. They don't want to explore something new; they want to repeat an idea that is very old, which is absolute state power. The only reason why I mention the difference at all is because some people actually seem to think that surrendering their identity to a powerful State is a good idea, as though this has never been tried before. It's funny really, because we universally denounce the likes of Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini because of their cruelty and ruthlessness without ever cultivating an understanding of how they came to be and how their ideas were sold to the people. I really believe that America with its "can't happen here" mentality is in for a terrible wake-up call. The Founding Fathers certainly believed that it "can happen here" and warned us repeatedly to guard against it.
My reason for saying that our leaders have a statist, collectivist agenda is quite simple. As time passes, the USA federal government continues to increase in both size and power. It is continuing to do so today and the "War on Terror" is providing a fantastic excuse although several have been used. It is showing no signs of reversing this trend, and this trend has been the case since at least the beginning of the 20th century. You simply don't perpetuate a century-long trend by accident. The reason why we were warned not to trade liberty in exchange for a little temporary security is because you never, ever get that liberty back. What you call the evening news can also be viewed as an exercise in "Problem, Reaction, Solution" which is also known as "Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis".
If you really believe that my "ideology" is in control, it's because you don't remotely understand it. If these matters were up to me, the American people would go back to being fiercely independent, relatively self-sufficient, and difficult to govern because this globalist military-industrial-media-pharmaceutical-banking complex is benefitting the very few at the expense of the very many. If you absolutely insist on identifying me with an author, you should know that this will never give you a terribly accurate picture, but if you must do it anyway, then read the works of Henry David Thoreau to get a better idea of what I believe.
I am willing to give you the benefit of a doubt and assume that you are not merely trolling. I'd prefer to assume you are not trolling and write a few paragraphs and be wrong and let you get your jollies, than to assume that you are trolling and miss out on hearing a different point of view. I hope that you do take the time to read this and respond, as I very well might learn something.
Do you still need to take action when the guy is *running away* from your house and your family? Shooting someone in the back is not self defence.
Suppose you have the kind of criminals who would break into your house and pose a threat to you and your family. Suppose those criminals do in fact break into someone's house. If they run away from you, shooting them is probably not self-defense. However, whether they run away from you or not, shooting them is a favor to society.
Rather than worry about what is and is not self-defense, and what is or is not excessive force and expecting a scared homeowner to make this determination in the middle of the night, It should simply be understood that if you do certain things, you are voluntarily surrendering your right to personal safety. Certain things like forcibly breaking into someone's house. There probably should be a different set of rules for when you are out in public, but it should be unambiguously understood that if you trespass into someone else's property, break into and enter their home, and threaten their family, then you are 100% completely responsible for everything that happens next and the homeowner has complete legal immunity no matter what happens to you. Enable that standard and suddenly this type of break-in will become less common.
I determined in second grade, IIRC, that if I was going to be punished for defending myself, that's fine...but I would not be a victim.
I made a similar determination although I did not have to use it until high school. Once that type of person realizes that you're not an easy mark, that you will defend yourself at all costs, they usually find someone else to fuck with because deep down they are opportunistic cowards. They don't want to go toe-to-toe and battle someone; they want someone who will meekly submit (this is the same reason why violent crime has significantly reduced in every state which has allowed conceal-carry permits).
I will not comment on what I experienced or did not experience, but I can tell you the general effect of the "punish everyone involved" mentality. Almost everyone decided that if they were going to be punished whether they merely fended off the attacker or whether they knocked the living shit out of him, they chose the latter option. So, the opportunity to learn by experience a real-world skill like understanding the correct use of restraint was wasted, all in the name of feel-good policies that actually increased the viciousness of most fights rather than reduced it. The lessons we should have learned from Prohibition apply to much more than drugs and alcohol, yet one would think that understanding neither them nor human nature in general is a job requirement for every position of authority.
But seriously, the perp suing the homeowner because he hurt himself breaking in? Throwing a homeowner in jail for shooting perps that broke into his house, while said perps with long rap sheets get off? Guy fights back against someone who attacks him with a knife, and goes to jail for it? WTF, England?
At least in the USA, what began by being taught in public schools is now becoming further institutionalized as entire generations grow up under absurd standards like these. For example, in the public schools, someone can physically attack you without provocation and if you defend yourself, you are punished and your punishment is equal to theirs for attacking you. This is true no matter how well-established it is that the other person started the fight. The rank-and-file teachers and administrators who go along with this are what you might call "true believers" who think that all use of force is wrong, including those cases where you are attacked and have no choice but to defend yourself. This serves to deny personal responsibility in the case of the attacker (the idea that if you attack someone unprovoked, what happens next is on your head) and fosters that damned victim mentality that is so prevalent these days in the case of the defender. Of course this is insanity, which is why they start such policies at a young age. Not because children don't know injustice when they see it, but because they are less able to resist it and instead they become callous to it.
I can think of two major reasons for this mentality and for why it would spread from government schools to society at large. First of all, the state wants to have a monopoly on the use of force no matter how justified that use of force is. Someone who is armed and willing and legally able to defend his own home and his own family might not feel as dependent on government as a helpless victim who cowers in a corner hoping that the cops show up soon. "Government to the rescue" is big, big business these days and helpless, timid people are so much easier to govern.
The other major reason is that there is a sort of war being waged against the concept of individuality and it's not because we have transcended ego boundaries but because our leaders have a statist, collectivist agenda. That's why the news media loves to bring up race and social status and religion and sexual orientation even when they are otherwise irrelevant to the story, because these are group identities. They are trying to teach you, by constantly reinforced example, to think in terms of groups, not individuals. This is why political candidates worry about "the black vote" and "the hispanic vote" and "the elderly vote" instead of telling us why they believe they have superior ideas that would apply equally to everyone (something you'd rationally expect from government). It's hard to think of something more individualistic than defending yourself, your home, and your family instead of waiting for "the professionals" to come along and do it for you.
Your post, too, is just a pointless complaint about one random bit of moderation that has no real significance.
