This is a cognitive issue. Kids can't/won't string together solid thoughts, aren't entertained by people that do, and aren't rewarded for trying to do so themselves. Of course they can't imagine doing boring, old-people stuff like learning to use tools that are built around a more verbose (and demanding, and useful) form of communication. GOML!
So it's OK for people to die if they have different values from you?
*sigh*
It's OK with me if a person, in the face of plenty of workable information that could inform them otherwise, builds up a value system that - because it doesn't take reality properly into account (say, the sort of people that don't give their sick kid anti-biotics because they perceive it to be an insult to their all-powerful invisible friend who... um... by virtue of his running of the universe, would appear to be the person who made or allowed the child to be sick in the first place) - suffers some personal consequences. Ignorance of basic facts (hey! we CAN eat those sea bugs!) isn't the same as being presented with facts, and then tip-toeing around them in order to avoid the embarassment of admitting that their beliefs to the contrary appear to be X amount of nonsense) is one thing... but choosing to ignore reality or selectively embrace it because it threatens the underpinnings of your value system, which is based on fairy tales, is a willful thing. People who'd rather be weak from malnutrition than risk angering the gods by eating the "morally wrong" sort of hoofstock, and thereby be less able to tend to innocent children or the affairs of state - it's just absurd, and morally bankrupt because it's pointless hairsplitting with dire consequences.
However, these people saw several red crustaceans crawling around on the beach. They were so ingrained in societies view of what was "moral" and appropriate, that they thought the lobsters where disgusting creatures, and stayed away from them. They continued to starve, while some were eventually saved by a local Indian tribe.
And on whom, exactly, does that anecdote work? Having a small world view and no experience eating crustraceans, and not finding that source of food to be customary or even appealing enough to eat in the face of starvation... is NOT a moral issue. And to the extent that it might, even slightly be one in the context of this discussion, you're making MY point (thank you). Anyone (such as those religious-minded colonists) that MIGHT have considered, for religious reasons - rather than for rational, reality-based reasons - it to be "immoral" to stoop to eating big bugs to stay alive... well, they would be classic examples of exactly what I'm talking about: people with a poor grip on reality that allowed that mixed set of premises and ignorance to interfere with making sound value judgements. But guess what! Reality doesn't care if you starve or thrive. If you die because if mixed premises and superstitious or other spuriously formed value judgements, then... too bad!
Guy A says that stealing from the rich, selfish guy is OK, Guy B says stealing is always wrong, since it corrupts
Right. So, in reality, demonstrating to the rest of your fellow primates that you're willing to steal things from people means that you endorse stealing as a means of acquisition. You're waiving your right not to have the same thing happen to you. It's self-destructive, and simply not rational. You're looking to manufacture a gray area where there is none (at the level you chose to introduce the scenario). And more to the point, what someone "says" has nothing to do with how things actually ARE. Just because neither you, nor your guys A or B actually talked about stealing in a useful context doesn't make it right, or at least without the objective, rational (and moral) consequences: someone that shows a willingness to - outside of self defense - ignore someone else's claim to that person's life/property in turn gives up their own. Why go looking for a way to manufacture complexity where there it doesn't need to exist? What you DO about stealing, in practical terms, is another matter. But evaluating it from a moral point of view is a piece of cake.
How about euthanasia?
How about it? If you're not actually going to discuss it in moral terms - which are dictated by who wants it, to whom it's done, and under what circumstances, then you're just being sophomoric to buy a little argumentative wiggle room, and you know it. The more you actually describe the situation, the clearer the rational moral position on it becomes. You're avoiding precision in the discussion by being deliberately vague in trotting out the subject.
Or people looking for higher goals in life?
Which means what, exactly? Higher than what? I'd argue that confronting the actual, real world with reason and a thirst for an actual understanding of reality, and to enjoy your brief life all the more thusly enriched is as high a goal as you could want. Or, do you mean... scratching the compelling biological itch to reproduce, and to leave your kids with an important and useful legacy? What DO you mean? Do you mean that some people like to sit around and conjure up a fantasy world view in which magically ascending to a different state of existence that doesn't involve your brain - the very and only organ that contains "you" - would be out of a hobby if they took a deep breath and looked instead a reality? Fear of pain and death is what makes all of that other magical stuff so compelling... but the magical stuff isn't actually REAL, is it? So, building a moral framework around it is... either simply foolish (if you don't realize or haven't come to terms with your mistake), or actually, arguably evil if you know it's all BS but you're selling it to other people as a tool of influence.
You've described why your own view of reality is an objective fact that everyone could base their own morality on.
Nonsense. I've asserted that reality is what reality is, and it doesn't give a damn whether, or how well, or in what way I perceive it. The better one is equipped to grasp reality (through critical thinking, better tools like the scientific method, etc) the less that wishful/magical thinking tends to drive one's perceptions. I don't CARE if someone's born-of-ignorance (or foisted-on-them-by-supersitious-parents) misunderstanding of reality causes them to embrace the I'll-get-40-virgins-if-I-die-killing-YOU view of the world, or if someone thinks that the main reason not to rob their neighbor - rather than being the rational understanding that it's ultimately a self-destructive act - is because they're sure they'll burn in the classical Christian hell. I mean, I care in the sense that people with those world views impact my life, and their poorly-wrought decisions are something about which I may need to be aware... but I don't care, academically. That doesn't change reality. No matter how bent they are in their ability to grasp causal relationships, and no matter how fanciful/delusional they are about their pet mythology, the universe doesn't give a crap one way or the other.
There is no pre-existing blanket-o'-morality waiting for you to see it and embrace it... there's just the universe, as it sits. It's utterly ambivilant and without regard for you, and only you can bring meaning to your own existence, or squander it, etc. BUT: a moral framework based on a misunderstanding (to say nothing of a willful denial) about the nature of reality is, by its nature, flawed. I don't really care about Kant, one way or the other. You don't need to make this that complicated. When you build some BS about the universe into your approach to carrying on within the universe, you're lying to yourself and producing a value system that is, to that same degree of BS-inclusion, a failure. Will you probably still do most macro-level things in the same way? You'd think so, but not everyone does.
