Can you cite a source for this claim and not just 1 anecdote?
Here you go. You could probably get a lot more from reading the other "Prime Palavers" and the slashdotarticles discussing those, but my hunch is that you won't bother. If you'd like to prove my hunch wrong, there's also a fewmorepeople out there with the same experience as Baen.
How about libraries? How do these fit in with your theory of "if you want it, you need to pay for it"? And what is the difference, if any, between loaning a book from a library and downloading it off the Internet?
As an aside, my local library now has e-books as well as audiobooks and music available over the Internet for anyone with a library card.
Thank you dear pirate, sir, both for the nice spam and the very graphic description of the differences between piracy, copyright infringement and filesharing. Oh, and definately find a publisher.
Yeah, I remember him from Kuro5hin, where he among other things claimed that his AI could predict terrorist attacks. Got a few of us riled up (not that that's especially hard). Sadly, that story never made it, but some of his otherstories did.
Unless you believe that morality is god-given (and if you do, I'm sorry for you), you have to realize that morality and ethics are relative to a society. That's what I was saying a few post backs when I couldn't stop myself from jumping in on you and your piss-poor "I spend hours everyday studying moral philosophy" attitude.
You claimed that you "didn't mandate the government, so it has no right to tax me", which is just plain silly. You did mandate the government by not putting another one in it's place. Inaction is just as much a (moral) action as is action.
You also claim that you "won't protest if [you] don't receive services" if you just could not pay taxes, and I can only surmise that you're not old enough to pay income tax and that you have no children. Maybe you haven't ever been sick enough to need medical attention either. My bet is you would protest a great deal if you didn't get those services.
Finally, and here might be the root of the problem, I think you have a skewed view of what the government is (which is not unusal in Americans). You talk about "them" and "it" and "he" as if it were somehow an opponent. Aren't you a part of a society governed by your government, which is comprised of members of your society? Which means "the government" is just the ones of us who governs us.
Anyway, the government, since it's a part of our society and since it's the job we've appointed them, have every right to prevent your and Amazon's trade. That's not infringeing on your freedom, it's what you are paying them to do, and hence not immoral or evil.
As I said previously, [morality and ethics] are the same thing
Aaand there you go again. How can you be a student of moral philosophy if you just plain refuse to learn?
From the link on ethics:
Ethics and morals are respectively akin to theory and practice. Ethics denotes the theory of right action and the greater good, while morals indicate their practice. "Moral" has a dual meaning. The first indicates a person's comprehension of morality and his capacity to put it into practice. In this meaning, the antonym is "amoral", indicating an inability to distinguish between right and wrong. The second denotes the active practice of those values. In this sense, the antonym is "immoral", referring to actions that violate ethical principles.
Since I have to accept that you can in fact read, I'll have to surmise that you sticking to your so called arguments is because you're stupid.
As for taking part and interacting with the rest of the people, that ought to remain voluntary.
Aah, keep wishing. When you grow up, you'll see that being part of society is not that bad after all, and that paying taxes really isn't such an affront. But seeing your.sig, I guess I might be hoping for too much.
If I sent you a poem everyday and took $10 from you, by force, in exchange, you would not see this as moral. The fact that we both belong to the group of slashdot users doesn't justify anything, nor would I be justified to require that you stop using slashdot if you don't abide by the rule, nor would it be justified if the majority of slashdot user required it.
That's because there's no agreement between you and me for poems and what they cost. If we had such an agreement, not only would you not have to use force to get your $10, it would be a morally reprehensible act for me not to give them to you. As for rules of a group, it is sometimes true that you can leave a group if you don't like the rules, but what you seem to be ignoring is that sometimes it's not. For example, you cannot leave the human race, you cannot easily leave western society, and it is somewhat hard to find a place to live where you don't have to pay taxes. And if you're part of a group you can't cherrypick the rules you follow. Therefore your examples in the post I originally answered are meaningless.
