The existence of Jon Stewart only show that the methods of controlling the unwashed masses are far more sophisticated in the free world than they are in these backwards communist countries. Political satire is just a valve for all the frustration and anger that oppressive and lying governments cause thus keeping the system stable. Why do you think the king's jester was aloud to make jokes about the king?
Some corporate policies are really stupid and compromise the corporation's competitive position. Not following theses policies is one way to handle this situation. Maybe you do not have the time and resources to overturn the policy because you are busy making money for your corporation and discussing policies with policy makers will quickly turn you into one of the useless trolls that inhabit every big corporation.
You don't change the code. You just change the interpreter. There are at least two different interpreters in widespread use and both have been in active development over the last couple of hundred years. Different forks spring up occasionally and usually fade in to oblivion pretty soon but some survive often driven by a ferocious leadership. Where's the difference to free software?
It's a buggy beta release that's been ported to other languages or forked dozens of times because the developers can never agree on a single design. It's also not very user-friendly
If all "Chinese steal and pilfer IP" and MS does business with a Chinese company then they know that they will be getting "stolen" code and hence are responsible. Outsourcing is done exactly for this reason: to avoid local regulations and laws in order to get a cheaper product.
But to make a living through his work and to build an estate for his family, the artist must have control over the use of his work.
That's how it worked the last 50 or maybe hundred years for some of the creative people. But it doesn't have to be this way.
I write software for a living. Somebody pays me for a component I have written and after that I have no control over the use of my work. My customer can do whatever he wants to do with it. As of today I have not starved to death and neither has my family. Oh...and at least half of the code I write becomes free software and I do not get any pay for this.
Van Gogh didn't get any protection from IP laws, Disney does. Only one of them produced/ produces art.
You see the problem? That's one of the basic problems with forcing organizations to do things: figuring out where the buck stops when the law is violated is extremely difficult.
Actually it is not. If somebody tells you to commit a crime and you do it then you are guilty and he is your accomplice. If your boss tells you to either commit a crime or get fired he is guilty of coercion.
What if the reason that some police clerk didn't destroy the records is because they were told not to, and their boss threatened their job if they didn't comply?
What should a member of the police force do if he sees that somebody commits a crime?
Unpaid time off? He basically kidnapped a completely innocent man. How about giving him the same punishment that everyone else would get for that crime?
It's not that simple. Schengen (as most other "EU laws" too) works something like this: There is a set of relatively abstract common rules. Every country must create laws or change their existing laws so that they conform to theses common rules. The actual laws which get enforced at the airports of various countries can and in fact do vary a lot.
Actually only the root system might have "lived" for 50,000 years. The trees have a average lifespan of about a hundred years. So counting rings doesn't work. This "estimation" is only a wild guess.
the worthless [...] Johnny Window-Licker [...] mop-actuating doorstop [...]
That's the tenth really despicable comment I've read in this thread. Where does all this hate against "the stupid" come from? Why can't you just enjoy the superiority you obviously believe you have?
Don't think about it to hard. It might ruin your life even more.
That was all I was trying to say. Thanks though for introducing me to the finer aspects of logic where things that are "quite easy" are in fact not possible, or at least not possible now:)
all that I say is that testing for free will is easy
Well it's not easy now but it will be easy after somebody comes up with a test that will make it easy.
Is my English really so bad that you can not understand what I'm trying to say or are you trying to not understand what I write? I appreciate that you're trying to correct and improve my English but that's not really the point here, is it?
You wrote "Free will is quite easy to demonstrate: you just need an operative definition and a test for it." If it's really that easy: Can you give me a operative definition of free will and a test for it? Here and now? I don't believe that you or anyone else can.
Take the "force" in Newton's Laws as an example. F=ma. It gives a concise definition of force and thus on the one hand makes force (in any particular instance) observable. On the other hand it is also scientific statement because it can be falsified (and has been by Relativity). Free will lacks both. It isn't well defined and hence can not be observed. And there are no scientific universal statements about free will that I know of.
You are right that my initial statement "'Free will exists.' can not be falsified." was very imprecise. I hope this helps in understanding what I meant.
I tried to cover the 90% I didn't quote with "I agree with most of what you say..." (and obviously failed).
I'm sure that had more to do with unwarranted force and with monopolizing resources than with economizing them [...] But feel free to look up the meanings of the terms "economizing" and "ceteris paribus"
Wow, thanks for allowing me to look up these terms. I wanted to know what they mean for a very long time now but never dared to find out. I'm glad that I finally have your approval.
Obviously monopolizing is not the reason as Coca-Cola does not have a monopoly. The economical sound management of the water resources dictates that those who pay the most for the water will get the water. The poor natives obviously didn't need the water as much as we Europeans and Americans needed it otherwise they would have paid a higher price. Economizing means not being wasteful with your resources and giving them a way for less than you can get is pretty wasteful.
economizing resources is intrinsically good for everyone.
Economizing drinking water by Coca-Cola and others has caused lowering of the groundwater table especially in India and south east Asia which caused 10 of thousands of people to die of starvation last year. I'm not sure that this was intrinsically good for them.
It's always a good idea to start a message with an insult. Just smoothens the conversation. Whatever. The suspect's motive is of course relevant in a murder case. Bail-outs are irrelevant in a patent case.