It is only our self-importance that would lead us to think that anything discussed here has real significance. By contrast to what is "out there" and available to be experienced by the human perception in this mysterious universe, all topics on Slashdot are quite mundane. The real value of the site is that there are a lot of people here who have good sense and take relatively wise positions on questions of freedom, choice, markets and monopolies, personal responsibility, and technology. This value occurs in spite of the mundane nature of the topics, not because of it; therefore to point out that this complaint or that summary or these trolls or those topics have "no real significance" is to miss the point.
There is no scorecard here, and to keep track of one would be vanity. That my little comment may have contributed in some small way to the fact that other moderators have decided to mod those posts up is a joy, especially since I say whatever I say without needing to have that happen at all, so it is most difficult to disappoint me. But that too isn't the point. That someone, somewhere may have decided to more carefully consider what they do and why they do it, instead of just going along with a knee-jerk type of reaction is what matters more to me, whether they actually decide to do what I would have done or not.
I am a law breaker. I've smoked marijuana for 12 years. It's not 'wrong' just because it's prohibited by some ink on paper.
... by people who lied and continue to lie about the reasons for prohibiting it, who consider your body to be theirs so that they can tell you what you may or may not do with it, who make crimes of things that are not crimes to justify searches and the expansion of police power and the creation of additional bureaucracies and the government-sponsored advertisements telling parents how they should raise their children and what they should say to them (something that would never have been accepted a generation or two ago), knowing that the black market for such contraband is here to stay and will always be a steady source of income for criminal organizations which justifies more bureaucracy and more police power ad nauseum. Bill Hicks had it right, "It's not a war on drugs, it's a war on personal freedom is what it is, okay, keep that in mind at all times, thank you."
It has one additional effect. Once you realize that they're a bunch of lying sacks of shit when it comes to one set of laws, who will tell you anything they think you'll believe in order to get you to accept their dreams of increased state power, well, once you realize that it erodes the entire concept of generally having respect for the law. You can respect the law when it serves its purpose, which is to prevent any person or group from depriving another person or group of their rights without due process (that is the criminal law's sole legitimate purpose, by the way). You cannot rationally respect anything that is routinely abused and made into a tool to further someone's authoritarian, collectivist agenda.
To mod as Insightful the person who mentions "What if fuel prices increase?" while modding down as "Offtopic" the person who discusses why they have and might increase is contradictory, at best. They are either both offtopic or both insightful. I think sometimes moderators forget that "Offtopic" and "Troll" are not synonymous with "I disagree" and "I don't like what that guy said but I won't try to refute it".
This was a politely worded post. You worded this in a non-inflammatory manner and explained why you feel the way that you do, did not use invectives or name-calling and did not even take a very controversial position, and yet you were still modded as Troll. This is one of the better statements on the recent quality of Slashdot moderation that I've seen in a while. You point out that they were not applying the moderating guidelines and they respond by failing to apply them some more, without ever explaining why they disagree with you because they probably realize they would not have a leg to stand on. I'm fully expecting to get modded to -1 myself for pointing this out, but that's okay. I have karma to burn and I'll feel better for having done it since I believe this sort of bullshit needs to be called out wherever it occurs.
There's just no way that what you said could explain why third parties generally have not won any major federal elections for generations. If what you pointed out were the only problem, then someone somewhere would have gotten it right. I can understand if you don't want to believe it and prefer rationalization in order to explain it away but it's really quite simple: there is a deliberate, concerted effort to control access to media and funding and to frame debates (mostly in the form of false dichotomies) and to marginalize anyone who might otherwise threaten to change the status quo. There is no "smoky back room conspiracy" needed. The only thing needed is the understanding that politicians do not want to give up their power and will take steps to entrench that power whenever they have the opportunity (for an unrelated example, see "gerrymandering"). They are not really "conspiring" to do it any more than the thousands of employees at Microsoft are "conspiring" to produce Windows products; it's what they set out to accomplish and it takes either a fool or a lot of denial to fail to recognize this.
God fucking damnit I hate stupid dumbass Americans talking "political". Nothing but straw man attacks on the "other side" with no real acknowledgement that there is no "other side". The two parties of the two party system are WAY THE FUCK to the right of center, each are owned by the same corporate fucks.
I consider that in politics, the two major parties serve the same function that guilds used to serve in commerce. The purpose of a guild was to lock out competition by raising the barrier to entry. That the two major parties serve this function is why you generally never see minor parties win any elections beyond the local level, because if you aren't either a Democrat or a Republican, you don't get the media time and the campaign donations and the political support that it takes to win major elections.
For some reason, we recognize that a monopoly or a duopoly is bad for everyone when it comes to commerce/money, but we do not seem to realize that this is even more true when it comes to political power. This is absurd considering that political power is even worse than money when it comes to what people will and won't do in order to obtain it. There are no major philosophical differences between the two major parties when it comes to the question of what is the proper role of government. They both want to expand the power and size of government; the only "debate" is how to go about it and which reasons should justify it. That there is no longer any real difference between them is why the presidential election has to be this big dog-and-pony show that is dragged out to take up months and months of time, because this is necessary to take very tiny differences and make them sound like distinctive features.
The whole point of trolling is to get a rise out of people. If you ignore the troll, they lose interest and go find some place where people will argue with them like they want.
That doesn't mean that everyone else will ignore the troll. You, the site administrator, can decide not to respond. However, if you have X number of users, it only takes a very small fraction of X to keep that troll going, and depending on what kind of forum you have, allowing the troll to persist could be interpreted as apathy or acceptance of what they are doing. So yes, if they are there just to cause trouble then banning them is not unreasonable at all.
Exactly that's why we simply need to have a government mandated "uni-car" that will only go certain speeds on certain roads and will keep a detailed log of all use to be uploaded one a year when you must pay your road use tax since we will have then abolished fuel taxes.
It would be more like a government to implement your idea while retaining the fuel tax. Not to mention I'm not crazy about the idea about making it easy for the government to collect yet more information.