Reality isn't very relative. A system of values ("morality") that's grounded in reality and reason is fairly straightforward. People can (and of course, do) certainly dream up philosophical frameworks based on all-powerful invisible friends that still dole out the occasional case of childhood cancer just to keep us all on our toes, and operate as if some magic representation of your firing synapses are going to keep echoing through time after the meat computer that allowed them to come up with that bit of whimsy in the first place is being eaten by worms... but certain moral decisions that are anchored in imaginary consequences (or the lack of them) aren't "relative" - they're wrong. They may frequently overlap with a framework based on reason and reality, but they're going to suffer the rot of mixed premises, and the symptoms of that are the attempts by their holders to act in accordance with contradictions... which can't exist, and which produce sometimes tragic results.
To put it bluntly, many of these animals ARE going to die; is it better to have them die miserably by starvation and with no (or at least minimal) benefit to other animals or humans, or is it better to humanely hunt the animal (fast death) and utilize as much of the animal for benefit as possible? The answer is clear, to me. I'll admit bias, though, as I am a hunter.
I appreciate your chiming in. Of course, I'll take the liberty of fine-tuning your comment just a wee bit. Actually, ALL of these animals are going to die, and especially with the birds and small game (rabbits, etc) NONE of them die of "old age," in a nice peaceful way. Ever. If they avoid predation (hawks, bobcats, coyotes, etc) when they're especially young and tasty, they may reach the point where they are older and slow. At which point something is going to catch up with them, and rip them apart while they're quite alive. The best they can usually hope for is a quick snap of the neck, etc - very similar to the blow from a cloud lead from a shotgun, or a rifle's massive wallup.
Or, as you point out, with the populations of rabbits and deer so out of balance in some areas, there will be very little food in some seasons, and you'll have lots of animals starving and freezing to death... and still getting ripped apart by other animals as soon as they're too weak to escape from them.
And, incidentally, you're not showing bias. You're just calling it like it is.
I'm just wondering - why should you be allowed to eat healthy wild pheasants, while others have to stick to farm raised chicken?
First, I'm not "allowed" to, rather - I pay a lot of money to be able to. Most states have very high licensing fees and taxes that they extract from people who apply to hunt in their states, and which they take during the purchase of everything from ammunition to pocket knives and mosquito repellent sold in sporting goods stores. In my state, the fees collected from the DNR's licensing of hunters and the taxes collected when they spend the fortune that they do on equipment and services is one of the primary sources of revenue used to fund wildlife management, wardens, and more.
There are virtually no wild pheasant in my state. None of them are native to the U.S. Such populations as have taken up residence in the States were brought over from Asia specifically to raise as food... and they thrive in certain areas. South Dakota, for example, is now home to untold millions of birds, and the few precious weeks of the pheasant season there is one of the biggest parts of their local economy, with hunters traveling from all over the country to enjoy the scenery, the challenge, and to fill their coolers with that wonderful meat. The state governs the limits that each hunter can take, and use reporting mechanisms to keep an eye on the bird population and the terrain that supports them. You're right that our huge population could not subsist entirely on non-domesticated critter meat.
That being said... back here in my own state, we have a crushing over population of whitetail deer. It's a real problem. There are more deer on the eastern seaboard now than there were 500 years ago. Way more. Their natural predators are all but gone, and every suburban house with a line of woods behind it is just setting up another breeding habitat for more Bambis. The micro-range/density problems results in all sorts of disease and line-breeding genetic problems, and the huge population per acre tends to exacerbate problems with Lyme Disease, etc. The solution is more hunting. Things are way out of balance, and even a lot Just Love The Animals types are realizing that they'd rather see the herds thinned out with a swift shot from a talented hunter than see an animal dying from a broken back on the side of the road (with who knows what risk to the person driving the car that hit it).
In 2006, hunters in my state provided hundreds of thousands of meals to homeless shelters and other organizations that feed people who don't get enough quality protein. If I had my way and could take 15 or 20 deer per season, I'd probably end up keeping mostly loin and roasting meat, and the remaining several hundred pounds of lean, healthy meat would make fantastic sausage or stew for a LOT of hungry mouths. The problem? The very places where the deer are so overrunning the local terrain are the spots that, because of concerns for sensitive suburbanites, hunting isn't allowed. In some cases, that's a safety issue. In others, it's just poor judgement. Either way, the deer population continues to grow out of control, and the situation is dangerous and unhealthy for them and us. We could re-introduce wolves and more coyotes, but that doesn't go over too well with the soccer moms, either.
Incidentally: the wild turkey was hunted almost to extinction in the US, mostly during the Great Depression - strictly as a source of food for people out of work. And they are indeed good eating. The same modern state game agencies that us hunters fund have managed that species back into true abundance (arguably, again, over-abundance in some places). But no one is allowed to just go out and hunt them... you have to pay the state. Which makes for pretty expensive meals, by the pound. But when I'm out in the woods (picking up trash, narking on poachers, reporting things I see to the game management people, etc) I'm more than happy to take all of that overhead in stride. Hunters, through their actions and thei
I'll agree that your analysis of the traditional slashdot "um" usage is dead on, and further agree that my cavalier use of it distracts from my point... which is still the same: I wasn't getting at anything nearly as involved as you seemed to be replying to, and I simply found the GGG(whatever)P to have been a likely trolling hypocrit in the first place - simple as that. For what it's worth, I do believe he was originally bitching about my sig, and that it probably had NOTHING to do with the actual topic at hand.
You are not looking for the least harmful way of living, but simply throwing a tantrum because someone has said something that challenges your way of living.
Um, no. You're trying WAY too hard. I'm using a touch of rhetorical satire to point out that most people who elect to insert feigned outrage into a conversation are usually gigantic, annoying hypocrits.
Fuck off you redneck piece of shit. Murdering animals for sport is reprehensible. I don't want to see your bullshit on slashdot anymore.
