I'm not sure you can be a nihilist if you've crafted an arbitrary set of values that you believe are somehow better than other values. The most you can say is that those are your values and you follow them. Anything beyond that would reveal a belief that you think your first principles are somehow more than just first principles.
Ah, but you didn't say that "[c]ommercial entities ought not [] lie." You said that there should be a reasonable level of trust that should be enforced to protect the public from dangerous and manipulative lies. The added qualifiers indicate either that you meant to address only those lies which are dangerous and manipulative or that you were imprecise in trying to state that all lies should be prohibited.
I wonder if you were aware of the wonderful irony in saying that I'm misinterpreting a "real person" when you state that I have somehow said that "There are good lies and bad lies . . . " No lie is inherently good or bad. Good or bad are relative measure that have absolutely no meaning when divorced from comparison from the normative baseline from which you align the general notions of "good" and "bad." I would expect someone whose sig is "Nihilism is worthless" to at least understand that much.
What's even more interesting is your blind acceptance of a deontological ethic. You immediately state that the only "fair" thing to do is to have a law such as the one you propose, and completely neglect any treatment of the possibility that what you see as fair is nothing more than naked preference on your part. Fairness is nothing more than a point of view. Your attempts to wrap your personal preference within the illusion of nobility are rather disappointing.
You also touch on another very interesting point with the tension between enforceability and justice. It's easy for a deontologist to blindly accept bright line rules such as "[c]ompanies ought not [] lie" because you believe that justice lies in the following of your preferred method of regulatory treatment. However, that's a willful attempt at abandoning a more serious inquiry into the nature of enforcement and justice. In order to ease the enforcement of a law, one must necessarily decrease the amount of justice that can be done.
For instance, lets take the drunk driving laws. Some people can drive safely with a BAC of 0.11 and some cannot. While enforceability is enhanced by a law that criminalizes driving with a BAC of 0.08, it does not do justice to that percentage of the population which can drive unimpeded at a BAC of 0.11. Of course, if you automatically think that a law that criminalizes having a BAC of over 0.08 is "just," you can very conveniently forget about that.
So you are either a proponent of enforceability over justice or the other way around. You don't get to have your cake and eat it too. Sucks, but that's life. (Especially since what you put in parenthesis about justice is really about enforceability.)
I must commend you, however, for at least trying to engage me on the merits of my argument as opposed to following through on your declaration (possibly sarcastic) that you would not do me the favor of considering my arguments "lest [you] fall into [my] deceptive trap!"
Oh, and I'm off the company dime on this one. This was a freebie cuz I was oh so proud of you engaging me on the merits of this discussion. ^_~
Of course, there may be a slight difference between lying to get a person to buy a PSP and lying to get a person to buy a cancer stick. (Or maybe not.) You see, you've placed dangerous lies in the same camp as manipulative lies, which seems to be quite an arbitrary method of grouping them. One necessarily contains the risk of harm to the individual receiving the lie, whereas the other does not, by definition, implicitly mean that the risk of harm will result. (Although, even the cigarette example has defects -- perhaps if you had focused on the lying about whether nicotine was addictive as opposed to the health effects.)
As for whether or not I'm a real person, well, you've seemingly stumbled onto the "I think therefore I am" conundrum. According to Descartes, you're the only person that you can be absolutely sure exists -- because of your self-awareness of your own cognitive processes. So your problem, by construction, is a philosophic truism rather than the result of the regulatory measures currently in place. (or lack thereof)
Furthermore, it seems rather unfortunate that your response is that "[my] argument won't get a second[']s consideration from [you], regardless of [the] merits, lest [you] fall into [my] deceptive trap!" It's unfortunate because you are focusing on the person as opposed to the actual argument itself. (i.e. - I am a paid UID and therefore nothing in my post can be believed) Perhaps it would be more constructive to figure out for yourself whether there is any wheat in the chaff.
*/ sarcasm/* And finally, you're entirely right. Free speech is overrated. I mean, how can we live in this world unless views such as mine (or others here who agree with free speech) are suppressed? Regulated speech is the gateway to the true Utopias -- Orwellian reservations notwithstanding. */ sarcasm/*
While I am sympathetic to your view here, the problem is that in "fixing" the "poisoning" of public discourse, you're trading disillusionment for complacent self-delusion.
The unfailing truth is that you can never really trust anyone. All you have to go on is whether they've lied to you in the past and your own gut feeling. I certainly hope that people are not naive enough to think that a person who has never lied to you before will therefore never lie to you in the future. And lets not even get into the ability for a person to just "know" in their gut when a person is lying.
While choice does put us in a predicament where we force individuals to truly consider the "trustworthiness" of the individuals with which they're interacting, it has the added benefit of forcing people to face reality.
