Re:Can't believe that Pixar employees would be hap
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Pixar For Sale?
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· Score: 1
I don't think you work for companies like Pixar if you're in it for the money.
But there aren't many independently wealthy people in the country at all, and probably very few (come on, pretty much none) who code rendering routines and produce 3D models and textures for Pixar. So, there's no being in it without the money. And certainly there might be another good gig waiting - at WETA, or Skywalker, or any of a number of other studios/facilities/projects. Money does play a role, and no money no Pixar.
As it happens, they pay pretty well. They wouldn't have their pick of people if they didn't. And they do have their pick.
Re:Can't believe that Pixar employees would be hap
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Pixar For Sale?
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· Score: 2, Insightful
OTOH, if they still believe that hiding behind that multiply-protected-by-acts-of-Congress cute mouse of Disney's is... more cute mice, then I'm sure they'd be ecstatic.
Well, since the employees at Pixar enjoy salary bonuses based largely on the performance of the company's copyrighted and sold products, most of them will probably be pleased to work (or continue to work) for a company that does indeed want to see (and defend) revenue from their expensively made products. It does Pixar no good if some family that wants to amuse their kids with a hundred sedative TV-playings of Finding Nemo after they've seen it in the theater don't have to pay for that in-house entertainment. The sale of DVDs is a big part of how Pixar can afford the top-flight talent that flocks to work there.
Pixar also sells software - something a lot of people don't know. Expensive software. Without protecting their rights on that front, a lot of the in-house development that they do wouldn't happen.
Why would anyone PAY for something they can't have? And what happens to those Word docs when your subscription runs out?
The same thing that happens when thousands of businesses stop paying their subscriptions to salesforce.com or netledger.com. Totally web-based apps, with critical business data living behind the firewall at the service provider, is scarecely a new thing, and continues to ramp up - especially for mid-sized companies. It's a risk, but only to the extent that you don't have a provision for obtaining your data in some form before pulling the plug. No one who cares about their business would use MS's toys or Google's without a graceful way out.
Re:Defiance is a changing the system too
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Modding and the Law
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· Score: 1
How, perchance, do you make money as an artist without making a name for yourself first?
By producing something singularly good. There are plenty of people who toil away in the studio working on material that, from most perspectives, will appear to come from a complete unknown. Sometimes, that material makes the creative person both their name and their money at the same time. If they've got the wrong idea about their talent or their work, that's up to them to find out. But it's not up to someone who doesn't feel like paying for their entertainment to decide for the artist if they are working for free.
The only way to change that is to build a new system with new content that has as little overlap with the existing system as possible.
Which doesn't preclude those people who are just fine with the current system from continuing to contribute to, and purchase from it. But the problem is that a lot of people confuse your notion of "building a new system" (a reasonable goal) with justifying the piracy of material from the existing system. It's the classic problem: some people think that tearing down something they don't like is the same as building something they do.
Sharing music is problematic because it extends the reach of the RIAA, not because it hurts artists.
But what if you're an artist that thinks it does? Someone who works hard on what they produce, and offers that material up for a paying audience, is hurt when the market for their work is diluted by piracy. If people respect the artist so much that they want to use irreplaceable hours of their short life listening to that artist's music or watching their films, don't they see the hypocrisy in disrespecting the artist by not honoring the fact that they're asking a few dollars for their work? I think the test should be whether you can sit across the table from your favorite artist, look them in the eye, and say, "I'm really glad you've made that recording/film, and I realize it cost lots of dollars, involved a lot of risk, and that you're banking on the proceeds from selling it to do more of the same, and I really like the material, and I'm going to make sure I have a copy to listen to/watch... but no, I'm not going to respect you or your work enough to pay, like you're asking. Now, go record some more, OK? I really love your stuff, and will download the next one the moment it comes out!" Someone who really loves, say, Bono and has every U2 recording but who can say that to his face and mean it, will hopefully come away from that conversation realizing what an ass they are.
Conservatives have cut library funding for decades
Except that most libraries are, and should be, extensions of the local educational framework. Those are administered, and typically funded by local taxes (usually property taxes) overseen by state legislatures and county councils. The most impoverished, under-educated, high-unemployment areas of the country aren't run by conservatives, they're run - at the city, county, and state levels - by liberals. You'd think that areas (take, say, New Orleans as an example) where Democratic politicians have had their way for decades at the city, county, and state levels, that their policies would surely have resulted in an education paradise by now... right? Or maybe throwing money at the situation doesn't actually make the difference, and it has more to do with a culture of accountability, personal integrity, and parents that actually give a damn about whether their kids are in school and getting their brains in order.
I live just outside of Wasington DC. That school system has one of the highest dropout rates in the country, despite having one of the highest per-capita expenditures per student (over $10,000 per student per year - which would educate three or more students, internet access and all, in most other jurisdictions). The city is full of internet-enabled libraries, churches, and other community centers. But it's also full of families (and more often, single teenage mothers) that don't bother to arrange for anything like a stable home before having kids. It's outrageous that those kids should have to pay the price for their parents not giving a damn, but only parents can keep their kids going to school and paying attention.
Plus, all of the libraries I know require you to show photo ID to get on, which a lot of people don't want to reveal because they may have a criminal record (though have served their time) or bad immigration status.
So, you're suggesting that it's lack of internet access that's keeping someone from getting a good job, but it's their criminal history that's keeping them from getting internet access? If their legal status is that shaky, just what sort of good job did you think that internet access was going to enable them to get? Having a felony on your record doesn't stop you from using public facilities such as libraries. Being a wanted felon does, but again, no legit job is forthcoming then either. And, bad immigration status? So, again, you're hoping that net access is going to get someone who is already breaking the law a good job? If you're in the country illegally, while other people who want to be legal are going to the trouble and time to do so, why should I care to in any way subsidize internet access for you? Willing law breakers are exhibiting a willingness to lie, to abuse the system, and to cheat other people out of a place that those other people are willing to wait for. And you think that internet access should be provided (with other people's money) so that person can look for a "good" job? How do you define "good?" Someone who's willing to hire criminals? At least think about what you're saying, here.
is a horribly slow way for them to access all the moder sites with all their bells and whistles.
And buses are horribly slow ways for people to access the roads, and they only go to certain places - not always the places with all the "bells and whistles." And people pay for bus use, too. Why is it OK to have to walk to a bus stop to use highly subsidized public transportation, but not OK for it to take several seconds longer while your job-search web site loads over dial-up?
Yeah, see, most people of color tend to prefer to spend that on, I don't know, diapers and baby formula.
Why are you so obsessed with thinking that there are no such things as white people that can't afford to blow $50 a month because they also need to buy diapers? It's called personal responsibility... as in, don't have babies if the cost of having
Well, your point is correct, and I appreciate your saying that you weren't countering anything I said, but I hope I was clear in implying that things like JIT-manufacturing as we currently enjoy them, and the economic efficiencies they produce, depend utterly on the interconnectivity of large companies. Good old EDI was taking care of that before SOAP and all the new stuff - but without the network, now, we'd be several percentage points more sluggish (probably muce more) in our manufacturing and financial sectors - and the economy wouldn't have grown as it has, nor be as able to recover from classic recessions (or terrorist attacks, or hurricanes) as quickly.
and what about the people who can't afford internet access? Should we just forget about them?