Ah. Do you trot out the same eloquent sensibilities for people who buy a new pair of leather shoes at some point before their last pair wears out? Oh, that's fashion - that's different, I guess. And what sport is it, exactly, that you think I'm practicing? Personally, I eat the birds and other animals that I personally go out looking for and bring home to the kitchen. And for each one I cook, that's one chemical-filled, agro-biz-raised taste-free farm animal I'm NOT eating. Do you eat the worms that are sliced in half while the soy plants for your tofurkey are being cultivated? Do you stand underneath the spinning blades of a nice, Green-friendly power generating windmill and eat the birds and bats that are beaten to death and fall to the ground so that some electrons can make your Wii glow and amuse you? What? I'm being presumptuous about your habits? Huh. It's almost like I don't know you, or something. Sort of like you're spouting a bunch of condescending crap that serves only to illustrate your own ignorance, bigotry, and malice. Which is fine, and you won't see me scolding you about where you can do it. Not to be confused with your take on things. I'm so glad that you're here to serve as thought police and to be the mind-reading arbitor of activities about which you - clearly - know nothing, but about which you none the less have formed a complex, nuanced, fully contemplated opinion. I mean, how else could you arrive at such a compelling, informed, and audience-changing bit of rhetoric? It's freakin' GENIUS, man. Wow. You've worn me out, and now I need to eat some protein. What do you recommend? Chicken? No thanks. Wild pheasant is far, far healthier.
How else would you explain the people who play the lottery? Gamble at casinos? Think that out of all the millions of oppressed masses, _they_ are the ones who will live the American dream and become someone?
Um, except... people DO win the lottery, some people do win at a casino and then have the brains to get up and leave, and people who don't have everything they wish they could have aren't "oppressed." People DO live the dream. Not everyone does or is equipped to.
Human nature. Infuriating, isn't it?
Why look at it that way? I'd rather just sit back and be impressed by the people who DO invent a new process or widget that hugely benefits us all when they put it to work, or marvel at the less creative people who none the less have the discipline to just work their asses off and build something of value to improve their circumstances and leave as a legacy to their kids. That plenty of less insightful or lazy people take a sloppy stab at that sort of thing and don't get anywhere with it MAY be like gambling badly in a casino, but it's mostly just less intelligent or worldly people behaving according to their nature and experience (and idle hopes). But human nature, if you can define such a thing at all, has also provided us with refridgeration, anti-biotics, incomprehensibly cool integrated technology widgets that would be considered magic not many decades ago, and so on. It's not infuriating, it's amazing. And if someone thinks they're on to something, and end up patenting something that they don't have the wherewithal to turn into a viable part of their business... well, too bad. Some airlines fly with a lot of empty seats, lots of expensive theatrical productions play to empty theatres, and plenty of great chefs have no-one to cook for because the restaurant's on the wrong side of the street during rush hour.
The question is usually `are humans contributing to global warming`, not `is there global warming`. I don't see that an affirmative answer to the latter question is treated as being particularly controversial.
Of course there is warming. It's been happening for at least 15,000 years since the last ice age (except when it's not). That's not the point. The point is that when people push back against the Gore-type message that humans are THE (as in, THE ONLY) cause of climate change, they're called "deniers." It's absurd.
If you read onward, he's also a global warming denier. Sounds like a loyal bushie.
Is that really the best you can do? You can't conceive of any reason beyond partisan politics that someone might not have completely bought the notion that - absent humans living their lives - there wouldn't be any climate change going on? You're confusing people who think that the breathless fearmongering being used to push socializing policy agendas and a more government-centric regulatory environment is something worth resisting... with people who can't believe that human activity plays some (as yet poorly or not at all defined) role in climate shifting. That you won't bother acknowledging that reality makes you (not Pournelle) the "loyalist," rather than your own independt and critical thinker.
then all of the sudden, WalMart has it for $100 than anywhere else is legally allowed to sell it for
You're really missing the point, here. There is no "legally" going on here. This is the government getting OUT of the market, not getting into it and dictating what is and what is not a legal price. This is between a supplier and their distributors/retailers. If a manufacturer wants to make a dealer's contract contingent upon certain conditions (like not dropping below a certain price over the counter), that's between THOSE TWO PRIVATE PARTIES. If you're a retailer that doesn't like it, you just strike a deal with a competing supplier, instead.
If a retailer sells below the agreed-to price, there would be no LAW being broken, just an agreement between two private parties being broken. The retailer will have to move on to another supplier.
It's not like he's committed a violent crime or put people out of work.
This plague costs the economy billions in lost productivity, otherwise unecessary system capacity expenses... do you REALLY think that a company looking to grow and compete and hire/retain the best people at whatever they do wouldn't rather spend all of that time and energy on things directly relevent to what they DO for a living? Huge expenses - otherwise unrelated to a business's actual line of work - absolutely DO cost jobs. How many schools could better spend that money on lower tuitions or newer labs? Just think it through.
But wouldn't a far more appropriate response be to seize his assets and slap him with fines amounting to the damage he's caused?
The damage he's caused involves WAY more money than what he's collected. That he's willing to cause that sort of damage should tell you everything you need to know about the guy. He wants someone else's money, and is willing to cause damage and participate in fraud to get it. It's not very different than committing insurance fraud for cash... and then watching the rest of us pay higher premiums to cover it.
More to the point, though: he's already demonstrated a willingness to knowingly break the law and abuse other people's systems and networks. Physically stopping him from doing it again by locking him up is the only way you'll prevent him from just putting on another hat/identity and doing it again, more carefully, through a surrogate. Or "consulting" for someone else who does. What do you think he'll do at night after he clocks out of the community service work you'd rather he was doing? Hopping online somewhere, or talking someone else through doing so, and doing something he knows will generate some cash.
Eventually, Adobe licensed the app and has sold millions of copies.