"Advertising is an assault. And it uses scientific methodology to become ever more effective at making you and everyone else do stupid wasteful things for irrational reasons."
I may have missed your point -- but exactly how does advertising "make" you do anything? Who cares if someone follows you around all day and tells you to do something? If you end up doing it, you chose to do it. If you don't want to do it, don't. And if the person following you around all day telling you to do these things is annoying you, punch them in the face. (metaphorically, of course)
Yes, it's "bad" that advertising is taking advantage of someone's weakness for persuasion. But perhaps the fix isn't to regulate advertising, but rather ask people to develop just a modicum of willpower? And perhaps, just maybe, paternalism is just as bad as opportunism?
The stock market has tanked a little as of this morning. I'm not sure if this is a reflection of shareholders thinking that Democrats are bad with the economy or if it's just residual anxiety over the fact that the Senate race is in a dead heat.
Actually, such things would be "obvious" under the previously followed definition of "obviousness" in 35 USC 103.
The definition used to be whether the new invention would be obvious to a "Person Having Ordinary Skill in the Art" (PHOSITA) So basically, you'd take your average tax boy and see if this would have been obvious to him based on the prior art.
Unfortunately, the case law is in such a state that the "Person Having Ordinary Skill in the Art" is no longer the standard by which obviousness is judged. Currently, we look to the prior art and see if there's any "suggestion or motivation" to combine the prior art in such a way as to cover the claimed invention. And we interpret "suggestion or motivation" very narrowly so that pretty much nothing is obvious anymore.
Well, there's a problem with suing the sovereign (the government) but even if you get past that, I'm not sure that they would have a case.
The only thing that I could think of off of the top of my head is to sue for the government for just compensation because the change of the tax law constitutes a Taking. (Fifth Amendment)
I'm actually writing a paper in my patent seminar on this particular topic. In the Ways and Means Hearing on this topic, this exact point was brought up. The response was that the "novelty" requirement (35 USC 102) in patent law would keep the most basic and well-known strategies from being patented. However, this leaves open those strategies that are less well-known or not yet developed techniques for patenting.
Actually... yes. Business patents are similarly wrong...
The reason for this is fairly (glaringly?) apparent if you've followed the decisions leading up to State Street Bank. Originally, algorithms could not be patented at all. (Gottschalk v. Benson). Slowly, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit started to chip away at that decision, following up with Diamond v. Diehr, which allowed for an algorithm to be patented if it was used in conjunction with a machine. Finally, in Judge Rich's twilight years, he wrote State Street Bank v. Signature Financial Group which allowed for the patenting of algorithms regardless of whether or not it was attached to a machine.
The problem with this is that it impermissibly allows for a person to patent mental processes. In State Street Bank, the "invention" being claimed was software that would compute the market value of the different funds after the close of the market. (I believe this was necessary because funds required computation within 30 minutes of the close of the market -- I'm not entirely sure why...) In any case, what it did was patent a series of steps, mental processes if you will, whereby the valuation was computed.
Now if you do those same processes in your head, you are "infringing" a patent. Whether or not you'll be sued is another story, given the problems inherent in providing evidence of your infringement. Regardless of whether you're sued though, there are serious normative problems in blessing a patent system in which we allow for what takes place entirely in someone's head to constitute an infringement of property rights.
Also, software is already copyrightable. The reason that people may prefer patents is because patents have "stronger" rights that are not susceptible to the "fair use" exceptions that copyright is... In my view, patent protection for software is superfluous, and a creation of political lobbying rather than as a fulfillment of the Constitution's promise to "promote the progress of science and the useful arts."
I am a recent alumnus of UT and was flabbergasted to see this article.
A large amount of people used the UGL as a study library. It was the only library that was open 24 hours. Now that they're turning it into a recreation center, where the hell are people suposed to go when they're trying to cram for a test the next day?
Also, I'm not sure if any of you are familiar with the structure of the campus, but there is a student union RIGHT NEXT to the UGL. I don't udnerstand why they don't expand upon that.
I also understand that the UGL was a place where a lot of kids would hang out in the lobby while they were "doing their homework." (i.e. - it was a place for them to hang out with other kids and check out the co-eds...) But I'm not so sure we want to encourage kids to procrastinate... especially since our average time for graduation is around 5 or 6 years... (wow, one year out and i'm already starting to sound like an adult... damnit...)
Anyhow, those are my two cents...
The problem at issue here is not really the reverse engineering. This is somewhat different than having someone figure out the secret forumla to Coca-cola and reproducing it for their own profit.