Go. To. The. Library.
Or, are you suggesting that poor families that live too far from a library instead be provided with dial-up ISP accounts, a telephone line if they don't have one, a computer they clearly don't know how to use, and ongoing tech support such as will clearly be needed when someone who has never used these things is suddenly depending on them to "get a good job."
Or... perhaps those parents should be encouraging their kids to pay attention in school? There are countless ways for schools to get hold of free computer hardware and net access, but most don't have the staff needed to supervise/train students in the continual use thereof. If you're posting this comment, right now, about how I should be listening to the "clarion call" that you're mentioning... first tell me how many schools you've visited with that rebuilt Ubunto P3-450 and a $9 donation to cover that month's dial-up access for the machine?
And... minorities? Do you really think that lack of experience online, and lack of personally owned net-connected workstations is limited somehow to people of one color or another? Are you that race-fixated? Ever driven through Appalachia? Wake up, man, and talk some less myopic, skin-color-driven smack so that you can be taken seriously. And explain what you've done before telling me what I should do.
He chose the ATM, and joined us again about 30 minutes after being arrested, but now down about $200.
I think you're painting a very unfair portrait of Mexican law enforcement, here. They are far, far more reasonable than that. Typically, $100 will do fine, and they're now taking PayPal if you have web access on your cell phone - but those Mexican roaming charges make prison a serious option.
The internet plays a large role in every US citizen's life. Virtually every bank, insurance company, restaurant, factory, school or other organization relies on the the net in one form or another to function productively (or function at all in some cases). Just because not everyone making use of those pieces of our culture and economy directly use the web doesn't mean that they're un-impacted by the internet.
To the extent that we have all sorts of just-in-time deliveries to factories, package tracking, widely accessible databases, and all sorts of other efficiency-enabling goodies that rely on internetworking, the thrust of the summary sells it very short. Sure, web/e-mail/IM use by individuals is way, way up from 5 or 10 years ago - but the country's use of the internet, down at the economic and government plumbing level, affects everyone, and in ways that most people don't appreciate until it breaks.
We're talking about the same Six Apart that consistently gets in the way of free speech, suspends accounts, paid or not, for the absolute most whimsical reason, and the very same Six apart that will delete your community if it doesn't serve their consumerist policy?
Free speech? That has nothing to do with it (at least not in the way you think it does). 6A has no means by which to stifle your rights to communicate with the world, they only have the ability to impact how you make use of the private system that they own and operate. When you use their system, you agree to their rules - and their rules tell you that they may shut down things that they don't think should be there. Period. Who cares if you don't like their opinion? You can go elsewhere and talk/write/post/rant all you want. But you can't tell them how to express their own opinions (through their policy actions) because if you could, that would be infringing on their freedom of expression. You've got it entirely backwards. They're not a common carrier (in that legal, telephone-system-sense), they're just a private publishing company, like a newspaper. They can say what they want, or decide who can say what through their systems. Couldn't be simpler, and if you're so convinced that it should done another way, pull together the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars a month it takes to prop up a similar system for all of those users you have in mind, and run it yourself. You can, because you've got that freedom. On the other hand, because you're railing about "consumerism," I'm guessing you'd have trouble raising the cash that it takes to fund something like that.
as long as they can steal your money
If that's how you see them operating, and thousands of other people do not (and continue to pay them), perhaps you need to rethink equating "steal" with "charge for services in an extremely competitive market where you have nearly unlimited other choices." They can't "steal" anything from you if you just walk away and use a service that doesn't have the same content policies. And because you have that exact liberty, and a consumer-driven market that works exactly to give you more hosting choices than you can ever use, you really can't complain, and sound silly when you do.
And how is he supposed to stop you? Gun force? This is a free world and you are free to buy your services where you want. There is really nothing, the old operator can do against this. So stop talking bullshit.
Actually, "force" is exactly how. If you're delinquent on your bills a colo facility, the fine print in your contract generally states that the operator can prevent you from entering their private property and accessing your gear. If you can still walk into the building, they usually can change combinations/locks on your cage or cabinet. At that point, the only way you're physically going to get your equipment is to destroy parts of their facility. Enter the police (with guns, if that what it takes).
When you colo, you're on private property, with very limited rights. You start screwing around with the invoice payments, and your rights to access that property diminish very quickly. This is just as it should be, since the colo operation is providing services like power and bandwidth (and physical security, and generators, and climate control), and they risk a lot when you're a heavy user. Of course, they could ask for a substantial deposit up front just in case, and many do with start-up customers.
But mostly they (the colo operators) assume that holding your gear hostage is an OK way to deal with people trying to stiff them on the bills. Just like a mechanic who is allowed to hold onto your car if you don't want to pay them for work they just did... and just like they can use force, if they have to, to prevent you from taking that car off of their lot before you pay.
Sorry, but we got into the apple discussion somewhat obliquely. I responded to a comment's use of the apple-tree analogy (one that's commonly used in discussing piracy), but took the apple example merely to respond to another point in his comment. Specifically, he trotted out the old "why can't we just pay what we think things are worth?" canard. Well, you can, if someone (such as the grocer with the apples you want) is willing to sell them at that price.
The guy is trying to rationalize not paying for his entertainment by saying that he thinks the prices on some movies are too high (by obvious, objective evaluation of their quality, though he doesn't mention whether or not his particular taste should set the market price for everyone), and indicating that since a sliding price-per-quality-quotient would be appropriate, that simply not paying for what he wants is reasonable. That line of thinking is full of logical nonsense on a lot of levels, but I reduced to something as simple as walking into a merchant, not liking the price, and then unilaterally deciding that it was OK to put the item in your pocket, as a form of price adjustment.
Incidentally, makers of things like high-end produce and wine and fine cheeses absolutely could make more of those products, but they opt for "artificial" scarcity to maximize the returns on a certain level of effort, and to keep demand up. That happens all the time in the physical world of merchandise, and stealing it as a show of protest (instead of going into business to make more of whatever you think is too scarce/expensive) is just as irrational as enslaving your "favorite" musician or film actress.
I don't see how we have come very far - that is still how Science Fiction is portrayed to the masses. Space battles against aliens, aliens invading the earth, etc. etc. What I find fascinating with all this is the science fiction that I read does not usually have this type of plot - just most science fiction movies.
Ah, the great unwashed entertainment-consuming masses, blahditty blah. Remember Contact, starring Jodie Foster - based on Sagan's book? It was pretty interesting, and a well-made film. No aliens attacking (just religious freaks blowing up things on their own, here at home... Sagan certainly knew about the culture of religious zealotry). That movie was essentially a flop with the public. But if it had been about an intrepid anthropologist decoding mysterious communications from a lost tribe in Amazonia - critical acclaim!