*sigh*
It's not like Adobe didn't put a LITTLE bit of work into it over the years, you know? They didn't just license it, they've - for all practical purposes - completely rebuilt it over and over. If they hadn't, that which they licensed would have been totally eclipsed by products like Corel's PhotoPaint, etc. CS3 has about as much resemblance to the initial product as... well, it doesn't have much. Bridge? ACR? All of the related products like Lightroom? The HISTORY of it is a little academic, at this point (both literally and figuratively).
... stolen cars are much more likely to be carrying Bad Guys, smoke detectors owned by people who never check the batteries are less likely to notice a fire burning, and people who never cut their grass are more likely to harbor rodents and snakes. In-freakin'-sightful, I say!
the Internet "could change beyond all recognition"
Compared to, say, when those very same totalitarian-type countries didn't have internet access at all? Compared to only a few years ago when it didn't exist at all? And, will China's internet censoring actually change it, beyond all recognition, for me? Will this article or the summary change the meaning of hyperbole beyond all recognition? Places like China have been lacking free speech since before the internet existed, and they still lack it. That China was a little slow applying their cultural norm to this newer tool isn't very shocking. What's terrible is that censorship IS their cultural norm. Change that, and little things like internet filtering, or centralized political control, etc., change right along with it. This is a symptom, not the problem.
I mean, you're not really going to claim it's a viable business model to keep on charging customers for distribution as the cost of distribution approaches zero, are you?
Nope. But it's viable to charge people who want you to entertain them. And since they have the thing people want (the talent to entertain them), and are asking a price... the audience can:
1) Pay the price.
2) Walk way, indicating that a dollar a tune is too high.
3) Steal it.
The first two are reasonable. The last one isn't, and is all the MORE so when people lamely do it under the guise of somehow teaching their favorite artist some sort of lesson.
Don't like the price? Walk away. Really. Don't consume, talk about, or otherwise buzz-ify the artist whose choice of business arrangements you don't like. THAT artist will choose a different vehicle for sales, or cease to sell. If people have the intellectual honesty to not rip off what they don't feel like paying for, they'll see a system they want a lot more quickly. Many "customers" think that other things in life are more expensive than they'd like, too... but very few of those things get simply walked-away-with without consequence.
The hundreds of people that work on movies make their money from their weekly salary, and never see a penny more if the movie is popular. These people are paid regardless if the film is a work of art or paint-by-numbers dreck.
Oh, come ON! Do you really think that those people would HAVE a salaried job working in film production if the people who invest in the film (in order to make money) didn't put up the money, UP FRONT? If a production company can't get the cash flowing, NO ONE has a job in that company. Oh, and for what it's worth, people actually DO make bonuses when a production company's work does really well. Depends on the job, the company, the contract, and so on... but, having family in that business (who make salaries doing all of that beind-the-scenes stuff), I can assure you that being worth a damn and playing a good, regular role in that company's success can pay off quite well on occasion. If you just grind out crappy movies, it's an entirely different type of gig, which attracts and employs a much different grade of worker that, of course, doesn't see the more rewarding compensation because: they're not producing work of that type in the first place, or aren't energetic enough to get a gig with a company that does.
make their real money from box office attendance, not from DVDs
Speaking of companies like Pixar... that is most definitely NOT true. They make a lot of money in the theaters AND they make a lot of money in other distribution forms, as well. There are a lot of childrearing households with Toy Story DVDs that never come out of the disk changer.
11. Bands don't make real money from record sales, record companies make real money from record sales. Bands make real money from touring.
So, if you really want to inspire some people that don't always work together (just throwing a dart, here... let's say, The Chieftains along with Van Morrison) to do something that you can enjoy, you've got to convince them to go on tour together? I'm personally very happy when people that will NEVER have their lives lined up right to tour together nevertheless put up the money and time to work together in the studio and record some interesting work. They have no means whatsoever to pay for those efforts (and all of the overhead of travel, post-production, studio personnel, etc) unless they can sell the work to the audience for whom it's intended. Much great music would never happen if those circumstances couldn't be arranged and paid for. Sales of the recording is how that happens.
And... let's not forget that this isn't just about some band. Should Pixar be out "performing" the movies that it takes hundreds of people years to make, just so they don't have to fret about someone in Russia making advertising money off of setting up pirated downloads? You're right, I'm sure. For some people, their movies might indeed seem better performed live in a bar.
If the product was available in a form and at a price people were willing to pay, they would buy it.
But, they used to buy MORE than they do now. And the form in which you usually buy it (say, on a CD) remains available. What's changed is that people are no longer willing to pay what the artists ask for their recordings because they've found an easy way to rip it off, instead. The number of people who really, actually, thoughtfully are downloading pirated copies so that they have a more flexible version of something they've actually purchased... fractional, compared to the kids to just grab it because now they can, without having to actually pay for the entertainment they want.
Record companies are refusing to adopt new standards and ideas that people want. Mp3 players are things that people really really like. They also want to be able to play that song anywhere.
Unless, of course, you take into account the publisers that ARE starting to sell non-DRMed files for that exact reason. When you say "record companies," you say it like you're describing all of them accurately, and that you know exactly what they're all collectively going to be doing for the next 12 months. They're not a homogenous group, and they're busy working on it, and on retaining as customers the very artists that every seems to be happy to rip off.
song trading has went on forever. Mix tapes, trading Records or CD's etc.. has happened as long as audio tape existed. I traded Reels with friends of albums. (reel to Reel tape, way before casettes.)
And did you really have hundreds of thousands or millions or anonymous friends with whom you shared bit-accurate exact copies? Really?
Most P2P file sharing is garbage. Most people are not happy with the quality of the music they download, the id3 tags are wrong, the music is ripped with a crappy ripper (itunes or Media player) etc....
Oh, well, then that makes it OK, I guess, to rip off the really good quality stuff from someone else, then. Yeesh.
Slashdot Mirror
Think in full sentences?
Well, there's your problem, right there.
