You have a good point...Perhaps if they deemed the drug to be critical enough, the governments of whatever nations were involved could try to compensate the original pharmaceutical company for its losses? I'm not sure how much the company would need/want and how much the government(s) would be able to give in compensation, so I can't say for sure if that would be feasible.
Yes, but as the US tends to be the world policeman of IP law, retribution might come in the form of threats to stop defending them. There are, however, a couple of reasons the US probably wouldn't do this, which I described in a response to the parent post.
Whether they're successful at reducing crime or saving lives is irrelevant if they violate basic rights. The strategy mentioned in the article and the two that I mentioned all could do that, but I wouldn't support any of them.
>>At least I live in Britain, which hasn't got all these civil rights reducing measures...quite yet....You're joking, right? Maybe you don't have this specific rights-reduction, but I'd say surveillance cameras all over the place and a handgun ban are pretty bad.
Just because things are worse somewhere else doesn't mean that no one should try to make things better. "Well, things are even worse over HERE" is a meaningless response. I'm certain that someone in an even more unstable nation on a 28.8k modem would find your complaints ridiculous... A starving person in a war-torn African country would probably wonder why we spend all this time online when we can live without having to worry about food.
Now, saying that there are more important issues that the US needs to take care of first would make sense.
The problem with that is that Microsoft isn't going to be satisfied with only running Windows on the desktops of non-techies. They're actively trying to make life harder for people who don't use their product with, to use the cliche, FUD. If the administration at a college or technical school has been told that Linux is insecure and that Firefox comes bundled with spyware* , they're going to be paranoid about anyone using it on the network. Even if most people don't have the proficiency to use Linux, they should at least know that it is a valid and secure operating system, that many geeks like to use it, and that it's not going to slot things up.
*I have actually heard this accusation from another person offline, after I installed Firefox on a computer. A closer investigation proved it was all the "free games" people had downloaded.
>>If the number of votes a state has in the electoral college is directly related to its population, then how can states in the bible belt have any more power than states like california and new york?
Because there are more of them, obviously...And some of them aren't as barren as some people seem to think.
You forgot the three debates about evolution that get spawned every time a story like this comes along, and the twenty Flying Spaghetti Monster posts from people who still think it's funny.
Primates are a bit closer to us to start with, though...And we already know that many of them WILL emulate us (chimps do it all the time). Gorillas learning how to use tools from watching humans is much more believable than the mouse story.
Only one of the Space Monkies was a gorilla, though, and he wasn't exactly the brightest one. I think we'd do fine against gorillas in space...As long as they didn't get help from schizophrenic oragutang technology. We'd have to bring in the Fox then.
Well, since he didn't really make any argument beyond saying that the article was wrong, and did so in an incredibly blunt manner, it's a flame at best. At worst, a troll targeting a (largely) atheistic/agnostic audience.
If he'd said something more like "Well, you're assuming evolution is more than a theory..." there'd be some validity to your claim. (and, admittedly, you'd probably still be making it, because an offended atheist/agnostic would have modded his post down anyway)
We could eliminate them if we chose, and we can plan ahead to avoid disasters or to bend nature to our will in ways that they can't, at the moment, come close to imagining.
If we were thrown back to the "ape's forest", some of us would survive, and civilization would rebuild itself to its current level long before apes had managed to advance significantly.
Well, if you actually gave them genuine reason to believe you were violating copyrights, winning the case wouldn't make as much of a point as if they had sued you using something vague and pointless, like amount of data transferred over a p2p network.
I've been wondering when someone would trade several hundred gigabytes of legit stuff from a monitored connection, just to set up the RIAA for a smackdown.
If they're installing homebrew software, they probably weren't interested in the "real" games to begin with. I very much doubt they'd start playing real games if Sony managed to kill homebrewing, out of spite for Sony if nothing else.
This is what it would be like if Apple started complaining about PPC Linux taking marketshare away from OS X.
Community Internet isn't necessarily Government-owned Internet. Here, it's run by a local company that gets most of its revenue from Cable TV as a service for the town. The local government endorses and promotes them because it's better for the community, but they don't own the network.
If you really think about it, you could consider many civitan and church activities that are designed to help the community with minimal or no personal gain "communist". The average American's main complaint with Cold War Communism is the intense Government control and elimination of religion and culture that comes along with it. Neither of those is really relevant to Open Source, or cheap municipal Internet service.
This is how broadband was introduced to the mid-sized towns (10k-30k population) in my region a few years back. Service has been much better than I've heard delivered from the big ISPs; I've only had one or two downtimes and they only lasted a few minutes...Though I did end up having to show the cable guy how to configure a network connection properly. All he knew was "ipconfig".
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You have a good point...Perhaps if they deemed the drug to be critical enough, the governments of whatever nations were involved could try to compensate the original pharmaceutical company for its losses? I'm not sure how much the company would need/want and how much the government(s) would be able to give in compensation, so I can't say for sure if that would be feasible.