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The existence of Jon Stewart only show that the methods of controlling the unwashed masses are far more sophisticated in the free world than they are in these backwards communist countries. Political satire is just a valve for all the frustration and anger that oppressive and lying governments cause thus keeping the system stable. Why do you think the king's jester was aloud to make jokes about the king?
And today's winner of the useless use of cat award is: QRDeNameland. Congratulations!
Why do you believe that a "rational being" would not wage war or even kill other people (or other "rational beings")?
Some corporate policies are really stupid and compromise the corporation's competitive position. Not following theses policies is one way to handle this situation. Maybe you do not have the time and resources to overturn the policy because you are busy making money for your corporation and discussing policies with policy makers will quickly turn you into one of the useless trolls that inhabit every big corporation.
Or get the CustomizeGoogle plugin and simply remove target.com from all Google search results.
It's a buggy beta release that's been ported to other languages or forked dozens of times because the developers can never agree on a single design. It's also not very user-friendly
Oh ... I see.
If all "Chinese steal and pilfer IP" and MS does business with a Chinese company then they know that they will be getting "stolen" code and hence are responsible. Outsourcing is done exactly for this reason: to avoid local regulations and laws in order to get a cheaper product.
But to make a living through his work and to build an estate for his family, the artist must have control over the use of his work.
That's how it worked the last 50 or maybe hundred years for some of the creative people. But it doesn't have to be this way.
I write software for a living. Somebody pays me for a component I have written and after that I have no control over the use of my work. My customer can do whatever he wants to do with it. As of today I have not starved to death and neither has my family. Oh ...and at least half of the code I write becomes free software and I do not get any pay for this.
Van Gogh didn't get any protection from IP laws, Disney does. Only one of them produced/ produces art.
You see the problem? That's one of the basic problems with forcing organizations to do things: figuring out where the buck stops when the law is violated is extremely difficult.
Actually it is not. If somebody tells you to commit a crime and you do it then you are guilty and he is your accomplice. If your boss tells you to either commit a crime or get fired he is guilty of coercion.
What if the reason that some police clerk didn't destroy the records is because they were told not to, and their boss threatened their job if they didn't comply?
What should a member of the police force do if he sees that somebody commits a crime?
Unpaid time off? He basically kidnapped a completely innocent man. How about giving him the same punishment that everyone else would get for that crime?
No. IBM has done this kind of things on mainframes 20 years ago. This stuff is actually pretty old.
"We're sorry, but the clip you selected isn't available from your location."
It's not that simple. Schengen (as most other "EU laws" too) works something like this: There is a set of relatively abstract common rules. Every country must create laws or change their existing laws so that they conform to theses common rules. The actual laws which get enforced at the airports of various countries can and in fact do vary a lot.
Actually only the root system might have "lived" for 50,000 years. The trees have a average lifespan of about a hundred years. So counting rings doesn't work. This "estimation" is only a wild guess.
the worthless [...] Johnny Window-Licker [...] mop-actuating doorstop [...]
That's the tenth really despicable comment I've read in this thread. Where does all this hate against "the stupid" come from? Why can't you just enjoy the superiority you obviously believe you have?
Don't think about it to hard. It might ruin your life even more.
Maybe you should have tried something funny.
Not, or at least not now.
That was all I was trying to say. Thanks though for introducing me to the finer aspects of logic where things that are "quite easy" are in fact not possible, or at least not possible now :)
all that I say is that testing for free will is easy
Well it's not easy now but it will be easy after somebody comes up with a test that will make it easy.
You wrote "Free will is quite easy to demonstrate: you just need an operative definition and a test for it." If it's really that easy: Can you give me a operative definition of free will and a test for it? Here and now? I don't believe that you or anyone else can.
You are right that my initial statement "'Free will exists.' can not be falsified." was very imprecise. I hope this helps in understanding what I meant.
I do not know of any such "operative definition and test for it". I don't believe it exists and I'm not convinced that there ever will be one.
That's what I was trying to say: "Free will exists." is not a scientific statement. You can not incorporate it into a scientific model.
free-will-is-real model of the universe
Since we are in a scientific context: What experiment would falsify the thesis that "free will is real"?
I tried to cover the 90% I didn't quote with "I agree with most of what you say ..." (and obviously failed).
I'm sure that had more to do with unwarranted force and with monopolizing resources than with economizing them [...] But feel free to look up the meanings of the terms "economizing" and "ceteris paribus"
Wow, thanks for allowing me to look up these terms. I wanted to know what they mean for a very long time now but never dared to find out. I'm glad that I finally have your approval.
Obviously monopolizing is not the reason as Coca-Cola does not have a monopoly. The economical sound management of the water resources dictates that those who pay the most for the water will get the water. The poor natives obviously didn't need the water as much as we Europeans and Americans needed it otherwise they would have paid a higher price. Economizing means not being wasteful with your resources and giving them a way for less than you can get is pretty wasteful.
I agree with most of what you say but ...
economizing resources is intrinsically good for everyone.
Economizing drinking water by Coca-Cola and others has caused lowering of the groundwater table especially in India and south east Asia which caused 10 of thousands of people to die of starvation last year. I'm not sure that this was intrinsically good for them.
It's always a good idea to start a message with an insult. Just smoothens the conversation. Whatever. The suspect's motive is of course relevant in a murder case. Bail-outs are irrelevant in a patent case.