This is a cognitive issue. Kids can't/won't string together solid thoughts, aren't entertained by people that do, and aren't rewarded for trying to do so themselves. Of course they can't imagine doing boring, old-people stuff like learning to use tools that are built around a more verbose (and demanding, and useful) form of communication. GOML!
So it's OK for people to die if they have different values from you?
*sigh*
It's OK with me if a person, in the face of plenty of workable information that could inform them otherwise, builds up a value system that - because it doesn't take reality properly into account (say, the sort of people that don't give their sick kid anti-biotics because they perceive it to be an insult to their all-powerful invisible friend who... um... by virtue of his running of the universe, would appear to be the person who made or allowed the child to be sick in the first place) - suffers some personal consequences. Ignorance of basic facts (hey! we CAN eat those sea bugs!) isn't the same as being presented with facts, and then tip-toeing around them in order to avoid the embarassment of admitting that their beliefs to the contrary appear to be X amount of nonsense) is one thing... but choosing to ignore reality or selectively embrace it because it threatens the underpinnings of your value system, which is based on fairy tales, is a willful thing. People who'd rather be weak from malnutrition than risk angering the gods by eating the "morally wrong" sort of hoofstock, and thereby be less able to tend to innocent children or the affairs of state - it's just absurd, and morally bankrupt because it's pointless hairsplitting with dire consequences.
However, these people saw several red crustaceans crawling around on the beach. They were so ingrained in societies view of what was "moral" and appropriate, that they thought the lobsters where disgusting creatures, and stayed away from them. They continued to starve, while some were eventually saved by a local Indian tribe.
And on whom, exactly, does that anecdote work? Having a small world view and no experience eating crustraceans, and not finding that source of food to be customary or even appealing enough to eat in the face of starvation... is NOT a moral issue. And to the extent that it might, even slightly be one in the context of this discussion, you're making MY point (thank you). Anyone (such as those religious-minded colonists) that MIGHT have considered, for religious reasons - rather than for rational, reality-based reasons - it to be "immoral" to stoop to eating big bugs to stay alive... well, they would be classic examples of exactly what I'm talking about: people with a poor grip on reality that allowed that mixed set of premises and ignorance to interfere with making sound value judgements. But guess what! Reality doesn't care if you starve or thrive. If you die because if mixed premises and superstitious or other spuriously formed value judgements, then... too bad!
Guy A says that stealing from the rich, selfish guy is OK, Guy B says stealing is always wrong, since it corrupts
... either simply foolish (if you don't realize or haven't come to terms with your mistake), or actually, arguably evil if you know it's all BS but you're selling it to other people as a tool of influence.
Right. So, in reality, demonstrating to the rest of your fellow primates that you're willing to steal things from people means that you endorse stealing as a means of acquisition. You're waiving your right not to have the same thing happen to you. It's self-destructive, and simply not rational. You're looking to manufacture a gray area where there is none (at the level you chose to introduce the scenario). And more to the point, what someone "says" has nothing to do with how things actually ARE. Just because neither you, nor your guys A or B actually talked about stealing in a useful context doesn't make it right, or at least without the objective, rational (and moral) consequences: someone that shows a willingness to - outside of self defense - ignore someone else's claim to that person's life/property in turn gives up their own. Why go looking for a way to manufacture complexity where there it doesn't need to exist? What you DO about stealing, in practical terms, is another matter. But evaluating it from a moral point of view is a piece of cake.
How about euthanasia?
How about it? If you're not actually going to discuss it in moral terms - which are dictated by who wants it, to whom it's done, and under what circumstances, then you're just being sophomoric to buy a little argumentative wiggle room, and you know it. The more you actually describe the situation, the clearer the rational moral position on it becomes. You're avoiding precision in the discussion by being deliberately vague in trotting out the subject.
Or people looking for higher goals in life?
Which means what, exactly? Higher than what? I'd argue that confronting the actual, real world with reason and a thirst for an actual understanding of reality, and to enjoy your brief life all the more thusly enriched is as high a goal as you could want. Or, do you mean... scratching the compelling biological itch to reproduce, and to leave your kids with an important and useful legacy? What DO you mean? Do you mean that some people like to sit around and conjure up a fantasy world view in which magically ascending to a different state of existence that doesn't involve your brain - the very and only organ that contains "you" - would be out of a hobby if they took a deep breath and looked instead a reality? Fear of pain and death is what makes all of that other magical stuff so compelling... but the magical stuff isn't actually REAL, is it? So, building a moral framework around it is
You've described why your own view of reality is an objective fact that everyone could base their own morality on.
Nonsense. I've asserted that reality is what reality is, and it doesn't give a damn whether, or how well, or in what way I perceive it. The better one is equipped to grasp reality (through critical thinking, better tools like the scientific method, etc) the less that wishful/magical thinking tends to drive one's perceptions. I don't CARE if someone's born-of-ignorance (or foisted-on-them-by-supersitious-parents) misunderstanding of reality causes them to embrace the I'll-get-40-virgins-if-I-die-killing-YOU view of the world, or if someone thinks that the main reason not to rob their neighbor - rather than being the rational understanding that it's ultimately a self-destructive act - is because they're sure they'll burn in the classical Christian hell. I mean, I care in the sense that people with those world views impact my life, and their poorly-wrought decisions are something about which I may need to be aware... but I don't care, academically. That doesn't change reality. No matter how bent they are in their ability to grasp causal relationships, and no matter how fanciful/delusional they are about their pet mythology, the universe doesn't give a crap one way or the other.
There is no pre-existing blanket-o'-morality waiting for you to see it and embrace it... there's just the universe, as it sits. It's utterly ambivilant and without regard for you, and only you can bring meaning to your own existence, or squander it, etc. BUT: a moral framework based on a misunderstanding (to say nothing of a willful denial) about the nature of reality is, by its nature, flawed. I don't really care about Kant, one way or the other. You don't need to make this that complicated. When you build some BS about the universe into your approach to carrying on within the universe, you're lying to yourself and producing a value system that is, to that same degree of BS-inclusion, a failure. Will you probably still do most macro-level things in the same way? You'd think so, but not everyone does.