Why? Because people like watching stories about unfolding (and usually, resolved) conflict - and "subtle space stuff" doesn't usually compute with most people, just out of sheer momentum. People who like non-explosion stories about complex human interaction are so sure that they won't find that in science fiction films that the market research by the film makers tells them there's a hole there that's not worth filling. Sometimes they try, though:
How about George Clooney's Solaris? Nice sci-fi setting, but basically a morality tale about letting go of your past and your troubles. At the box office? Big snoozer. If, though, it had been about an aging butler, starring Anthony Hopkins... big bucks and Oscars for everyone.
Now, if those Merchant/Ivory fans could only bring themselves to see Lucas's last work, and see the incredibly subtle nuances brought to life as Darth Vader cries, "Noooooooooo!" they'd realize that sci fi can be riveting drama, too. Hopkins Shmopkins!
Sorry, that's a BS example. Your friend cannot come up with an apple tree that produces new movies. Those can require hundreds of people, millions of dollars, and actual creative talent. People put together the time, people, and resources to produce that sort of thing (which obviously people want, otherwise they wouldn't be looking for ways to rip it off) only because they think they can at least recoup their expenses. Yes, some people do it for fun - but those people also are happy to give away their work. Ripping a movie is not the same as walking away knowing how to make a movie, and then making them yourself. It's diluting the revenue that the film maker needs to recoup costs, pay people, and have the money to make more movies. If your friend wants the movie, then that means he finds some value in it, and thus at least some respect for the people who made it. Why pretend to like someone and their work, but decide to screw them on the part of it where they ask for compensation?
Listen, if you're going to be rational and use and actual specific facts and information and history and whatnot to draw reasonable conclusions that make the summary for this article look foolish, well, then, good for you.
Can't believe the tone of that summary. Completely out of context of the story in question, and completely meaningless within the context of the entire, sprawling, FBI's daily responsibilities.
The material world, fresh organic food costs more than rotten or food full of preservatives. Why should this sliding price scale not be applied to entertainment?
When you go to the grocery store, and they have apples at $0.99/pound, that's what you pay. If you see some apples in the bin that seem, to you, to be inferior, do you tell the grocery store what you'll pay? Perhaps at a small produce stand you can engage the owner in a discussion of the price, but when you're dealing with a large/mass market, it doesn't work that way. Come back the next day, and you might see the inferior apples being sold for less - or they may have shipped them to an applesauce processor. But it's not up to you to put the apple in your pocket just because you deem it to be worth less than what's being asked. Just don't buy the apples. And if the grocery store consistently asks more than you think they should for their crappy apples? Go somewhere else. Stealing their apples doesn't teach them a lesson about price, it just makes them even more militant about their losses. You not walking through the door any more is far more instructive.
But should lower quality content not cost less than the good stuff?
Who decides what is, and is not quality? For example, I can hardly stand many mopey, depressing, Scandanavian "art" films or poorly dubbed Anime. That's OK, because other people think that any Anime they can see is worth the time, or actually like cheesy action flicks more than something from Merchant/Ivory. But you could say the same thing for any product or service. And you can impact the "sliding scale" of prices you're talking about by not buying things that you think are over priced. If you don't like what a plumber charges to fix your faucet, you don't let him do the work, and then decide to either pay him less than what he asks, or just stiff him on the bill. But if you can't afford a plumber at all, you either fix the leak yourself, decide you can go without that service for a while. Likewise, if you can't afford what an artist wants to charge you for their creative work, just find another (less expensive) way to get some entertainment for the evening.
Of course you hate to punish the actors for bad writing but isn't rewarding excellence the purpose of paying for entertainment to begin with?
Right! You pay what they ask, and you're rewarding them. If you don't patronize them (or pirate their work), you're telling them that their quality is too low for what they're charging.
Some movies would only be good at a lower price
Which is exactly why you see them in the cheap DVD bin, or on non-premium cable way, way sooner than better movies.
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen for an example. There is no way someone could justify paying for that.
Sure, so all you have to do is not pay to see it. And since you know it's bad, you won't have any urge to pirate it, either, right? Otherwise, if you do feel the urge to see it anyway, and don't want to wait for cable rotation or other free broadcast, then you know that you are placing a value on seeing it - and if that value doesn't match up with the price they're allowing you to pay, then they lose the sale, and you don't get to see the show in quite as convenient manner. If that convenience starts to mean more to you, you start putting a higher value on the entertainment. Just like how buying a gallon of milk at a convenience store is more expensive than the grocery store... but if you don't like the price at the convenience store, you don't get to just take the milk without paying because you don't like the price.
I know they make more money by creating the artificial scarcity but at some point you gotta give a little.
Not really, they make more money when the people seeing the movie actually pay for the movie. That's not artificial scarcity, that's paying for entertainment. If y
You there - with the logic! Put your hands where we can see them and step backwards to the sound of my voice! Step away from the keyboard and nobody will get hurt.
Look, officer, I was just driving by, and saw it go down. I thought I could help... I had no idea all of this would happen! I didn't mean to point out that he's a twit... it just went off when I picked it up!
what do you call someone who is motivated by money to create art? an artist? i wouldnt
Well, that's the great thing about free speech. You can call it whatever you want. What would you call someone who makes shoes? Certainly not an artist, by your standards. If they don't sell the shoes, they don't make enough money to spend all day making shoes, and have to do something else. What do you call someone who makes very, very nice shoes? Just someone who's better at it? How about unique shoes that are beautiful, creative, and expensive to produce? No art showing up in that recipe yet, as far as you're concerned? Doesn't matter. You can tell a professional artist that they're not an artist, and they really won't care, because there are other people willing to pay for their work, and who understand that if you're going to pour all of your waking hours into your art (and don't live off of charity) that you should and can find people who are willing to trade money for your work. Hell, you can even decide to only sell your work to those that are willing to pay. Or, you can just do it for fun and passion, and give it away. In my way of looking at it, you can do both. In your way of looking at it, you can't. Just because you despise creative professionals doesn't mean you've earned the moral entitlement to rip them off. By now, with all of the ranting you do, you must surely have converted many, many professional artists back into hobby artists who are willing to give away their time to entertain you, so I'm sure none of this matters, since you wouldn't want art created by professionals anyway.
if its motivated by money, its generally less meaningful then someone who does it for the love. this pretty much holds true in every situation. love your work and you do better work.