You're equating "marketing" with "all the negative connotations I associate with the term 'marketing'". By "marketing" I simply mean being able to present a case to the average person -- THAT HE SEES -- why he should switch, and how he should do it.
I realize it's extremely widespread, and is in fact THE prevalent view of life on earth. However, I just don't share this idea that people need to be told what they need and what they should and shouldn't want. I am also unconcerned with the fact that our economy might collapse or suffer if everyone agreed with me about this, since advertising and consumerist culture is such a big part of it; to me, if that happened, it would be because it was built on a faulty foundation to begin with. Note, I am not against businesses or marketplaces in the slightest, but I believe that the proper role of these artificial constructs is to serve and respond to people, not the other way around. If I am against anything, I am against people being so sheeplike and so easily led and so thoughtless that glossy ads matter more to them than sincere inquiry. I can certainly see that most people allow this to happen and that many of them might even believe this to be convenient. "Average" or not, if a person makes an assessment of what is available and finds something that he really likes that meets his needs, good for him. If he fails to find such a thing, that is not my concern unless he asks for my assistance. If he cannot be bothered to look, that is a personal shortcoming that must be resolved by that person.
Most of the rest of your post seems to assume that there must be this big contest, a struggle for domination of the desktops of the world. Either Linux displaces Microsoft and wins the day, or Linux fades away and Microsoft retains their iron grip. I can see how Microsoft might feel that way, but I am not Microsoft, nor do I own any of their stock (nor would I allow it to compromise my refusal to get caught up in another silly us-against-them group identity if I did). That you ask me to "stop being schizophrenic" because I can happily accept that Linux might be a terrible choice for you and might utterly fail to meet your needs amuses me, since I do not assume that what satisfies me must also satisfy you.
I have no need to convert anyone, nor would I easily respect a person who completely changed his preferences just because I told him I believe it's a good idea. I like what I like and I have reasons for that which I am glad to share with other people, but this does not mean that what they use is my decision. When I say that Windows is compromised because it is primarily market-driven (that is, designed to make money), it's because there is something of a conflict of interest between developing the finest software you can possibly create and minimizing your costs in order to make more profit. As a business decision, it makes little difference to you whether users absolutely love your product or whether they are merely not annoyed with it enough to switch to something else, so long as you can make sales and move product and satisfy shareholders. This is true whether Linux takes over the desktop or not.
Noy user stupidity, but user ignorance. The differences betweeen stupidity and ignorace is ignorance is curable. We're all ignorant about more things than we're knowledgeable about.
The difference is that ignorant people know that they are ignorant, stupid people don't. I am ignorant about brain surgery; therefore, you don't see me cutting open skulls and attempting to remove brain tumors because I know that I am ignorant about brain surgery. I do not attempt to rebuild the engine in my car, because I know I do not have the skill to do it correctly. I do not try to build a rocket because I know I am ignorant about rocket science. I realize that trying to perform a complex task that I do not remotely understand is almost certainly going to be a disaster. I realize that my three choices are 1) do not perform the complex task or 2) ask/hire/beg the assistance of someone who does have the skill or 3) obtain information/education/training until I am knowledgable enough to correctly and confidently perform the complex task.
Stupid people assume that they know how to correctly administer a system (be it Windows, Linux, OSX, whichever) as evidenced by the fact that they choose to do so. They are stupid because it never occurs to them that perhaps they should educate and inform themselves about how the system should work and how it should be secured and what type of content should not be trusted. It does not cross their mind that until they reach a level of proficiency, perhaps they should seek advice or assistance from a reputable source or do some research. They are stupid because security warning after security warning, some of which even make the mainstream news, still does not instill in them a sense of caution. They are stupid because informing yourself can sometimes involve time and hard work, while satisfying their laziness and impatience and desire for instant gratification is more important to them than doing the job correctly. They are stupid because they can somehow manage to use a system for years without understanding the basic principles of how it works.
I am not necessarily disagreeing with you, at all. I just see a great deal of confusion that is causing many people to defend what amounts to gross negligence. Yes, ignorance is curable, but ignorance realizes it had choices to make. Stupidity doesn't.
*When* people start using Linux en masse (which will NEVER happen because the Linux commuity doesn't know the first thing about marketing itself or user interface design or making the transition easy), THEN there will be an incentive to actually write viri for Linux.
That the Linux community is not a marketing machine is 100% a Good Thing to me. I would probably end up enjoying Linux less if there were a corporate financial interest that competed with the community's current interest in producing useful software (of course if you WANT corporate support you can do that too via Redhat and others, it just isn't necessary with Linux). In a nutshell, that's Windows' biggest problem; the company is run by marketing and not by software engineering. You do realize that the primary purpose of Windows is to make money for Microsoft and its shareholders and that any benefit or usefulness to you is entirely secondary to that primary purpose, right? At fulfilling its primary purpose, Windows has been phenomenally successful. At being useful to me (keywords: "to me"), Windows has been substandard and I am glad to use a better alternative. Linux satisfies my computing needs and it does so whether most other people use Windows or not, so why would I care about marketing? This is a real question, I'd like to see your answer.
they music and sell it to people who want to buy it. Whats a better business model that WORKS genius?
If its so shit, why do 99% of artists still sign to a record company?
Why is it that anytime a large organization abuses its power/influence and Slashdot calls them on it, there are always those like you who rush in to defend said organization? I realize you're probably not really an employee and are probably not a paid shill; however, the reason why such accusations come up from time to time is that it otherwise doesn't make sense.
I'll sum it up for you this way. If your business model requires expanding the power and authority of the federal government and dictating to another industry how many units they may sell (the summary mentioned restricting supplies of "optical grade polycarbonate"), then your business model is broken and deserves to fail. This is true no matter how many artists sign up with you. If "people want to buy it" then these measures are unnecessary. If people don't want to buy it then the industry needs to either fail or find something that people do want. I've read the Constitution, I couldn't find "guarantee the success of an entertainment industry" anywhere in it. People who really think this is a good idea have no clue how dangerous it is to allow government to be so blatantly controlled by a trade industry.