Remember, morality is relative
Relative to what?
Reality isn't very relative. A system of values ("morality") that's grounded in reality and reason is fairly straightforward. People can (and of course, do) certainly dream up philosophical frameworks based on all-powerful invisible friends that still dole out the occasional case of childhood cancer just to keep us all on our toes, and operate as if some magic representation of your firing synapses are going to keep echoing through time after the meat computer that allowed them to come up with that bit of whimsy in the first place is being eaten by worms... but certain moral decisions that are anchored in imaginary consequences (or the lack of them) aren't "relative" - they're wrong. They may frequently overlap with a framework based on reason and reality, but they're going to suffer the rot of mixed premises, and the symptoms of that are the attempts by their holders to act in accordance with contradictions... which can't exist, and which produce sometimes tragic results.
To put it bluntly, many of these animals ARE going to die; is it better to have them die miserably by starvation and with no (or at least minimal) benefit to other animals or humans, or is it better to humanely hunt the animal (fast death) and utilize as much of the animal for benefit as possible? The answer is clear, to me. I'll admit bias, though, as I am a hunter.
I appreciate your chiming in. Of course, I'll take the liberty of fine-tuning your comment just a wee bit. Actually, ALL of these animals are going to die, and especially with the birds and small game (rabbits, etc) NONE of them die of "old age," in a nice peaceful way. Ever. If they avoid predation (hawks, bobcats, coyotes, etc) when they're especially young and tasty, they may reach the point where they are older and slow. At which point something is going to catch up with them, and rip them apart while they're quite alive. The best they can usually hope for is a quick snap of the neck, etc - very similar to the blow from a cloud lead from a shotgun, or a rifle's massive wallup.
Or, as you point out, with the populations of rabbits and deer so out of balance in some areas, there will be very little food in some seasons, and you'll have lots of animals starving and freezing to death... and still getting ripped apart by other animals as soon as they're too weak to escape from them.
And, incidentally, you're not showing bias. You're just calling it like it is.
I'm just wondering - why should you be allowed to eat healthy wild pheasants, while others have to stick to farm raised chicken?
First, I'm not "allowed" to, rather - I pay a lot of money to be able to. Most states have very high licensing fees and taxes that they extract from people who apply to hunt in their states, and which they take during the purchase of everything from ammunition to pocket knives and mosquito repellent sold in sporting goods stores. In my state, the fees collected from the DNR's licensing of hunters and the taxes collected when they spend the fortune that they do on equipment and services is one of the primary sources of revenue used to fund wildlife management, wardens, and more.
There are virtually no wild pheasant in my state. None of them are native to the U.S. Such populations as have taken up residence in the States were brought over from Asia specifically to raise as food... and they thrive in certain areas. South Dakota, for example, is now home to untold millions of birds, and the few precious weeks of the pheasant season there is one of the biggest parts of their local economy, with hunters traveling from all over the country to enjoy the scenery, the challenge, and to fill their coolers with that wonderful meat. The state governs the limits that each hunter can take, and use reporting mechanisms to keep an eye on the bird population and the terrain that supports them. You're right that our huge population could not subsist entirely on non-domesticated critter meat.
That being said... back here in my own state, we have a crushing over population of whitetail deer. It's a real problem. There are more deer on the eastern seaboard now than there were 500 years ago. Way more. Their natural predators are all but gone, and every suburban house with a line of woods behind it is just setting up another breeding habitat for more Bambis. The micro-range/density problems results in all sorts of disease and line-breeding genetic problems, and the huge population per acre tends to exacerbate problems with Lyme Disease, etc. The solution is more hunting. Things are way out of balance, and even a lot Just Love The Animals types are realizing that they'd rather see the herds thinned out with a swift shot from a talented hunter than see an animal dying from a broken back on the side of the road (with who knows what risk to the person driving the car that hit it).
In 2006, hunters in my state provided hundreds of thousands of meals to homeless shelters and other organizations that feed people who don't get enough quality protein. If I had my way and could take 15 or 20 deer per season, I'd probably end up keeping mostly loin and roasting meat, and the remaining several hundred pounds of lean, healthy meat would make fantastic sausage or stew for a LOT of hungry mouths. The problem? The very places where the deer are so overrunning the local terrain are the spots that, because of concerns for sensitive suburbanites, hunting isn't allowed. In some cases, that's a safety issue. In others, it's just poor judgement. Either way, the deer population continues to grow out of control, and the situation is dangerous and unhealthy for them and us. We could re-introduce wolves and more coyotes, but that doesn't go over too well with the soccer moms, either.
Incidentally: the wild turkey was hunted almost to extinction in the US, mostly during the Great Depression - strictly as a source of food for people out of work. And they are indeed good eating. The same modern state game agencies that us hunters fund have managed that species back into true abundance (arguably, again, over-abundance in some places). But no one is allowed to just go out and hunt them... you have to pay the state. Which makes for pretty expensive meals, by the pound. But when I'm out in the woods (picking up trash, narking on poachers, reporting things I see to the game management people, etc) I'm more than happy to take all of that overhead in stride. Hunters, through their actions and thei
I'll agree that your analysis of the traditional slashdot "um" usage is dead on, and further agree that my cavalier use of it distracts from my point... which is still the same: I wasn't getting at anything nearly as involved as you seemed to be replying to, and I simply found the GGG(whatever)P to have been a likely trolling hypocrit in the first place - simple as that. For what it's worth, I do believe he was originally bitching about my sig, and that it probably had NOTHING to do with the actual topic at hand.
You are not looking for the least harmful way of living, but simply throwing a tantrum because someone has said something that challenges your way of living.
Um, no. You're trying WAY too hard. I'm using a touch of rhetorical satire to point out that most people who elect to insert feigned outrage into a conversation are usually gigantic, annoying hypocrits.
Fuck off you redneck piece of shit. Murdering animals for sport is reprehensible. I don't want to see your bullshit on slashdot anymore.