I am not claiming not to be part of a society, I am claiming my participation in society has to be voluntary. Please explain how this make my argument meaningless ?
Whether you want to or not, you're part of a larger society. Volition hasn't much to do with that, and that makes the rest of your arguments (e.g. "let me not pay taxes and not recieve benefits") totally void of meaning.
I'd be glad if you explained the difference between morality and ethics, apart that one is a latin root and the other a greek root:)
No really they are the same word... you may very well use those two words to define two different concepts, but there's no standard, accepted, difference between the two.
For one who "spend hours everyday studying moral philosophy" you are frightfully ignorant. Start with thesetwo pages and then get back to me.
Unless you're claiming you're not part of any kind of society, your arguments are totally meaningless. Go study some more philosophy. Start with the difference between morality and ethics. Or, better still, lift your nose from the books and spend some time in the society you're part of. Maybe you'll see that the old saying is true, the devil IS in the details.
* The control key is found where most keyboards place the caps lock. This is the only control key on the keyboard.
* The esc key is located to the left of the 1 key; the key normally found there is at the right end of the same row.
* The delete key is located directly above the enter key; the key normally found there is the second rightmost key on the row above it. Further, this is an actual delete key, not a historically named backspace. Backspace is accessible through Fn+Delete.
* The windows/command key is located between the space bar and the alt keys, and is represented by.
Bought a Lite2 about five years ago and never looked back. Best keyboard I've ever had.
Oh, but we can, and quite often we do, as individuals. You're correct that the state cannot judge someone for fantasy crimes even though I'm sure plenty of those in power would like that very much. "Thoughtcrime is the only crime that matters", to paraphrase Winston Smith.
Does the speed frozen molasses run really differ depending on what month it is? I would have thought that once the molasses was frozen its speed would vary very little. Now, unfrozen molasses I could see running slower in the winter months than in the summer, but frozen molasses? I don't know, but it seems to me it would be just as slow any old month.
It seems to me that this would allow U.S. airstrikes to release precision-guided weapons from farther away
Just love those laser guided bombs, they're really great for righting wrongs.
You hit the target, and win the game, from bars 3,000 miles away. 3,000 miles away.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range.
-- Roger Waters, The Bravery Of Being Out Of Range
the SR-71 [...] was never successfully engaged by SAMs (or anything else, for that matter).
I love the SR-71. Really, I do. It's in my eyes the most beautiful aircraft ever. While the Swedish airforce never engaged the SR-71 for obvious reasons, they managed to intercept (and get missile lock on) it a number of times with the Viggen aircraft and, had the situation been different, could have engaged it. See for instance this post corroborated by the Swedish Air Force's own magazine here (pdf in swedish).
To the Blackbird's defense, it was slowing down to about Mach 2.5 over Sweden before punching it over the Baltic, and it flew right at the edge of the Viggen's flight envelope, but still it's an impressive feat.
the french tend to invert acronyms (for example, "OTAN" instead of "NATO")
I really, really hope you're trying to make a joke and that you don't really believe that...
The reason the French refer to NATO as OTAN is that they translate just about everything into french, so NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) becomes "Organisation du Traité de l'Atlantique Nord", i.e. OTAN.
OK, so this is most likely a naive and stupid question, but here goes (asbestos underwear: check):
Since we get the uranium and other fissiles from ore, why don't we just put the waste back into the ground - grind it down and mix it up with whatever non-fissile waste we got left over from when we took it out of the ground and pour the mix back down the hole it came from?
Or is the waste (mixed in similar proportions as it had when we mined it) significantly more radioactive than the original ore?
It would probably cost a fortune, but seeing as it wasn't an environmental hazard before we dug it out, it shouldn't be one when we put it back down after diluting it.