The DRM that they are breaking is merely a method of allowing for the file to play on an iPod. It might be a little more analogous to getting a locksmith to copy a key for you. The physical act of copying the key or having possession of the copied key may not be illegal but the act of using the key to enter into another person's house might be...
The real question is whether or not Apple has the right to enforce the types of files that it allows on its iPods.
(I think that they do, but then again, I'm not comfortable with the idea that people can tell me what I can and cannot do with my own hardware...)
When the first film came out, I firmly believed that the only way for Lucas to win back the audience was by starting out the second with a black screen and have Jar-Jar walk on and spontaneously combust... and roll around for about ten minutes...
I expect that these fanfilmers would do well to take heed of my suggestion. ^_~
Slashdot Mirror
What about the ethics of slashdotting a site?
You've got it right on the money. I'm pretty sure that the minute Microsoft saw this, it shat a brick.
I wouldn't worry about that. I think that was just a malfunction. PEBKAC (Problem Exists Between Keyboard and Chair), if I'm not mistaken.
I'm not sure you can be a nihilist if you've crafted an arbitrary set of values that you believe are somehow better than other values. The most you can say is that those are your values and you follow them. Anything beyond that would reveal a belief that you think your first principles are somehow more than just first principles.
Ah, but you didn't say that "[c]ommercial entities ought not [] lie." You said that there should be a reasonable level of trust that should be enforced to protect the public from dangerous and manipulative lies. The added qualifiers indicate either that you meant to address only those lies which are dangerous and manipulative or that you were imprecise in trying to state that all lies should be prohibited.
I wonder if you were aware of the wonderful irony in saying that I'm misinterpreting a "real person" when you state that I have somehow said that "There are good lies and bad lies . . . " No lie is inherently good or bad. Good or bad are relative measure that have absolutely no meaning when divorced from comparison from the normative baseline from which you align the general notions of "good" and "bad." I would expect someone whose sig is "Nihilism is worthless" to at least understand that much.
What's even more interesting is your blind acceptance of a deontological ethic. You immediately state that the only "fair" thing to do is to have a law such as the one you propose, and completely neglect any treatment of the possibility that what you see as fair is nothing more than naked preference on your part. Fairness is nothing more than a point of view. Your attempts to wrap your personal preference within the illusion of nobility are rather disappointing.
You also touch on another very interesting point with the tension between enforceability and justice. It's easy for a deontologist to blindly accept bright line rules such as "[c]ompanies ought not [] lie" because you believe that justice lies in the following of your preferred method of regulatory treatment. However, that's a willful attempt at abandoning a more serious inquiry into the nature of enforcement and justice. In order to ease the enforcement of a law, one must necessarily decrease the amount of justice that can be done.
For instance, lets take the drunk driving laws. Some people can drive safely with a BAC of 0.11 and some cannot. While enforceability is enhanced by a law that criminalizes driving with a BAC of 0.08, it does not do justice to that percentage of the population which can drive unimpeded at a BAC of 0.11. Of course, if you automatically think that a law that criminalizes having a BAC of over 0.08 is "just," you can very conveniently forget about that.
So you are either a proponent of enforceability over justice or the other way around. You don't get to have your cake and eat it too. Sucks, but that's life. (Especially since what you put in parenthesis about justice is really about enforceability.)
I must commend you, however, for at least trying to engage me on the merits of my argument as opposed to following through on your declaration (possibly sarcastic) that you would not do me the favor of considering my arguments "lest [you] fall into [my] deceptive trap!"
Oh, and I'm off the company dime on this one. This was a freebie cuz I was oh so proud of you engaging me on the merits of this discussion. ^_~
Of course, there may be a slight difference between lying to get a person to buy a PSP and lying to get a person to buy a cancer stick. (Or maybe not.) You see, you've placed dangerous lies in the same camp as manipulative lies, which seems to be quite an arbitrary method of grouping them. One necessarily contains the risk of harm to the individual receiving the lie, whereas the other does not, by definition, implicitly mean that the risk of harm will result. (Although, even the cigarette example has defects -- perhaps if you had focused on the lying about whether nicotine was addictive as opposed to the health effects.)
/* And finally, you're entirely right. Free speech is overrated. I mean, how can we live in this world unless views such as mine (or others here who agree with free speech) are suppressed? Regulated speech is the gateway to the true Utopias -- Orwellian reservations notwithstanding. */ sarcasm /*
As for whether or not I'm a real person, well, you've seemingly stumbled onto the "I think therefore I am" conundrum. According to Descartes, you're the only person that you can be absolutely sure exists -- because of your self-awareness of your own cognitive processes. So your problem, by construction, is a philosophic truism rather than the result of the regulatory measures currently in place. (or lack thereof)
Furthermore, it seems rather unfortunate that your response is that "[my] argument won't get a second[']s consideration from [you], regardless of [the] merits, lest [you] fall into [my] deceptive trap!" It's unfortunate because you are focusing on the person as opposed to the actual argument itself. (i.e. - I am a paid UID and therefore nothing in my post can be believed) Perhaps it would be more constructive to figure out for yourself whether there is any wheat in the chaff.