Your myopia on this is astonishing, even after so many repitions on your part. Why should you care what someone's motivations are? You are free to only do business with those people who have motivations of which you approve. You are not free to rip off those who decide to make their art a full-time pursuit from which they derive their income. You don't them anything - not your attention, your money, or any respect past not ripping them off or encouraging others to do so. Your world's full of artists that don't want you to pay for their time, so stick with them, their music, their films, their books, their sculpture, and their software.
your urge to punish new ideas and ways of thinking pretty much explains yours
How am I punishing new ideas? You can have a new idea, and you can give it and any work you base upon it away to anyone you want. If you can talk someone else into giving away their new-idea-based-work to you, more power to you. But you want to dictate to someone else how to conduct their own lives. You want to be able to ignore the price they put on their labors, but also want to benefit from their labors. Ignore them, their work, and their price all day long. Just have the self respect not to rip them off. Your "new way of thinking" is invalid if you're so unpersuasive that the people who are creating the things you want cannot be convinced to give them to you. Hell, you can't even convince yourself just to walk away from them! Here you have all of those people that think like you, making free art for you to enjoy, and you're completely hung up on still being able to get free access to the creative work of people that you yourself say aren't artists. If you can't see your own hypocrisy, or cogently clean up your argument to the point where your avoid the built-in contradictions, them you're sure going to spend a long time wondering why so many people hear what you're saying, and reach right for their lawyers and more copy protection. You are what makes it worse, not better.
Wow. Before this post I had never seen someone talk directly out of their ass.
You don't know the half of it. That guy ("crabpeople") is not, to put it nicely, entirely connected with reality, and certainly doesn't have any friends and family that earn a living creating entertainment for people.
You do realize the point of making good movies is not to make a profit, but to further enhance world culture right?
That might be your motivation. The point of making good movies is whatever each film maker's point is. Your urge to dictate to an artist what their point is pretty much explains your entire world view.
Can you honestly tell me that you've never watched or participated in any event that, had you been asked to pay money (or more money) prior to participating you wouldn't have?
You're missing the point. Bad movies or not, the people who produce and distribute them are asking you to pay for them. It's not like that's going to come as a surprise to anyone. I see stuff on TV all the time that I would not (well, beyond the cable rate I'm paying) pay for, ever. But that's not the same as, essentially, sneaking into a theater to see the same, not getting caught/lectured by anyone, and saying, "Well, no one told me I had to pay, at least, not to my face..."
The troubled portion of the market contains those that would have paid for the content if they couldn't get it another way, but they found piracy to be a suitable solution.
Suitable to whom? Certainly not to the people that make their living producing the things that their audience want.
The movies were crap and it might help illustrate at least one reason why people pirate. I mean really, who is going to pay for those movies?
I'm always a little perplexed by this line of reasoning. If it's not good enough to enjoy... why bother obtaining and watching it? If it's good enough to enjoy, and you're glad that the person who made the film (and his/her hundreds of co-workers and investors) spent the money and went to the trouble of producing it, why deliberately rip off the people making the stuff you do like?
So... if it's quality material worth watching, then it's worth paying the people who produce it (and encouraging them to make more). If it's not worth watching it, why tarnish the name/concept of P2P technologies by squandering it on pirating something copyrighted that, in the same breath, people say is not worth the trouble? I can never understand the people who think they're somehow "punishing" the studios into making better movies by ripping off the (at best) mediocre stuff while piously saying that they'll pay for the quality stuff (assuming, ahem, that they actually do). You indicate that you buy movies you like, but your first sentence (which you say is illustrative) just gives moral comfort to the twits.
Re:Watch a little more closely ...
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Deep in the Core
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[sigh!] Typical US-centric thinking.
*sigh* indeed.
He drove them mad because his words were more powerful than their tanks. Eventually, history proved him right.
What do you suppose kept the Soviets out of Western Germany? Or Sweden? Or Finland? Or from Stalin-izing more Poles? Deterrence. NATO (certainly mostly US military contribution, but you do a big disservice to the rest of western Europe, Canada, and everyone that was involved) is what gave the rest of the world breathing room in the face of Soviet expansionism. My wife watched Soviet tanks invading Czech land from her bedroom window in Vienna, so don't pretend like I don't have some perspective, here. The pope didn't have to encourage any armed posture on the part of the oppressed people of eastern Europe because that part of the equation was already taken care of. NATO was doing the heavy lifting in that department, and left the camera-friendly protests and strikes to the Solidarity people they were seeking to free.
You can't honestly think that only Solidarity and similar movements exhausted the Soviet's murderous military apparatus or prevented them from rolling over more of Europe before their attempts at matching western military sophistication effectively bankrupted and demoralized the very forces they'd normally have used to suppress demonstrations in shipyards.
Re:Watch a little more closely ...
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Deep in the Core
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However, I don't understand why you think pacifism is cowardly
Context, please. While you may not want to take the time on a Monday morning to respond at length to my comment, you chose one phrase, out of context, to confuse matters. What you didn't do is respond to the general topic, which is that sometimes you either have to take foreceful (even lethal) action, or allow those that are willing to do so to kill you and the people you love. That's no thought experiment. We are facing that exact scenario, right now. Someone who wants to die while trying to kill you is going to succeed unless you stop him, physically, before he does so.
You cited the Pope. Why do you suppose that the Pope has armed guards, trained to kill? Do you really think that his guards, facing the choice of killing an assailant, or allowing that assailant to kill himself and the Pope, would allow the Pope to die? More to the point, would the Pope want, say, a group of visiting children to die, just so that a suicide bomber can kill them and himself, rather than just the terrorist dying through defensive action on the part of his guard unit?
You say that hate fuels more hate. But you seem to be missing the point. Someone who hates you, and wants to kill you because of who you are and what you believe and how you live your life (say, letting your wife ride in the front seat of your car, trying to prevent the Taliban from killing women who want to hold a job or teach their daughters how to read)... I don't have to hate that person (though, pity is more like it) in order to see the importance of preventing that person from killing my family. He hates you for being Catholic. You don't have to hate him for you to be just as dead if he wants to kill you. You can't educate children, show the merits of a peaceful life, bring prosperity to the Middle East's average citizens or anything else that encourages peace when you, your family, and your peaceful culture are dead. Self defense is not hate. If I have to shoot a rabid animal that's attacking a child, is that an act of hate? No, it's an act of love and protection. Someone who is as far gone, intellectually and spiritually, as those who would stroll onto a train to slaughter innocent strangers in a bloody suicide is a problem to be dealt with, just like a rabid dog. No hate, just a desire to live without that person's ability and willingness to indiscriminately kill hanging like a cloud over more peaceful pursuits. "Hate breeds hate" is a papal platitude that has no bearing on the actions you must take, in the immediate, to deal with a grave threat. Peaceful is the goal, but being dead is a little too peaceful for me and my family, and for those that have to live side by side with the extremist loons we're talking about, here.
Pope John Paul II once said that if we use hate to fight communists then they will come back, only under a different name.
Right. So, happily, we didn't use hate. We used a strong military deterrence, making it very clear that any action on their part to push that brutal regime any farther out into the world would be met with overwhelming force. They got that message long enough for their regime to cumble from within. Our willingness to defend ourselves was adequate to the job. But the only reason that's true is that your average communist foot soldier wasn't in the mood to kill himself in order to take out a group of civilians walking the street. That's the difference here, and you know that. The cowardice to which I refer is intellectual cowardice. For you to refuse to admit that some forms of self defense must inevitably be lethal presents for you a philosophical problem that you're not willing to confront. So, rather than face that, you're willing to let innocent people die. That unwillingness to stand up and defend peaceful civilization, with lethal force if needed and as the medeival theocrats we're fighting essentially compel us to do
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think you work for companies like Pixar if you're in it for the money.