Ah. Do you trot out the same eloquent sensibilities for people who buy a new pair of leather shoes at some point before their last pair wears out? Oh, that's fashion - that's different, I guess. And what sport is it, exactly, that you think I'm practicing? Personally, I eat the birds and other animals that I personally go out looking for and bring home to the kitchen. And for each one I cook, that's one chemical-filled, agro-biz-raised taste-free farm animal I'm NOT eating. Do you eat the worms that are sliced in half while the soy plants for your tofurkey are being cultivated? Do you stand underneath the spinning blades of a nice, Green-friendly power generating windmill and eat the birds and bats that are beaten to death and fall to the ground so that some electrons can make your Wii glow and amuse you? What? I'm being presumptuous about your habits? Huh. It's almost like I don't know you, or something. Sort of like you're spouting a bunch of condescending crap that serves only to illustrate your own ignorance, bigotry, and malice. Which is fine, and you won't see me scolding you about where you can do it. Not to be confused with your take on things. I'm so glad that you're here to serve as thought police and to be the mind-reading arbitor of activities about which you - clearly - know nothing, but about which you none the less have formed a complex, nuanced, fully contemplated opinion. I mean, how else could you arrive at such a compelling, informed, and audience-changing bit of rhetoric? It's freakin' GENIUS, man. Wow. You've worn me out, and now I need to eat some protein. What do you recommend? Chicken? No thanks. Wild pheasant is far, far healthier.
A person's personality goes off to Digg when they are Mostly Dead.
How else would you explain the people who play the lottery? Gamble at casinos? Think that out of all the millions of oppressed masses, _they_ are the ones who will live the American dream and become someone?
Um, except... people DO win the lottery, some people do win at a casino and then have the brains to get up and leave, and people who don't have everything they wish they could have aren't "oppressed." People DO live the dream. Not everyone does or is equipped to.
Human nature. Infuriating, isn't it?
Why look at it that way? I'd rather just sit back and be impressed by the people who DO invent a new process or widget that hugely benefits us all when they put it to work, or marvel at the less creative people who none the less have the discipline to just work their asses off and build something of value to improve their circumstances and leave as a legacy to their kids. That plenty of less insightful or lazy people take a sloppy stab at that sort of thing and don't get anywhere with it MAY be like gambling badly in a casino, but it's mostly just less intelligent or worldly people behaving according to their nature and experience (and idle hopes). But human nature, if you can define such a thing at all, has also provided us with refridgeration, anti-biotics, incomprehensibly cool integrated technology widgets that would be considered magic not many decades ago, and so on. It's not infuriating, it's amazing. And if someone thinks they're on to something, and end up patenting something that they don't have the wherewithal to turn into a viable part of their business... well, too bad. Some airlines fly with a lot of empty seats, lots of expensive theatrical productions play to empty theatres, and plenty of great chefs have no-one to cook for because the restaurant's on the wrong side of the street during rush hour.
The question is usually `are humans contributing to global warming`, not `is there global warming`. I don't see that an affirmative answer to the latter question is treated as being particularly controversial.
Of course there is warming. It's been happening for at least 15,000 years since the last ice age (except when it's not). That's not the point. The point is that when people push back against the Gore-type message that humans are THE (as in, THE ONLY) cause of climate change, they're called "deniers." It's absurd.
If you read onward, he's also a global warming denier. Sounds like a loyal bushie.
Is that really the best you can do? You can't conceive of any reason beyond partisan politics that someone might not have completely bought the notion that - absent humans living their lives - there wouldn't be any climate change going on? You're confusing people who think that the breathless fearmongering being used to push socializing policy agendas and a more government-centric regulatory environment is something worth resisting... with people who can't believe that human activity plays some (as yet poorly or not at all defined) role in climate shifting. That you won't bother acknowledging that reality makes you (not Pournelle) the "loyalist," rather than your own independt and critical thinker.
then all of the sudden, WalMart has it for $100 than anywhere else is legally allowed to sell it for
You're really missing the point, here. There is no "legally" going on here. This is the government getting OUT of the market, not getting into it and dictating what is and what is not a legal price. This is between a supplier and their distributors/retailers. If a manufacturer wants to make a dealer's contract contingent upon certain conditions (like not dropping below a certain price over the counter), that's between THOSE TWO PRIVATE PARTIES. If you're a retailer that doesn't like it, you just strike a deal with a competing supplier, instead.
If a retailer sells below the agreed-to price, there would be no LAW being broken, just an agreement between two private parties being broken. The retailer will have to move on to another supplier.
have I missed something here
Yes.
It's not like he's committed a violent crime or put people out of work.
This plague costs the economy billions in lost productivity, otherwise unecessary system capacity expenses... do you REALLY think that a company looking to grow and compete and hire/retain the best people at whatever they do wouldn't rather spend all of that time and energy on things directly relevent to what they DO for a living? Huge expenses - otherwise unrelated to a business's actual line of work - absolutely DO cost jobs. How many schools could better spend that money on lower tuitions or newer labs? Just think it through.
But wouldn't a far more appropriate response be to seize his assets and slap him with fines amounting to the damage he's caused?
The damage he's caused involves WAY more money than what he's collected. That he's willing to cause that sort of damage should tell you everything you need to know about the guy. He wants someone else's money, and is willing to cause damage and participate in fraud to get it. It's not very different than committing insurance fraud for cash... and then watching the rest of us pay higher premiums to cover it.
More to the point, though: he's already demonstrated a willingness to knowingly break the law and abuse other people's systems and networks. Physically stopping him from doing it again by locking him up is the only way you'll prevent him from just putting on another hat/identity and doing it again, more carefully, through a surrogate. Or "consulting" for someone else who does. What do you think he'll do at night after he clocks out of the community service work you'd rather he was doing? Hopping online somewhere, or talking someone else through doing so, and doing something he knows will generate some cash.
Eventually, Adobe licensed the app and has sold millions of copies.
... well, it doesn't have much. Bridge? ACR? All of the related products like Lightroom? The HISTORY of it is a little academic, at this point (both literally and figuratively).