When you asked "What's a better business model that WORKS", that's the question the *AA's should be asking. Instead, they are asking "how can we use government to guarantee the success of our current business model" which is the problem.
I RTFA. The Times does not say that the EU is going to hand over private information to US authorities. Rather the article informs readers that the two bodies of government are working towards a common set of privacy standards and safeguards that should be implemented if said bodies of government decided to one day share private information.
You say that as though you doubt the inevitability of it. My bet is that they're already doing this in a clandestine way and are seeking to retroactively legitimize it like they did with the telecoms' cooperation with the wiretaps.
It seems obvious to me that our news services are compromised, otherwise we would hear about how these things are a threat to our freedoms. Instead, all we hear is the party line about how all of these things are necessary to protect us from $vaguely_identified_enemy, with a single sentence along the lines of "but some groups express privacy concerns" thrown in to give an appearance of balance. Never is there a detailed outline of why "some groups" have "privacy concerns" about a government that is becoming increasingly authoritarian and knows more and more about you, or the fact that we were warned about this precise condition by the Founding Fathers. None of that is going to appear on CNN or Fox News, and if either were worth a damn it would.
The "pre-owned" label is rather amusing because it's so silly and redundant. When you buy a new car, the dealership obviously has to own it or else they would not have the legal right to sell it to you. Therefore, new cars are also "pre-owned".
A machine cannot grant you permission, it's just a machine. All a machine can do is grant you access. A human being has to grant you the permission. Argument by analogy just doesn't work for this - it's not a house, or a car, or a sprinkler. It's a wireless network. If it's not your network you don't get to decide who has permission to connect. Incidentally, the "sign" doesn't say "please come in", it says only says "here is network X".
But that machine didn't just magically materialize out of thin air and set itself up as an open, unsecured access point and advertise this fact to anyone who will listen and hand out IP addresses to all comers as a product of random chance. A human being put that machine there, and either set it up that way or (if that is the default configuration) allowed it to remain set up that way.
Here is my question: Why is there always a veiled effort to pretend like people are somehow not responsible for the configuration and operation of the equipment that they chose to buy and use of their own free will? If someone wants to buy a wireless router without learning what it does and how to configure it according to his wishes, he should be free to do so. If this produces results that are not to his liking, what right would he have to complain about a situation that he had 100% control over from the beginning? Does this really make sense to you?
I really want someone to explain this to me. I have asked for an explanation of this mentality in the past, and so far no one has managed to actually answer the question I was asking. To hopefully increase the chances that you will answer the question I was asking, and not some other, I'll state right now that there is a big difference between ignorance and incompetence. Ignorance = lacking knowledge or understanding of something. Incompetence = lacking knowledge or understanding of something, and insisting on doing it anyway without first obtaining knowledge/understanding. They are two entirely different things and the situation described here is incompetence.
That's the stupidest thing I've read all day. Do you think my father understands search engine rankings?
He doesn't have to understand search engine rankings. All he needs to do is realize that he doesn't understand them. That is sufficient to not place too much trust in them.
Why do people keep implying that insisting that immigrants come here legally (and in this case, discussing what that will mean) is the same thing as insisting that they are unwelcome? Do you not see the dishonesty of that?
Saying that this is a "land of immigrants", while true, is also irrelevant since no one is trying to prove that it isn't. The issue being settled is the duration of a visa. The argument is how much time is needed to realize the stated purpose of the visa. You first have to have immigrants (more like visitors, in this case) who are welcome here before there is a question of how long they may stay.
You have to be kidding. I've seen enough crooked cops to know that can not be a good thing.
That's a good example of not acting according to your conscience. It is actually an example of ignoring your conscience; people who do this are what the law is for.
Another function that the law should serve, but tends to utterly fail to serve, is to prevent one person or group from forcing their views on others. If a "crime" consists of an adult person ingesting a substance in a responsible manner without allowing this to harm others in any way ("offending" someone because they don't like the substance does not constitute harm) and therefore this "crime" has no victim, then the law has been perverted and the injustice of this makes a mockery of what was otherwise a good institution that served a good purpose.
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I appreciate your honesty about having trolled earlier. I'll be equally direct and save you some time -- you are making a straw man argument and the rest of this post will demonstrate why.
For you, this seems to be a question of "who will wield the current total level of power and influence that is being exerted" for which there are only two possible answers: "government" or "corportions" with various euphamisms used for either or both. For me, it's more of a question of "regardless of who is wielding it, is the current level of power and influence being exerted excessive?". If the answer to that question is "yes", then it is a symptom of a deeper problem and there are serious questions about how and why we allowed things to become this way.
You speak of corporations as though they are the epitome of individualism. You don't seem to be saying it like it's your belief but rather like it's what you have always heard. I hate to break it to you, but anyone who claims that with a straight face is either a liar or an idiot. Corporate control and influence is at least as bad as when government does it and is perhaps even worse. In my last post, when I referred to the "globalist military-industrial-media-pharmaceutical-banking complex", what did you suppose I was talking about?
I don't consider the monied interests behind major corporations directing many thousands of employees to be "individualistic" in the slightest. As I've said in other discussions, I think companies are like fire; they are wonderful slaves but terrible masters. I feel the same way about government. They are both our servants but they fancy themselves our masters and for some reason we put up with it.
My idea of individualism has nothing to do with social darwinism or corporate control and everything to do with people thinking for themselves and rejecting all easy answers and efforts to tell them how they should think and what they should feel no matter the source (accomplish that and everything you mentioned will find its own balance). Furthermore, I think that's our natural state, that it took great effort and a long time to convince people to buy into this consumerist, materialist, convenience-is-everything culture of needless dependency and helplessness.