But there aren't many independently wealthy people in the country at all, and probably very few (come on, pretty much none) who code rendering routines and produce 3D models and textures for Pixar. So, there's no being in it without the money. And certainly there might be another good gig waiting - at WETA, or Skywalker, or any of a number of other studios/facilities/projects. Money does play a role, and no money no Pixar.
As it happens, they pay pretty well. They wouldn't have their pick of people if they didn't. And they do have their pick.
OTOH, if they still believe that hiding behind that multiply-protected-by-acts-of-Congress cute mouse of Disney's is... more cute mice, then I'm sure they'd be ecstatic.
Well, since the employees at Pixar enjoy salary bonuses based largely on the performance of the company's copyrighted and sold products, most of them will probably be pleased to work (or continue to work) for a company that does indeed want to see (and defend) revenue from their expensively made products. It does Pixar no good if some family that wants to amuse their kids with a hundred sedative TV-playings of Finding Nemo after they've seen it in the theater don't have to pay for that in-house entertainment. The sale of DVDs is a big part of how Pixar can afford the top-flight talent that flocks to work there.
Pixar also sells software - something a lot of people don't know. Expensive software. Without protecting their rights on that front, a lot of the in-house development that they do wouldn't happen.
Why would anyone PAY for something they can't have? And what happens to those Word docs when your subscription runs out?
The same thing that happens when thousands of businesses stop paying their subscriptions to salesforce.com or netledger.com. Totally web-based apps, with critical business data living behind the firewall at the service provider, is scarecely a new thing, and continues to ramp up - especially for mid-sized companies. It's a risk, but only to the extent that you don't have a provision for obtaining your data in some form before pulling the plug. No one who cares about their business would use MS's toys or Google's without a graceful way out.
How, perchance, do you make money as an artist without making a name for yourself first?
By producing something singularly good. There are plenty of people who toil away in the studio working on material that, from most perspectives, will appear to come from a complete unknown. Sometimes, that material makes the creative person both their name and their money at the same time. If they've got the wrong idea about their talent or their work, that's up to them to find out. But it's not up to someone who doesn't feel like paying for their entertainment to decide for the artist if they are working for free.
The only way to change that is to build a new system with new content that has as little overlap with the existing system as possible.
Which doesn't preclude those people who are just fine with the current system from continuing to contribute to, and purchase from it. But the problem is that a lot of people confuse your notion of "building a new system" (a reasonable goal) with justifying the piracy of material from the existing system. It's the classic problem: some people think that tearing down something they don't like is the same as building something they do. Sharing music is problematic because it extends the reach of the RIAA, not because it hurts artists.
But what if you're an artist that thinks it does? Someone who works hard on what they produce, and offers that material up for a paying audience, is hurt when the market for their work is diluted by piracy. If people respect the artist so much that they want to use irreplaceable hours of their short life listening to that artist's music or watching their films, don't they see the hypocrisy in disrespecting the artist by not honoring the fact that they're asking a few dollars for their work? I think the test should be whether you can sit across the table from your favorite artist, look them in the eye, and say, "I'm really glad you've made that recording/film, and I realize it cost lots of dollars, involved a lot of risk, and that you're banking on the proceeds from selling it to do more of the same, and I really like the material, and I'm going to make sure I have a copy to listen to/watch... but no, I'm not going to respect you or your work enough to pay, like you're asking. Now, go record some more, OK? I really love your stuff, and will download the next one the moment it comes out!" Someone who really loves, say, Bono and has every U2 recording but who can say that to his face and mean it, will hopefully come away from that conversation realizing what an ass they are.
Conservatives have cut library funding for decades
Except that most libraries are, and should be, extensions of the local educational framework. Those are administered, and typically funded by local taxes (usually property taxes) overseen by state legislatures and county councils. The most impoverished, under-educated, high-unemployment areas of the country aren't run by conservatives, they're run - at the city, county, and state levels - by liberals. You'd think that areas (take, say, New Orleans as an example) where Democratic politicians have had their way for decades at the city, county, and state levels, that their policies would surely have resulted in an education paradise by now... right? Or maybe throwing money at the situation doesn't actually make the difference, and it has more to do with a culture of accountability, personal integrity, and parents that actually give a damn about whether their kids are in school and getting their brains in order.
I live just outside of Wasington DC. That school system has one of the highest dropout rates in the country, despite having one of the highest per-capita expenditures per student (over $10,000 per student per year - which would educate three or more students, internet access and all, in most other jurisdictions). The city is full of internet-enabled libraries, churches, and other community centers. But it's also full of families (and more often, single teenage mothers) that don't bother to arrange for anything like a stable home before having kids. It's outrageous that those kids should have to pay the price for their parents not giving a damn, but only parents can keep their kids going to school and paying attention.
Plus, all of the libraries I know require you to show photo ID to get on, which a lot of people don't want to reveal because they may have a criminal record (though have served their time) or bad immigration status.
So, you're suggesting that it's lack of internet access that's keeping someone from getting a good job, but it's their criminal history that's keeping them from getting internet access? If their legal status is that shaky, just what sort of good job did you think that internet access was going to enable them to get? Having a felony on your record doesn't stop you from using public facilities such as libraries. Being a wanted felon does, but again, no legit job is forthcoming then either. And, bad immigration status? So, again, you're hoping that net access is going to get someone who is already breaking the law a good job? If you're in the country illegally, while other people who want to be legal are going to the trouble and time to do so, why should I care to in any way subsidize internet access for you? Willing law breakers are exhibiting a willingness to lie, to abuse the system, and to cheat other people out of a place that those other people are willing to wait for. And you think that internet access should be provided (with other people's money) so that person can look for a "good" job? How do you define "good?" Someone who's willing to hire criminals? At least think about what you're saying, here.
is a horribly slow way for them to access all the moder sites with all their bells and whistles.
And buses are horribly slow ways for people to access the roads, and they only go to certain places - not always the places with all the "bells and whistles." And people pay for bus use, too. Why is it OK to have to walk to a bus stop to use highly subsidized public transportation, but not OK for it to take several seconds longer while your job-search web site loads over dial-up?
Yeah, see, most people of color tend to prefer to spend that on, I don't know, diapers and baby formula.
Why are you so obsessed with thinking that there are no such things as white people that can't afford to blow $50 a month because they also need to buy diapers? It's called personal responsibility... as in, don't have babies if the cost of having
Well, your point is correct, and I appreciate your saying that you weren't countering anything I said, but I hope I was clear in implying that things like JIT-manufacturing as we currently enjoy them, and the economic efficiencies they produce, depend utterly on the interconnectivity of large companies. Good old EDI was taking care of that before SOAP and all the new stuff - but without the network, now, we'd be several percentage points more sluggish (probably muce more) in our manufacturing and financial sectors - and the economy wouldn't have grown as it has, nor be as able to recover from classic recessions (or terrorist attacks, or hurricanes) as quickly.
and what about the people who can't afford internet access? Should we just forget about them?