*sigh*
It's not like Adobe didn't put a LITTLE bit of work into it over the years, you know? They didn't just license it, they've - for all practical purposes - completely rebuilt it over and over. If they hadn't, that which they licensed would have been totally eclipsed by products like Corel's PhotoPaint, etc. CS3 has about as much resemblance to the initial product as
... stolen cars are much more likely to be carrying Bad Guys, smoke detectors owned by people who never check the batteries are less likely to notice a fire burning, and people who never cut their grass are more likely to harbor rodents and snakes. In-freakin'-sightful, I say!
Yeesh.
the Internet "could change beyond all recognition"
Compared to, say, when those very same totalitarian-type countries didn't have internet access at all? Compared to only a few years ago when it didn't exist at all? And, will China's internet censoring actually change it, beyond all recognition, for me? Will this article or the summary change the meaning of hyperbole beyond all recognition? Places like China have been lacking free speech since before the internet existed, and they still lack it. That China was a little slow applying their cultural norm to this newer tool isn't very shocking. What's terrible is that censorship IS their cultural norm. Change that, and little things like internet filtering, or centralized political control, etc., change right along with it. This is a symptom, not the problem.
I mean, you're not really going to claim it's a viable business model to keep on charging customers for distribution as the cost of distribution approaches zero, are you?
Nope. But it's viable to charge people who want you to entertain them. And since they have the thing people want (the talent to entertain them), and are asking a price... the audience can:
1) Pay the price.
2) Walk way, indicating that a dollar a tune is too high.
3) Steal it.
The first two are reasonable. The last one isn't, and is all the MORE so when people lamely do it under the guise of somehow teaching their favorite artist some sort of lesson.
Don't like the price? Walk away. Really. Don't consume, talk about, or otherwise buzz-ify the artist whose choice of business arrangements you don't like. THAT artist will choose a different vehicle for sales, or cease to sell. If people have the intellectual honesty to not rip off what they don't feel like paying for, they'll see a system they want a lot more quickly. Many "customers" think that other things in life are more expensive than they'd like, too... but very few of those things get simply walked-away-with without consequence.
The hundreds of people that work on movies make their money from their weekly salary, and never see a penny more if the movie is popular. These people are paid regardless if the film is a work of art or paint-by-numbers dreck.
Oh, come ON! Do you really think that those people would HAVE a salaried job working in film production if the people who invest in the film (in order to make money) didn't put up the money, UP FRONT? If a production company can't get the cash flowing, NO ONE has a job in that company. Oh, and for what it's worth, people actually DO make bonuses when a production company's work does really well. Depends on the job, the company, the contract, and so on... but, having family in that business (who make salaries doing all of that beind-the-scenes stuff), I can assure you that being worth a damn and playing a good, regular role in that company's success can pay off quite well on occasion. If you just grind out crappy movies, it's an entirely different type of gig, which attracts and employs a much different grade of worker that, of course, doesn't see the more rewarding compensation because: they're not producing work of that type in the first place, or aren't energetic enough to get a gig with a company that does.
make their real money from box office attendance, not from DVDs
Speaking of companies like Pixar... that is most definitely NOT true. They make a lot of money in the theaters AND they make a lot of money in other distribution forms, as well. There are a lot of childrearing households with Toy Story DVDs that never come out of the disk changer.
11. Bands don't make real money from record sales, record companies make real money from record sales. Bands make real money from touring.
So, if you really want to inspire some people that don't always work together (just throwing a dart, here... let's say, The Chieftains along with Van Morrison) to do something that you can enjoy, you've got to convince them to go on tour together? I'm personally very happy when people that will NEVER have their lives lined up right to tour together nevertheless put up the money and time to work together in the studio and record some interesting work. They have no means whatsoever to pay for those efforts (and all of the overhead of travel, post-production, studio personnel, etc) unless they can sell the work to the audience for whom it's intended. Much great music would never happen if those circumstances couldn't be arranged and paid for. Sales of the recording is how that happens.
And... let's not forget that this isn't just about some band. Should Pixar be out "performing" the movies that it takes hundreds of people years to make, just so they don't have to fret about someone in Russia making advertising money off of setting up pirated downloads? You're right, I'm sure. For some people, their movies might indeed seem better performed live in a bar.
If the product was available in a form and at a price people were willing to pay, they would buy it.
... fractional, compared to the kids to just grab it because now they can, without having to actually pay for the entertainment they want.
But, they used to buy MORE than they do now. And the form in which you usually buy it (say, on a CD) remains available. What's changed is that people are no longer willing to pay what the artists ask for their recordings because they've found an easy way to rip it off, instead. The number of people who really, actually, thoughtfully are downloading pirated copies so that they have a more flexible version of something they've actually purchased
Record companies are refusing to adopt new standards and ideas that people want. Mp3 players are things that people really really like. They also want to be able to play that song anywhere.
Unless, of course, you take into account the publisers that ARE starting to sell non-DRMed files for that exact reason. When you say "record companies," you say it like you're describing all of them accurately, and that you know exactly what they're all collectively going to be doing for the next 12 months. They're not a homogenous group, and they're busy working on it, and on retaining as customers the very artists that every seems to be happy to rip off.
song trading has went on forever. Mix tapes, trading Records or CD's etc.. has happened as long as audio tape existed. I traded Reels with friends of albums. (reel to Reel tape, way before casettes.)
And did you really have hundreds of thousands or millions or anonymous friends with whom you shared bit-accurate exact copies? Really?
Most P2P file sharing is garbage. Most people are not happy with the quality of the music they download, the id3 tags are wrong, the music is ripped with a crappy ripper (itunes or Media player) etc....
Oh, well, then that makes it OK, I guess, to rip off the really good quality stuff from someone else, then. Yeesh.
I'm definitely not paying to listen to 18 year old American Idol choir boy's templated 'debut' album.
But... you ARE going to pirate it? Do you even LISTEN to yourself?