It's my belief that we allow both government and corporations to meddle in too many issues that are not properly their concern. I don't want to reduce the power of government in order to increase the power of corporations, nor do I wish to reduce the power of corporations in order to increase the power of government. Unlike the relatively narrow view you are presenting, It does not have to be a zero-sum game. I would love to see a reduction in the power of both. Both of them have any power at all because we permit it and I think somewhere along the line we've forgotten that. Both, at the same time, have been less powerful and less influential in the past and both, at the same time, can be less powerful and less influential now. The only way to arrange that is for people to stop being so passive and thoughtless and helpless and dependent; simple reform is not going to cut it.
A utopia this is not; in fact this would make life more difficult than it is now in some ways although it would be infinitely better in others. An orthodoxy it certainly is not -- I mean, think about it: what large influential organization who can establish an entire orthodoxy and get people to follow it is going to advocate that we vastly reduce the influence of large organizations and discourage people from so easily following them? You display a certain bias for thinking in terms of one orthodoxy versus another orthodoxy that I do not share. This is twice now that I've tried to tell you that what I am talking about is not what you think I am talking about; that what you think I am talking about is on the list of things I'm tired of. I really think that other people you have heard have used similar concepts because they sound good and could be twisted and misrepresented and used to justify whatever agenda was being veiled and now you are eager to dismiss me on the same grounds. That's called muddying the waters and perhaps you can appreciate how effective it is as a propaganda or "PR" tactic.
I think the prevalance of people who are faking is because of trends and the way people mindlessly follow them. This was unbelievably common when I was in school and my case was hardly an isolated one. Following a trend already means adopting someone else's idea instead of being yourself and using your own so it's excellent training for how to be plastic people who know how to present a desired image. Most of this really is cowardice of the "don't rock the boat" variety.
It's disgusting the way so many allow their style of clothing, choice of food, taste in music, manner of speech, attitude and philosophy and far too many other things to be determined by a mob mentality. This is where choices and behavior patterns have implications that people don't consider. Like so many things that are widespread, it's most certainly not the result of a careful consideration of the merits of all options. I suppose the irony is that most of these trends that are thought to be cool and original are the creations of suits with marketing degrees who would be regarded as neither by the people who follow them.
Most people are leaves in the wind who unnecessarily surrender their lives to the media, their peers, or random chance. They have neither the determination nor the courage to learn to take responsibility for their actions which is why they want so badly to believe that they can work with what they do not understand and somehow obtain a good result (nowhere is this more obvious than computers and networking). They get suprised by eventualities and foreseeable circumstances. They do not act deliberately, with an appreciation for the Law of Unintended Consequences and a clear sense of purpose but instead they act on whim in a helter-skelter fashion and things "just happen". They don't understand the difference between causing a problem and allowing a problem to happen when they have the power to avoid both. They don't understand the concept of due diligence or they assume that it somehow doesn't apply to them. They are victims and subjects when they could choose to be bystanders and citizens. And it's always someone else's fault.
So yeah, you could say I'm not crazy about the status quo and the cowardice and the fakers. I used to find it a constant irritant before I learned to accept that people must live their lives the way they see fit. I still don't like it one bit, but I have decided that I needn't allow the poor decision-making of other people to bring negativity into my life. I suppose my remaining objection is that I live in a constitutional republic and I don't desire the kind of government that they deserve, which seems inevitable.
From your two posts, it sounds like we agree far more than we disagree.
You very well might be right, but I wouldn't be too quick to judge that one.
I'll give an analogy. It may be a poor one but hopefully it'll illustrate my point. Let's say you have a video game, something a lot like Second Life but assume that the money in this game is completely in-game and has no ties whatsoever to real-life currency (and in this way, it would be unlike Second Life). In that game you decide to go into serious debt by spending many thousands of virtual "dollars" that your character doesn't really have to buy a sports car that your character can't really afford. It's just a game, so who cares? If you decide that doing the same thing in real life is a bad idea, does that make you a coward? Is it necessary to feel an emotion of fear and run away in terror from the idea of doing the same thing in real life, or could you not decide against it with a simple cost-benefit analysis?
Real life is full of people who refuse to allow pesky facts to get in the way of what they want to believe. People whom you won't convince of anything no matter how much unnecessary flak you are willing to take to try to do it. People who will be more concerned about feeling right and saving face than learning and increasing their wisdom. The Internet is full of such people as well; the difference is that it is much easier to reach a wider audience, increasing your chances of communication with people who have gotten over themselves and their silly pettiness (yes, they are out there). The Internet, compared to real life, is much more of a free-for-all of ideas where it is often understood that expecting to never be offended or challenged is unrealistic.
It's not absurd that someone might use different standards for online interaction and meatspace interaction. Can there be cowardly motives for this? Certainly. Are all possible motives for this based on fear? Not a chance.
I've actually never read any of Rand's works, although a few people on Slashdot seem to think it's the ultimate "hah, I sure told him off!" to mention her instead of refuting what I say. Perhaps I will pick up one of her works just to see what all the fuss is about. At any rate, nothing is easier than calling something half-baked and tripe without ever explaining your implied superior point of view that makes you say so. If you were expecting me to start "defending my good name" from the labels you've tried to apply, you will be disappointed. I will merely see whether you will accept my challenge to tell me why you believe I am wrong. If you cannot or will not, then I know all I need to know about your position. If you will do that, and if you do a good job, perhaps I will learn something new or discard a false belief that I thought was true, in which case you would have my gratitude.
I certainly don't need Rand or anyone else to see with my own eyes that there is such a thing as ego and that overcoming it to explore new possibilities is not what the collectivists have in mind. They don't want to explore something new; they want to repeat an idea that is very old, which is absolute state power. The only reason why I mention the difference at all is because some people actually seem to think that surrendering their identity to a powerful State is a good idea, as though this has never been tried before. It's funny really, because we universally denounce the likes of Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini because of their cruelty and ruthlessness without ever cultivating an understanding of how they came to be and how their ideas were sold to the people. I really believe that America with its "can't happen here" mentality is in for a terrible wake-up call. The Founding Fathers certainly believed that it "can happen here" and warned us repeatedly to guard against it.