Go. To. The. Library.
Or, are you suggesting that poor families that live too far from a library instead be provided with dial-up ISP accounts, a telephone line if they don't have one, a computer they clearly don't know how to use, and ongoing tech support such as will clearly be needed when someone who has never used these things is suddenly depending on them to "get a good job."
Or... perhaps those parents should be encouraging their kids to pay attention in school? There are countless ways for schools to get hold of free computer hardware and net access, but most don't have the staff needed to supervise/train students in the continual use thereof. If you're posting this comment, right now, about how I should be listening to the "clarion call" that you're mentioning... first tell me how many schools you've visited with that rebuilt Ubunto P3-450 and a $9 donation to cover that month's dial-up access for the machine?
And... minorities? Do you really think that lack of experience online, and lack of personally owned net-connected workstations is limited somehow to people of one color or another? Are you that race-fixated? Ever driven through Appalachia? Wake up, man, and talk some less myopic, skin-color-driven smack so that you can be taken seriously. And explain what you've done before telling me what I should do.
He chose the ATM, and joined us again about 30 minutes after being arrested, but now down about $200.
I think you're painting a very unfair portrait of Mexican law enforcement, here. They are far, far more reasonable than that. Typically, $100 will do fine, and they're now taking PayPal if you have web access on your cell phone - but those Mexican roaming charges make prison a serious option.
The internet plays a large role in every US citizen's life. Virtually every bank, insurance company, restaurant, factory, school or other organization relies on the the net in one form or another to function productively (or function at all in some cases). Just because not everyone making use of those pieces of our culture and economy directly use the web doesn't mean that they're un-impacted by the internet.
To the extent that we have all sorts of just-in-time deliveries to factories, package tracking, widely accessible databases, and all sorts of other efficiency-enabling goodies that rely on internetworking, the thrust of the summary sells it very short. Sure, web/e-mail/IM use by individuals is way, way up from 5 or 10 years ago - but the country's use of the internet, down at the economic and government plumbing level, affects everyone, and in ways that most people don't appreciate until it breaks.
We're talking about the same Six Apart that consistently gets in the way of free speech, suspends accounts, paid or not, for the absolute most whimsical reason, and the very same Six apart that will delete your community if it doesn't serve their consumerist policy?
Free speech? That has nothing to do with it (at least not in the way you think it does). 6A has no means by which to stifle your rights to communicate with the world, they only have the ability to impact how you make use of the private system that they own and operate. When you use their system, you agree to their rules - and their rules tell you that they may shut down things that they don't think should be there. Period. Who cares if you don't like their opinion? You can go elsewhere and talk/write/post/rant all you want. But you can't tell them how to express their own opinions (through their policy actions) because if you could, that would be infringing on their freedom of expression. You've got it entirely backwards. They're not a common carrier (in that legal, telephone-system-sense), they're just a private publishing company, like a newspaper. They can say what they want, or decide who can say what through their systems. Couldn't be simpler, and if you're so convinced that it should done another way, pull together the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars a month it takes to prop up a similar system for all of those users you have in mind, and run it yourself. You can, because you've got that freedom. On the other hand, because you're railing about "consumerism," I'm guessing you'd have trouble raising the cash that it takes to fund something like that.
as long as they can steal your money
If that's how you see them operating, and thousands of other people do not (and continue to pay them), perhaps you need to rethink equating "steal" with "charge for services in an extremely competitive market where you have nearly unlimited other choices." They can't "steal" anything from you if you just walk away and use a service that doesn't have the same content policies. And because you have that exact liberty, and a consumer-driven market that works exactly to give you more hosting choices than you can ever use, you really can't complain, and sound silly when you do.
And how is he supposed to stop you? Gun force? This is a free world and you are free to buy your services where you want. There is really nothing, the old operator can do against this. So stop talking bullshit.
Actually, "force" is exactly how. If you're delinquent on your bills a colo facility, the fine print in your contract generally states that the operator can prevent you from entering their private property and accessing your gear. If you can still walk into the building, they usually can change combinations/locks on your cage or cabinet. At that point, the only way you're physically going to get your equipment is to destroy parts of their facility. Enter the police (with guns, if that what it takes).
When you colo, you're on private property, with very limited rights. You start screwing around with the invoice payments, and your rights to access that property diminish very quickly. This is just as it should be, since the colo operation is providing services like power and bandwidth (and physical security, and generators, and climate control), and they risk a lot when you're a heavy user. Of course, they could ask for a substantial deposit up front just in case, and many do with start-up customers.
But mostly they (the colo operators) assume that holding your gear hostage is an OK way to deal with people trying to stiff them on the bills. Just like a mechanic who is allowed to hold onto your car if you don't want to pay them for work they just did... and just like they can use force, if they have to, to prevent you from taking that car off of their lot before you pay.
Sorry, but we got into the apple discussion somewhat obliquely. I responded to a comment's use of the apple-tree analogy (one that's commonly used in discussing piracy), but took the apple example merely to respond to another point in his comment. Specifically, he trotted out the old "why can't we just pay what we think things are worth?" canard. Well, you can, if someone (such as the grocer with the apples you want) is willing to sell them at that price.
The guy is trying to rationalize not paying for his entertainment by saying that he thinks the prices on some movies are too high (by obvious, objective evaluation of their quality, though he doesn't mention whether or not his particular taste should set the market price for everyone), and indicating that since a sliding price-per-quality-quotient would be appropriate, that simply not paying for what he wants is reasonable. That line of thinking is full of logical nonsense on a lot of levels, but I reduced to something as simple as walking into a merchant, not liking the price, and then unilaterally deciding that it was OK to put the item in your pocket, as a form of price adjustment.
Incidentally, makers of things like high-end produce and wine and fine cheeses absolutely could make more of those products, but they opt for "artificial" scarcity to maximize the returns on a certain level of effort, and to keep demand up. That happens all the time in the physical world of merchandise, and stealing it as a show of protest (instead of going into business to make more of whatever you think is too scarce/expensive) is just as irrational as enslaving your "favorite" musician or film actress.
Technically, it may be OK. The problem I have with his blog is the style it's written in. He writes like an elementary school student.
Well, at least at my elementary school they taught us not to end a senence with a preposition.
"...the style it's written in."
should be
"...the style in which it's written."
But I'll forgive all because you know how to correctly use an apostrophe.
I don't see how we have come very far - that is still how Science Fiction is portrayed to the masses. Space battles against aliens, aliens invading the earth, etc. etc. What I find fascinating with all this is the science fiction that I read does not usually have this type of plot - just most science fiction movies.
... Sagan certainly knew about the culture of religious zealotry). That movie was essentially a flop with the public. But if it had been about an intrepid anthropologist decoding mysterious communications from a lost tribe in Amazonia - critical acclaim!