Ok, I'm done, you may commence explaining why I'm an idiot/not a geologist/radiologist/scientist and why this generally is a bad idea and not worth the electrons it's transmitted with:)
At 44MT, the FOAB would have been the second most powerful bomb ever detonated, coming in just after the Tsar Bomba. However, it's not quite that powerful. Not by an order of magnitude or six.
The American-made MOAB (Mother of all Bombs, or the more boring official Massive Ordnance Air Blast) weighs in at 11 tons TNT, and the Russian-made FOAB (Father of all Bombs, no official name given) weighs in at a whopping 44 tons of TNT. No, that's not kilotons or even megatons like the previous poster wrote, just plain tons. Not even close to even a puny nuclear weapon like the Hiroshima bomb (about 13 kilotons TNT). Not that I'd like to be in the neighborhood when either one of these babies goes off, though.
The psychology, philosophy and physicality of man hasn't moved on in thousands of years.
Rubbish. We are physically different from our ancestors even a few hundred years back (average height, for example), there's a whole field of psychology concerned with our psychological evolution, and you're plain ignorant of philosophy if you claim with a straight face that our philosophies haven't moved on in thousands of years.
The old saw-horse that we're no different than our caveman ancestors is simply not true. It's just another religious weapon in the fight against science.
An automated gun doesn't care. We've already got that level of distance with aerial bombing.
Hey bartender over here, two more shots and two more beers Sir turn up the TV sound, the war has started on the ground Just love those laser guided bombs, they're really great for righting wrongs You hit the target and win the game, from bars 3,000 miles away 3,000 miles away We play the game with the bravery of being out of range We zap and maim with the bravery of being out of range We strafe the train with the bravery of being out of range We gained terrain with the bravery of being out of range With the bravery of being out of range We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
- Roger Waters, The Bravery Of Being Out Of Range
Slashdot Mirror
If you'd like to prove my hunch wrong, there's also a few more people out there with the same experience as Baen.
How about libraries? How do these fit in with your theory of "if you want it, you need to pay for it"? And what is the difference, if any, between loaning a book from a library and downloading it off the Internet?
As an aside, my local library now has e-books as well as audiobooks and music available over the Internet for anyone with a library card.
Thank you dear pirate, sir, both for the nice spam and the very graphic description of the differences between piracy, copyright infringement and filesharing. Oh, and definately find a publisher.
Now please would you let me off this plank?
Is it really "piracy" if the author is the one doing the distribution? Not that I know if he's the one holding the copyright, but even so?
I'm just really tired of the lumping together of all kinds of filesharing under the heading "piracy".
Baen Free Library has had much the same experience. Give it away free, sales go up.
Oh, and here's the K5 story with his suicide note.
Truly an american icon
Unless you believe that morality is god-given (and if you do, I'm sorry for you), you have to realize that morality and ethics are relative to a society. That's what I was saying a few post backs when I couldn't stop myself from jumping in on you and your piss-poor "I spend hours everyday studying moral philosophy" attitude.
You claimed that you "didn't mandate the government, so it has no right to tax me", which is just plain silly. You did mandate the government by not putting another one in it's place. Inaction is just as much a (moral) action as is action.
You also claim that you "won't protest if [you] don't receive services" if you just could not pay taxes, and I can only surmise that you're not old enough to pay income tax and that you have no children. Maybe you haven't ever been sick enough to need medical attention either. My bet is you would protest a great deal if you didn't get those services.
Finally, and here might be the root of the problem, I think you have a skewed view of what the government is (which is not unusal in Americans). You talk about "them" and "it" and "he" as if it were somehow an opponent. Aren't you a part of a society governed by your government, which is comprised of members of your society? Which means "the government" is just the ones of us who governs us.
Anyway, the government, since it's a part of our society and since it's the job we've appointed them, have every right to prevent your and Amazon's trade. That's not infringeing on your freedom, it's what you are paying them to do, and hence not immoral or evil.
Now get off my lawn.
And if you're part of a group you can't cherrypick the rules you follow. Therefore your examples in the post I originally answered are meaningless.