My reason for saying that our leaders have a statist, collectivist agenda is quite simple. As time passes, the USA federal government continues to increase in both size and power. It is continuing to do so today and the "War on Terror" is providing a fantastic excuse although several have been used. It is showing no signs of reversing this trend, and this trend has been the case since at least the beginning of the 20th century. You simply don't perpetuate a century-long trend by accident. The reason why we were warned not to trade liberty in exchange for a little temporary security is because you never, ever get that liberty back. What you call the evening news can also be viewed as an exercise in "Problem, Reaction, Solution" which is also known as "Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis".
If you really believe that my "ideology" is in control, it's because you don't remotely understand it. If these matters were up to me, the American people would go back to being fiercely independent, relatively self-sufficient, and difficult to govern because this globalist military-industrial-media-pharmaceutical-banking complex is benefitting the very few at the expense of the very many. If you absolutely insist on identifying me with an author, you should know that this will never give you a terribly accurate picture, but if you must do it anyway, then read the works of Henry David Thoreau to get a better idea of what I believe.
I am willing to give you the benefit of a doubt and assume that you are not merely trolling. I'd prefer to assume you are not trolling and write a few paragraphs and be wrong and let you get your jollies, than to assume that you are trolling and miss out on hearing a different point of view. I hope that you do take the time to read this and respond, as I very well might learn something.
Suppose you have the kind of criminals who would break into your house and pose a threat to you and your family. Suppose those criminals do in fact break into someone's house. If they run away from you, shooting them is probably not self-defense. However, whether they run away from you or not, shooting them is a favor to society.
Rather than worry about what is and is not self-defense, and what is or is not excessive force and expecting a scared homeowner to make this determination in the middle of the night, It should simply be understood that if you do certain things, you are voluntarily surrendering your right to personal safety. Certain things like forcibly breaking into someone's house. There probably should be a different set of rules for when you are out in public, but it should be unambiguously understood that if you trespass into someone else's property, break into and enter their home, and threaten their family, then you are 100% completely responsible for everything that happens next and the homeowner has complete legal immunity no matter what happens to you. Enable that standard and suddenly this type of break-in will become less common.
I made a similar determination although I did not have to use it until high school. Once that type of person realizes that you're not an easy mark, that you will defend yourself at all costs, they usually find someone else to fuck with because deep down they are opportunistic cowards. They don't want to go toe-to-toe and battle someone; they want someone who will meekly submit (this is the same reason why violent crime has significantly reduced in every state which has allowed conceal-carry permits).
I will not comment on what I experienced or did not experience, but I can tell you the general effect of the "punish everyone involved" mentality. Almost everyone decided that if they were going to be punished whether they merely fended off the attacker or whether they knocked the living shit out of him, they chose the latter option. So, the opportunity to learn by experience a real-world skill like understanding the correct use of restraint was wasted, all in the name of feel-good policies that actually increased the viciousness of most fights rather than reduced it. The lessons we should have learned from Prohibition apply to much more than drugs and alcohol, yet one would think that understanding neither them nor human nature in general is a job requirement for every position of authority.
At least in the USA, what began by being taught in public schools is now becoming further institutionalized as entire generations grow up under absurd standards like these. For example, in the public schools, someone can physically attack you without provocation and if you defend yourself, you are punished and your punishment is equal to theirs for attacking you. This is true no matter how well-established it is that the other person started the fight. The rank-and-file teachers and administrators who go along with this are what you might call "true believers" who think that all use of force is wrong, including those cases where you are attacked and have no choice but to defend yourself. This serves to deny personal responsibility in the case of the attacker (the idea that if you attack someone unprovoked, what happens next is on your head) and fosters that damned victim mentality that is so prevalent these days in the case of the defender. Of course this is insanity, which is why they start such policies at a young age. Not because children don't know injustice when they see it, but because they are less able to resist it and instead they become callous to it.
I can think of two major reasons for this mentality and for why it would spread from government schools to society at large. First of all, the state wants to have a monopoly on the use of force no matter how justified that use of force is. Someone who is armed and willing and legally able to defend his own home and his own family might not feel as dependent on government as a helpless victim who cowers in a corner hoping that the cops show up soon. "Government to the rescue" is big, big business these days and helpless, timid people are so much easier to govern.
The other major reason is that there is a sort of war being waged against the concept of individuality and it's not because we have transcended ego boundaries but because our leaders have a statist, collectivist agenda. That's why the news media loves to bring up race and social status and religion and sexual orientation even when they are otherwise irrelevant to the story, because these are group identities. They are trying to teach you, by constantly reinforced example, to think in terms of groups, not individuals. This is why political candidates worry about "the black vote" and "the hispanic vote" and "the elderly vote" instead of telling us why they believe they have superior ideas that would apply equally to everyone (something you'd rationally expect from government). It's hard to think of something more individualistic than defending yourself, your home, and your family instead of waiting for "the professionals" to come along and do it for you.
It is only our self-importance that would lead us to think that anything discussed here has real significance. By contrast to what is "out there" and available to be experienced by the human perception in this mysterious universe, all topics on Slashdot are quite mundane. The real value of the site is that there are a lot of people here who have good sense and take relatively wise positions on questions of freedom, choice, markets and monopolies, personal responsibility, and technology. This value occurs in spite of the mundane nature of the topics, not because of it; therefore to point out that this complaint or that summary or these trolls or those topics have "no real significance" is to miss the point.
There is no scorecard here, and to keep track of one would be vanity. That my little comment may have contributed in some small way to the fact that other moderators have decided to mod those posts up is a joy, especially since I say whatever I say without needing to have that happen at all, so it is most difficult to disappoint me. But that too isn't the point. That someone, somewhere may have decided to more carefully consider what they do and why they do it, instead of just going along with a knee-jerk type of reaction is what matters more to me, whether they actually decide to do what I would have done or not.