Ah, the great unwashed entertainment-consuming masses, blahditty blah. Remember Contact, starring Jodie Foster - based on Sagan's book? It was pretty interesting, and a well-made film. No aliens attacking (just religious freaks blowing up things on their own, here at home
Why? Because people like watching stories about unfolding (and usually, resolved) conflict - and "subtle space stuff" doesn't usually compute with most people, just out of sheer momentum. People who like non-explosion stories about complex human interaction are so sure that they won't find that in science fiction films that the market research by the film makers tells them there's a hole there that's not worth filling. Sometimes they try, though:
How about George Clooney's Solaris? Nice sci-fi setting, but basically a morality tale about letting go of your past and your troubles. At the box office? Big snoozer. If, though, it had been about an aging butler, starring Anthony Hopkins... big bucks and Oscars for everyone.
Now, if those Merchant/Ivory fans could only bring themselves to see Lucas's last work, and see the incredibly subtle nuances brought to life as Darth Vader cries, "Noooooooooo!" they'd realize that sci fi can be riveting drama, too. Hopkins Shmopkins!
Sorry, that's a BS example. Your friend cannot come up with an apple tree that produces new movies. Those can require hundreds of people, millions of dollars, and actual creative talent. People put together the time, people, and resources to produce that sort of thing (which obviously people want, otherwise they wouldn't be looking for ways to rip it off) only because they think they can at least recoup their expenses. Yes, some people do it for fun - but those people also are happy to give away their work. Ripping a movie is not the same as walking away knowing how to make a movie, and then making them yourself. It's diluting the revenue that the film maker needs to recoup costs, pay people, and have the money to make more movies. If your friend wants the movie, then that means he finds some value in it, and thus at least some respect for the people who made it. Why pretend to like someone and their work, but decide to screw them on the part of it where they ask for compensation?
Listen, if you're going to be rational and use and actual specific facts and information and history and whatnot to draw reasonable conclusions that make the summary for this article look foolish, well, then, good for you.
Can't believe the tone of that summary. Completely out of context of the story in question, and completely meaningless within the context of the entire, sprawling, FBI's daily responsibilities.
The material world, fresh organic food costs more than rotten or food full of preservatives. Why should this sliding price scale not be applied to entertainment?
When you go to the grocery store, and they have apples at $0.99/pound, that's what you pay. If you see some apples in the bin that seem, to you, to be inferior, do you tell the grocery store what you'll pay? Perhaps at a small produce stand you can engage the owner in a discussion of the price, but when you're dealing with a large/mass market, it doesn't work that way. Come back the next day, and you might see the inferior apples being sold for less - or they may have shipped them to an applesauce processor. But it's not up to you to put the apple in your pocket just because you deem it to be worth less than what's being asked. Just don't buy the apples. And if the grocery store consistently asks more than you think they should for their crappy apples? Go somewhere else. Stealing their apples doesn't teach them a lesson about price, it just makes them even more militant about their losses. You not walking through the door any more is far more instructive.
But should lower quality content not cost less than the good stuff?
Who decides what is, and is not quality? For example, I can hardly stand many mopey, depressing, Scandanavian "art" films or poorly dubbed Anime. That's OK, because other people think that any Anime they can see is worth the time, or actually like cheesy action flicks more than something from Merchant/Ivory. But you could say the same thing for any product or service. And you can impact the "sliding scale" of prices you're talking about by not buying things that you think are over priced. If you don't like what a plumber charges to fix your faucet, you don't let him do the work, and then decide to either pay him less than what he asks, or just stiff him on the bill. But if you can't afford a plumber at all, you either fix the leak yourself, decide you can go without that service for a while. Likewise, if you can't afford what an artist wants to charge you for their creative work, just find another (less expensive) way to get some entertainment for the evening.
Of course you hate to punish the actors for bad writing but isn't rewarding excellence the purpose of paying for entertainment to begin with?
Right! You pay what they ask, and you're rewarding them. If you don't patronize them (or pirate their work), you're telling them that their quality is too low for what they're charging.
Some movies would only be good at a lower price
Which is exactly why you see them in the cheap DVD bin, or on non-premium cable way, way sooner than better movies.
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen for an example. There is no way someone could justify paying for that.
Sure, so all you have to do is not pay to see it. And since you know it's bad, you won't have any urge to pirate it, either, right? Otherwise, if you do feel the urge to see it anyway, and don't want to wait for cable rotation or other free broadcast, then you know that you are placing a value on seeing it - and if that value doesn't match up with the price they're allowing you to pay, then they lose the sale, and you don't get to see the show in quite as convenient manner. If that convenience starts to mean more to you, you start putting a higher value on the entertainment. Just like how buying a gallon of milk at a convenience store is more expensive than the grocery store... but if you don't like the price at the convenience store, you don't get to just take the milk without paying because you don't like the price.
I know they make more money by creating the artificial scarcity but at some point you gotta give a little.
Not really, they make more money when the people seeing the movie actually pay for the movie. That's not artificial scarcity, that's paying for entertainment. If y
You there - with the logic! Put your hands where we can see them and step backwards to the sound of my voice! Step away from the keyboard and nobody will get hurt.
Look, officer, I was just driving by, and saw it go down. I thought I could help... I had no idea all of this would happen! I didn't mean to point out that he's a twit... it just went off when I picked it up!
what do you call someone who is motivated by money to create art? an artist? i wouldnt
Well, that's the great thing about free speech. You can call it whatever you want. What would you call someone who makes shoes? Certainly not an artist, by your standards. If they don't sell the shoes, they don't make enough money to spend all day making shoes, and have to do something else. What do you call someone who makes very, very nice shoes? Just someone who's better at it? How about unique shoes that are beautiful, creative, and expensive to produce? No art showing up in that recipe yet, as far as you're concerned? Doesn't matter. You can tell a professional artist that they're not an artist, and they really won't care, because there are other people willing to pay for their work, and who understand that if you're going to pour all of your waking hours into your art (and don't live off of charity) that you should and can find people who are willing to trade money for your work. Hell, you can even decide to only sell your work to those that are willing to pay. Or, you can just do it for fun and passion, and give it away. In my way of looking at it, you can do both. In your way of looking at it, you can't. Just because you despise creative professionals doesn't mean you've earned the moral entitlement to rip them off. By now, with all of the ranting you do, you must surely have converted many, many professional artists back into hobby artists who are willing to give away their time to entertain you, so I'm sure none of this matters, since you wouldn't want art created by professionals anyway.
if its motivated by money, its generally less meaningful then someone who does it for the love. this pretty much holds true in every situation. love your work and you do better work.