Unless you're claiming you're not part of any kind of society, your arguments are totally meaningless. Go study some more philosophy. Start with the difference between morality and ethics. Or, better still, lift your nose from the books and spend some time in the society you're part of. Maybe you'll see that the old saying is true, the devil IS in the details.
Best of luck.
How can you even say that line without proper references?
Your solution is here
Bought a Lite2 about five years ago and never looked back. Best keyboard I've ever had.You're correct that the state cannot judge someone for fantasy crimes even though I'm sure plenty of those in power would like that very much. "Thoughtcrime is the only crime that matters", to paraphrase Winston Smith.
Does the speed frozen molasses run really differ depending on what month it is? I would have thought that once the molasses was frozen its speed would vary very little. Now, unfrozen molasses I could see running slower in the winter months than in the summer, but frozen molasses? I don't know, but it seems to me it would be just as slow any old month.
You hit the target, and win the game, from bars 3,000 miles away. 3,000 miles away.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range.
-- Roger Waters, The Bravery Of Being Out Of Range
I love the SR-71. Really, I do. It's in my eyes the most beautiful aircraft ever. While the Swedish airforce never engaged the SR-71 for obvious reasons, they managed to intercept (and get missile lock on) it a number of times with the Viggen aircraft and, had the situation been different, could have engaged it. See for instance this post corroborated by the Swedish Air Force's own magazine here (pdf in swedish).
To the Blackbird's defense, it was slowing down to about Mach 2.5 over Sweden before punching it over the Baltic, and it flew right at the edge of the Viggen's flight envelope, but still it's an impressive feat.
OK, so this is most likely a naive and stupid question, but here goes (asbestos underwear: check):
:)
Since we get the uranium and other fissiles from ore, why don't we just put the waste back into the ground - grind it down and mix it up with whatever non-fissile waste we got left over from when we took it out of the ground and pour the mix back down the hole it came from?
Or is the waste (mixed in similar proportions as it had when we mined it) significantly more radioactive than the original ore?
It would probably cost a fortune, but seeing as it wasn't an environmental hazard before we dug it out, it shouldn't be one when we put it back down after diluting it.
Ok, I'm done, you may commence explaining why I'm an idiot/not a geologist/radiologist/scientist and why this generally is a bad idea and not worth the electrons it's transmitted with
Gee, thanks for linking to that interesting article I HAVE NO WAY OF READING.
At 44MT, the FOAB would have been the second most powerful bomb ever detonated, coming in just after the Tsar Bomba. However, it's not quite that powerful. Not by an order of magnitude or six.
The American-made MOAB (Mother of all Bombs, or the more boring official Massive Ordnance Air Blast) weighs in at 11 tons TNT, and the Russian-made FOAB (Father of all Bombs, no official name given) weighs in at a whopping 44 tons of TNT. No, that's not kilotons or even megatons like the previous poster wrote, just plain tons. Not even close to even a puny nuclear weapon like the Hiroshima bomb (about 13 kilotons TNT). Not that I'd like to be in the neighborhood when either one of these babies goes off, though.
Here's some linkies for your clickification:
Mother of all bombs (GBU-43/B): wikipedia, Global Security, Discovery Channel snippet
Father of all bombs: wikipedia, the Guardian article, YouTube
The old saw-horse that we're no different than our caveman ancestors is simply not true. It's just another religious weapon in the fight against science.
Hey bartender over here, two more shots and two more beers
Sir turn up the TV sound, the war has started on the ground
Just love those laser guided bombs, they're really great for righting wrongs
You hit the target and win the game, from bars 3,000 miles away
3,000 miles away
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
We zap and maim with the bravery of being out of range
We strafe the train with the bravery of being out of range
We gained terrain with the bravery of being out of range
With the bravery of being out of range
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
- Roger Waters, The Bravery Of Being Out Of Range