It has one additional effect. Once you realize that they're a bunch of lying sacks of shit when it comes to one set of laws, who will tell you anything they think you'll believe in order to get you to accept their dreams of increased state power, well, once you realize that it erodes the entire concept of generally having respect for the law. You can respect the law when it serves its purpose, which is to prevent any person or group from depriving another person or group of their rights without due process (that is the criminal law's sole legitimate purpose, by the way). You cannot rationally respect anything that is routinely abused and made into a tool to further someone's authoritarian, collectivist agenda.
This was a politely worded post. You worded this in a non-inflammatory manner and explained why you feel the way that you do, did not use invectives or name-calling and did not even take a very controversial position, and yet you were still modded as Troll. This is one of the better statements on the recent quality of Slashdot moderation that I've seen in a while. You point out that they were not applying the moderating guidelines and they respond by failing to apply them some more, without ever explaining why they disagree with you because they probably realize they would not have a leg to stand on. I'm fully expecting to get modded to -1 myself for pointing this out, but that's okay. I have karma to burn and I'll feel better for having done it since I believe this sort of bullshit needs to be called out wherever it occurs.
There's just no way that what you said could explain why third parties generally have not won any major federal elections for generations. If what you pointed out were the only problem, then someone somewhere would have gotten it right. I can understand if you don't want to believe it and prefer rationalization in order to explain it away but it's really quite simple: there is a deliberate, concerted effort to control access to media and funding and to frame debates (mostly in the form of false dichotomies) and to marginalize anyone who might otherwise threaten to change the status quo. There is no "smoky back room conspiracy" needed. The only thing needed is the understanding that politicians do not want to give up their power and will take steps to entrench that power whenever they have the opportunity (for an unrelated example, see "gerrymandering"). They are not really "conspiring" to do it any more than the thousands of employees at Microsoft are "conspiring" to produce Windows products; it's what they set out to accomplish and it takes either a fool or a lot of denial to fail to recognize this.
I consider that in politics, the two major parties serve the same function that guilds used to serve in commerce. The purpose of a guild was to lock out competition by raising the barrier to entry. That the two major parties serve this function is why you generally never see minor parties win any elections beyond the local level, because if you aren't either a Democrat or a Republican, you don't get the media time and the campaign donations and the political support that it takes to win major elections.
For some reason, we recognize that a monopoly or a duopoly is bad for everyone when it comes to commerce/money, but we do not seem to realize that this is even more true when it comes to political power. This is absurd considering that political power is even worse than money when it comes to what people will and won't do in order to obtain it. There are no major philosophical differences between the two major parties when it comes to the question of what is the proper role of government. They both want to expand the power and size of government; the only "debate" is how to go about it and which reasons should justify it. That there is no longer any real difference between them is why the presidential election has to be this big dog-and-pony show that is dragged out to take up months and months of time, because this is necessary to take very tiny differences and make them sound like distinctive features.
That doesn't mean that everyone else will ignore the troll. You, the site administrator, can decide not to respond. However, if you have X number of users, it only takes a very small fraction of X to keep that troll going, and depending on what kind of forum you have, allowing the troll to persist could be interpreted as apathy or acceptance of what they are doing. So yes, if they are there just to cause trouble then banning them is not unreasonable at all.
It would be more like a government to implement your idea while retaining the fuel tax. Not to mention I'm not crazy about the idea about making it easy for the government to collect yet more information.
I realize it's extremely widespread, and is in fact THE prevalent view of life on earth. However, I just don't share this idea that people need to be told what they need and what they should and shouldn't want. I am also unconcerned with the fact that our economy might collapse or suffer if everyone agreed with me about this, since advertising and consumerist culture is such a big part of it; to me, if that happened, it would be because it was built on a faulty foundation to begin with. Note, I am not against businesses or marketplaces in the slightest, but I believe that the proper role of these artificial constructs is to serve and respond to people, not the other way around. If I am against anything, I am against people being so sheeplike and so easily led and so thoughtless that glossy ads matter more to them than sincere inquiry. I can certainly see that most people allow this to happen and that many of them might even believe this to be convenient. "Average" or not, if a person makes an assessment of what is available and finds something that he really likes that meets his needs, good for him. If he fails to find such a thing, that is not my concern unless he asks for my assistance. If he cannot be bothered to look, that is a personal shortcoming that must be resolved by that person.
Most of the rest of your post seems to assume that there must be this big contest, a struggle for domination of the desktops of the world. Either Linux displaces Microsoft and wins the day, or Linux fades away and Microsoft retains their iron grip. I can see how Microsoft might feel that way, but I am not Microsoft, nor do I own any of their stock (nor would I allow it to compromise my refusal to get caught up in another silly us-against-them group identity if I did). That you ask me to "stop being schizophrenic" because I can happily accept that Linux might be a terrible choice for you and might utterly fail to meet your needs amuses me, since I do not assume that what satisfies me must also satisfy you.
I have no need to convert anyone, nor would I easily respect a person who completely changed his preferences just because I told him I believe it's a good idea. I like what I like and I have reasons for that which I am glad to share with other people, but this does not mean that what they use is my decision. When I say that Windows is compromised because it is primarily market-driven (that is, designed to make money), it's because there is something of a conflict of interest between developing the finest software you can possibly create and minimizing your costs in order to make more profit. As a business decision, it makes little difference to you whether users absolutely love your product or whether they are merely not annoyed with it enough to switch to something else, so long as you can make sales and move product and satisfy shareholders. This is true whether Linux takes over the desktop or not.
The difference is that ignorant people know that they are ignorant, stupid people don't. I am ignorant about brain surgery; therefore, you don't see me cutting open skulls and attempting to remove brain tumors because I know that I am ignorant about brain surgery. I do not attempt to rebuild the engine in my car, because I know I do not have the skill to do it correctly. I do not try to build a rocket because I know I am ignorant about rocket science. I realize that trying to perform a complex task that I do not remotely understand is almost certainly going to be a disaster. I realize that my three choices are 1) do not perform the complex task or 2) ask/hire/beg the assistance of someone who does have the skill or 3) obtain information/education/training until I am knowledgable enough to correctly and confidently perform the complex task.