Your myopia on this is astonishing, even after so many repitions on your part. Why should you care what someone's motivations are? You are free to only do business with those people who have motivations of which you approve. You are not free to rip off those who decide to make their art a full-time pursuit from which they derive their income. You don't them anything - not your attention, your money, or any respect past not ripping them off or encouraging others to do so. Your world's full of artists that don't want you to pay for their time, so stick with them, their music, their films, their books, their sculpture, and their software.
your urge to punish new ideas and ways of thinking pretty much explains yours
How am I punishing new ideas? You can have a new idea, and you can give it and any work you base upon it away to anyone you want. If you can talk someone else into giving away their new-idea-based-work to you, more power to you. But you want to dictate to someone else how to conduct their own lives. You want to be able to ignore the price they put on their labors, but also want to benefit from their labors. Ignore them, their work, and their price all day long. Just have the self respect not to rip them off. Your "new way of thinking" is invalid if you're so unpersuasive that the people who are creating the things you want cannot be convinced to give them to you. Hell, you can't even convince yourself just to walk away from them! Here you have all of those people that think like you, making free art for you to enjoy, and you're completely hung up on still being able to get free access to the creative work of people that you yourself say aren't artists. If you can't see your own hypocrisy, or cogently clean up your argument to the point where your avoid the built-in contradictions, them you're sure going to spend a long time wondering why so many people hear what you're saying, and reach right for their lawyers and more copy protection. You are what makes it worse, not better.
Wow. Before this post I had never seen someone talk directly out of their ass.
You don't know the half of it. That guy ("crabpeople") is not, to put it nicely, entirely connected with reality, and certainly doesn't have any friends and family that earn a living creating entertainment for people.
You do realize the point of making good movies is not to make a profit, but to further enhance world culture right?
That might be your motivation. The point of making good movies is whatever each film maker's point is. Your urge to dictate to an artist what their point is pretty much explains your entire world view.
Can you honestly tell me that you've never watched or participated in any event that, had you been asked to pay money (or more money) prior to participating you wouldn't have?
You're missing the point. Bad movies or not, the people who produce and distribute them are asking you to pay for them. It's not like that's going to come as a surprise to anyone. I see stuff on TV all the time that I would not (well, beyond the cable rate I'm paying) pay for, ever. But that's not the same as, essentially, sneaking into a theater to see the same, not getting caught/lectured by anyone, and saying, "Well, no one told me I had to pay, at least, not to my face..."
The troubled portion of the market contains those that would have paid for the content if they couldn't get it another way, but they found piracy to be a suitable solution.
Suitable to whom? Certainly not to the people that make their living producing the things that their audience want.
The movies were crap and it might help illustrate at least one reason why people pirate. I mean really, who is going to pay for those movies?
I'm always a little perplexed by this line of reasoning. If it's not good enough to enjoy... why bother obtaining and watching it? If it's good enough to enjoy, and you're glad that the person who made the film (and his/her hundreds of co-workers and investors) spent the money and went to the trouble of producing it, why deliberately rip off the people making the stuff you do like?
So... if it's quality material worth watching, then it's worth paying the people who produce it (and encouraging them to make more). If it's not worth watching it, why tarnish the name/concept of P2P technologies by squandering it on pirating something copyrighted that, in the same breath, people say is not worth the trouble? I can never understand the people who think they're somehow "punishing" the studios into making better movies by ripping off the (at best) mediocre stuff while piously saying that they'll pay for the quality stuff (assuming, ahem, that they actually do). You indicate that you buy movies you like, but your first sentence (which you say is illustrative) just gives moral comfort to the twits.
[sigh!] Typical US-centric thinking.
*sigh* indeed.
He drove them mad because his words were more powerful than their tanks. Eventually, history proved him right.
What do you suppose kept the Soviets out of Western Germany? Or Sweden? Or Finland? Or from Stalin-izing more Poles? Deterrence. NATO (certainly mostly US military contribution, but you do a big disservice to the rest of western Europe, Canada, and everyone that was involved) is what gave the rest of the world breathing room in the face of Soviet expansionism. My wife watched Soviet tanks invading Czech land from her bedroom window in Vienna, so don't pretend like I don't have some perspective, here. The pope didn't have to encourage any armed posture on the part of the oppressed people of eastern Europe because that part of the equation was already taken care of. NATO was doing the heavy lifting in that department, and left the camera-friendly protests and strikes to the Solidarity people they were seeking to free.
You can't honestly think that only Solidarity and similar movements exhausted the Soviet's murderous military apparatus or prevented them from rolling over more of Europe before their attempts at matching western military sophistication effectively bankrupted and demoralized the very forces they'd normally have used to suppress demonstrations in shipyards.
However, I don't understand why you think pacifism is cowardly
Context, please. While you may not want to take the time on a Monday morning to respond at length to my comment, you chose one phrase, out of context, to confuse matters. What you didn't do is respond to the general topic, which is that sometimes you either have to take foreceful (even lethal) action, or allow those that are willing to do so to kill you and the people you love. That's no thought experiment. We are facing that exact scenario, right now. Someone who wants to die while trying to kill you is going to succeed unless you stop him, physically, before he does so.
You cited the Pope. Why do you suppose that the Pope has armed guards, trained to kill? Do you really think that his guards, facing the choice of killing an assailant, or allowing that assailant to kill himself and the Pope, would allow the Pope to die? More to the point, would the Pope want, say, a group of visiting children to die, just so that a suicide bomber can kill them and himself, rather than just the terrorist dying through defensive action on the part of his guard unit?
You say that hate fuels more hate. But you seem to be missing the point. Someone who hates you, and wants to kill you because of who you are and what you believe and how you live your life (say, letting your wife ride in the front seat of your car, trying to prevent the Taliban from killing women who want to hold a job or teach their daughters how to read)... I don't have to hate that person (though, pity is more like it) in order to see the importance of preventing that person from killing my family. He hates you for being Catholic. You don't have to hate him for you to be just as dead if he wants to kill you. You can't educate children, show the merits of a peaceful life, bring prosperity to the Middle East's average citizens or anything else that encourages peace when you, your family, and your peaceful culture are dead. Self defense is not hate. If I have to shoot a rabid animal that's attacking a child, is that an act of hate? No, it's an act of love and protection. Someone who is as far gone, intellectually and spiritually, as those who would stroll onto a train to slaughter innocent strangers in a bloody suicide is a problem to be dealt with, just like a rabid dog. No hate, just a desire to live without that person's ability and willingness to indiscriminately kill hanging like a cloud over more peaceful pursuits. "Hate breeds hate" is a papal platitude that has no bearing on the actions you must take, in the immediate, to deal with a grave threat. Peaceful is the goal, but being dead is a little too peaceful for me and my family, and for those that have to live side by side with the extremist loons we're talking about, here.
Pope John Paul II once said that if we use hate to fight communists then they will come back, only under a different name.
Right. So, happily, we didn't use hate. We used a strong military deterrence, making it very clear that any action on their part to push that brutal regime any farther out into the world would be met with overwhelming force. They got that message long enough for their regime to cumble from within. Our willingness to defend ourselves was adequate to the job. But the only reason that's true is that your average communist foot soldier wasn't in the mood to kill himself in order to take out a group of civilians walking the street. That's the difference here, and you know that. The cowardice to which I refer is intellectual cowardice. For you to refuse to admit that some forms of self defense must inevitably be lethal presents for you a philosophical problem that you're not willing to confront. So, rather than face that, you're willing to let innocent people die. That unwillingness to stand up and defend peaceful civilization, with lethal force if needed and as the medeival theocrats we're fighting essentially compel us to do