Yes, but as the US tends to be the world policeman of IP law, retribution might come in the form of threats to stop defending them. There are, however, a couple of reasons the US probably wouldn't do this, which I described in a response to the parent post.
Well, I think our government would rather them violate a few IP laws for humanitarian reasons than put more resources at China's disposal.
Whether they're successful at reducing crime or saving lives is irrelevant if they violate basic rights. The strategy mentioned in the article and the two that I mentioned all could do that, but I wouldn't support any of them.
They have their priorities straight. Stopping a potential pandemic is more important than not stepping on a businessman's toes.
>>At least I live in Britain, which hasn't got all these civil rights reducing measures...quite yet. ...You're joking, right? Maybe you don't have this specific rights-reduction, but I'd say surveillance cameras all over the place and a handgun ban are pretty bad.
Just because things are worse somewhere else doesn't mean that no one should try to make things better. "Well, things are even worse over HERE" is a meaningless response. I'm certain that someone in an even more unstable nation on a 28.8k modem would find your complaints ridiculous... A starving person in a war-torn African country would probably wonder why we spend all this time online when we can live without having to worry about food.
Now, saying that there are more important issues that the US needs to take care of first would make sense.
The problem with that is that Microsoft isn't going to be satisfied with only running Windows on the desktops of non-techies. They're actively trying to make life harder for people who don't use their product with, to use the cliche, FUD. If the administration at a college or technical school has been told that Linux is insecure and that Firefox comes bundled with spyware* , they're going to be paranoid about anyone using it on the network. Even if most people don't have the proficiency to use Linux, they should at least know that it is a valid and secure operating system, that many geeks like to use it, and that it's not going to slot things up. *I have actually heard this accusation from another person offline, after I installed Firefox on a computer. A closer investigation proved it was all the "free games" people had downloaded.
>>If the number of votes a state has in the electoral college is directly related to its population, then how can states in the bible belt have any more power than states like california and new york?
Because there are more of them, obviously...And some of them aren't as barren as some people seem to think.
You forgot the three debates about evolution that get spawned every time a story like this comes along, and the twenty Flying Spaghetti Monster posts from people who still think it's funny.
Primates are a bit closer to us to start with, though...And we already know that many of them WILL emulate us (chimps do it all the time). Gorillas learning how to use tools from watching humans is much more believable than the mouse story.
Only one of the Space Monkies was a gorilla, though, and he wasn't exactly the brightest one. I think we'd do fine against gorillas in space...As long as they didn't get help from schizophrenic oragutang technology. We'd have to bring in the Fox then.
Well, since he didn't really make any argument beyond saying that the article was wrong, and did so in an incredibly blunt manner, it's a flame at best. At worst, a troll targeting a (largely) atheistic/agnostic audience. If he'd said something more like "Well, you're assuming evolution is more than a theory..." there'd be some validity to your claim. (and, admittedly, you'd probably still be making it, because an offended atheist/agnostic would have modded his post down anyway)
"'Advanced'? How are we more advanced?"
We could eliminate them if we chose, and we can plan ahead to avoid disasters or to bend nature to our will in ways that they can't, at the moment, come close to imagining.
If we were thrown back to the "ape's forest", some of us would survive, and civilization would rebuild itself to its current level long before apes had managed to advance significantly.
Isn't that similar to one Judeo-Christian interpretation of how humans began using tools, that we were taught by the "nephilim"?
Well, if you actually gave them genuine reason to believe you were violating copyrights, winning the case wouldn't make as much of a point as if they had sued you using something vague and pointless, like amount of data transferred over a p2p network.
Technically, to be a martyr, he'd have to lose. Otherwise he's a hero, which is just about as good. :)
I've been wondering when someone would trade several hundred gigabytes of legit stuff from a monitored connection, just to set up the RIAA for a smackdown.
You'd lose that bet.
If they're installing homebrew software, they probably weren't interested in the "real" games to begin with. I very much doubt they'd start playing real games if Sony managed to kill homebrewing, out of spite for Sony if nothing else. This is what it would be like if Apple started complaining about PPC Linux taking marketshare away from OS X.
Yeah, but are any people NOT going to buy a PSP because of homebrewing? The benefit isn't great, but I don't see any damage.
I think you kinda created a bastard child of DRM and DMCA. Digital Millenium Confiscation, perhaps?
Community Internet isn't necessarily Government-owned Internet. Here, it's run by a local company that gets most of its revenue from Cable TV as a service for the town. The local government endorses and promotes them because it's better for the community, but they don't own the network.
If you really think about it, you could consider many civitan and church activities that are designed to help the community with minimal or no personal gain "communist". The average American's main complaint with Cold War Communism is the intense Government control and elimination of religion and culture that comes along with it. Neither of those is really relevant to Open Source, or cheap municipal Internet service.
This is how broadband was introduced to the mid-sized towns (10k-30k population) in my region a few years back. Service has been much better than I've heard delivered from the big ISPs; I've only had one or two downtimes and they only lasted a few minutes...Though I did end up having to show the cable guy how to configure a network connection properly. All he knew was "ipconfig".