Stupid people assume that they know how to correctly administer a system (be it Windows, Linux, OSX, whichever) as evidenced by the fact that they choose to do so. They are stupid because it never occurs to them that perhaps they should educate and inform themselves about how the system should work and how it should be secured and what type of content should not be trusted. It does not cross their mind that until they reach a level of proficiency, perhaps they should seek advice or assistance from a reputable source or do some research. They are stupid because security warning after security warning, some of which even make the mainstream news, still does not instill in them a sense of caution. They are stupid because informing yourself can sometimes involve time and hard work, while satisfying their laziness and impatience and desire for instant gratification is more important to them than doing the job correctly. They are stupid because they can somehow manage to use a system for years without understanding the basic principles of how it works.
I am not necessarily disagreeing with you, at all. I just see a great deal of confusion that is causing many people to defend what amounts to gross negligence. Yes, ignorance is curable, but ignorance realizes it had choices to make. Stupidity doesn't.
That the Linux community is not a marketing machine is 100% a Good Thing to me. I would probably end up enjoying Linux less if there were a corporate financial interest that competed with the community's current interest in producing useful software (of course if you WANT corporate support you can do that too via Redhat and others, it just isn't necessary with Linux). In a nutshell, that's Windows' biggest problem; the company is run by marketing and not by software engineering. You do realize that the primary purpose of Windows is to make money for Microsoft and its shareholders and that any benefit or usefulness to you is entirely secondary to that primary purpose, right? At fulfilling its primary purpose, Windows has been phenomenally successful. At being useful to me (keywords: "to me"), Windows has been substandard and I am glad to use a better alternative. Linux satisfies my computing needs and it does so whether most other people use Windows or not, so why would I care about marketing? This is a real question, I'd like to see your answer.
If you are so easily frightened, I bet you have one hell of a time on Halloween.
Why is it that anytime a large organization abuses its power/influence and Slashdot calls them on it, there are always those like you who rush in to defend said organization? I realize you're probably not really an employee and are probably not a paid shill; however, the reason why such accusations come up from time to time is that it otherwise doesn't make sense.
I'll sum it up for you this way. If your business model requires expanding the power and authority of the federal government and dictating to another industry how many units they may sell (the summary mentioned restricting supplies of "optical grade polycarbonate"), then your business model is broken and deserves to fail. This is true no matter how many artists sign up with you. If "people want to buy it" then these measures are unnecessary. If people don't want to buy it then the industry needs to either fail or find something that people do want. I've read the Constitution, I couldn't find "guarantee the success of an entertainment industry" anywhere in it. People who really think this is a good idea have no clue how dangerous it is to allow government to be so blatantly controlled by a trade industry.
When you asked "What's a better business model that WORKS", that's the question the *AA's should be asking. Instead, they are asking "how can we use government to guarantee the success of our current business model" which is the problem.
You say that as though you doubt the inevitability of it. My bet is that they're already doing this in a clandestine way and are seeking to retroactively legitimize it like they did with the telecoms' cooperation with the wiretaps.
It seems obvious to me that our news services are compromised, otherwise we would hear about how these things are a threat to our freedoms. Instead, all we hear is the party line about how all of these things are necessary to protect us from $vaguely_identified_enemy, with a single sentence along the lines of "but some groups express privacy concerns" thrown in to give an appearance of balance. Never is there a detailed outline of why "some groups" have "privacy concerns" about a government that is becoming increasingly authoritarian and knows more and more about you, or the fact that we were warned about this precise condition by the Founding Fathers. None of that is going to appear on CNN or Fox News, and if either were worth a damn it would.
The "pre-owned" label is rather amusing because it's so silly and redundant. When you buy a new car, the dealership obviously has to own it or else they would not have the legal right to sell it to you. Therefore, new cars are also "pre-owned".
But that machine didn't just magically materialize out of thin air and set itself up as an open, unsecured access point and advertise this fact to anyone who will listen and hand out IP addresses to all comers as a product of random chance. A human being put that machine there, and either set it up that way or (if that is the default configuration) allowed it to remain set up that way.
Here is my question: Why is there always a veiled effort to pretend like people are somehow not responsible for the configuration and operation of the equipment that they chose to buy and use of their own free will? If someone wants to buy a wireless router without learning what it does and how to configure it according to his wishes, he should be free to do so. If this produces results that are not to his liking, what right would he have to complain about a situation that he had 100% control over from the beginning? Does this really make sense to you?
I really want someone to explain this to me. I have asked for an explanation of this mentality in the past, and so far no one has managed to actually answer the question I was asking. To hopefully increase the chances that you will answer the question I was asking, and not some other, I'll state right now that there is a big difference between ignorance and incompetence. Ignorance = lacking knowledge or understanding of something. Incompetence = lacking knowledge or understanding of something, and insisting on doing it anyway without first obtaining knowledge/understanding. They are two entirely different things and the situation described here is incompetence.
He doesn't have to understand search engine rankings. All he needs to do is realize that he doesn't understand them. That is sufficient to not place too much trust in them.
Why do people keep implying that insisting that immigrants come here legally (and in this case, discussing what that will mean) is the same thing as insisting that they are unwelcome? Do you not see the dishonesty of that?
Saying that this is a "land of immigrants", while true, is also irrelevant since no one is trying to prove that it isn't. The issue being settled is the duration of a visa. The argument is how much time is needed to realize the stated purpose of the visa. You first have to have immigrants (more like visitors, in this case) who are welcome here before there is a question of how long they may stay.
That's a good example of not acting according to your conscience. It is actually an example of ignoring your conscience; people who do this are what the law is for.
Another function that the law should serve, but tends to utterly fail to serve, is to prevent one person or group from forcing their views on others. If a "crime" consists of an adult person ingesting a substance in a responsible manner without allowing this to harm others in any way ("offending" someone because they don't like the substance does not constitute harm) and therefore this "crime" has no victim, then the law has been perverted and the injustice of this makes a mockery of what was otherwise a good institution that served a good purpose.