*/ sarcasm
While I am sympathetic to your view here, the problem is that in "fixing" the "poisoning" of public discourse, you're trading disillusionment for complacent self-delusion.
The unfailing truth is that you can never really trust anyone. All you have to go on is whether they've lied to you in the past and your own gut feeling. I certainly hope that people are not naive enough to think that a person who has never lied to you before will therefore never lie to you in the future. And lets not even get into the ability for a person to just "know" in their gut when a person is lying.
While choice does put us in a predicament where we force individuals to truly consider the "trustworthiness" of the individuals with which they're interacting, it has the added benefit of forcing people to face reality.
"Advertising is an assault. And it uses scientific methodology to become ever more effective at making you and everyone else do stupid wasteful things for irrational reasons."
I may have missed your point -- but exactly how does advertising "make" you do anything? Who cares if someone follows you around all day and tells you to do something? If you end up doing it, you chose to do it. If you don't want to do it, don't. And if the person following you around all day telling you to do these things is annoying you, punch them in the face. (metaphorically, of course)
Yes, it's "bad" that advertising is taking advantage of someone's weakness for persuasion. But perhaps the fix isn't to regulate advertising, but rather ask people to develop just a modicum of willpower? And perhaps, just maybe, paternalism is just as bad as opportunism?
The stock market has tanked a little as of this morning. I'm not sure if this is a reflection of shareholders thinking that Democrats are bad with the economy or if it's just residual anxiety over the fact that the Senate race is in a dead heat.
The definition used to be whether the new invention would be obvious to a "Person Having Ordinary Skill in the Art" (PHOSITA) So basically, you'd take your average tax boy and see if this would have been obvious to him based on the prior art.
Unfortunately, the case law is in such a state that the "Person Having Ordinary Skill in the Art" is no longer the standard by which obviousness is judged. Currently, we look to the prior art and see if there's any "suggestion or motivation" to combine the prior art in such a way as to cover the claimed invention. And we interpret "suggestion or motivation" very narrowly so that pretty much nothing is obvious anymore.
Well, there's a problem with suing the sovereign (the government) but even if you get past that, I'm not sure that they would have a case. The only thing that I could think of off of the top of my head is to sue for the government for just compensation because the change of the tax law constitutes a Taking. (Fifth Amendment)
I'm actually writing a paper in my patent seminar on this particular topic. In the Ways and Means Hearing on this topic, this exact point was brought up. The response was that the "novelty" requirement (35 USC 102) in patent law would keep the most basic and well-known strategies from being patented. However, this leaves open those strategies that are less well-known or not yet developed techniques for patenting.
Oh right... their servers just died...
i was afraid that someone had patented the preview function on slashdot...
Actually... yes. Business patents are similarly wrong... The reason for this is fairly (glaringly?) apparent if you've followed the decisions leading up to State Street Bank. Originally, algorithms could not be patented at all. (Gottschalk v. Benson). Slowly, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit started to chip away at that decision, following up with Diamond v. Diehr, which allowed for an algorithm to be patented if it was used in conjunction with a machine. Finally, in Judge Rich's twilight years, he wrote State Street Bank v. Signature Financial Group which allowed for the patenting of algorithms regardless of whether or not it was attached to a machine. The problem with this is that it impermissibly allows for a person to patent mental processes. In State Street Bank, the "invention" being claimed was software that would compute the market value of the different funds after the close of the market. (I believe this was necessary because funds required computation within 30 minutes of the close of the market -- I'm not entirely sure why...) In any case, what it did was patent a series of steps, mental processes if you will, whereby the valuation was computed. Now if you do those same processes in your head, you are "infringing" a patent. Whether or not you'll be sued is another story, given the problems inherent in providing evidence of your infringement. Regardless of whether you're sued though, there are serious normative problems in blessing a patent system in which we allow for what takes place entirely in someone's head to constitute an infringement of property rights. Also, software is already copyrightable. The reason that people may prefer patents is because patents have "stronger" rights that are not susceptible to the "fair use" exceptions that copyright is... In my view, patent protection for software is superfluous, and a creation of political lobbying rather than as a fulfillment of the Constitution's promise to "promote the progress of science and the useful arts."
Much like the black widow, after the battery life of the Nano completely drains, the Maxtor Diamond will attempt to eat the iPod Nano for sustenance
I am a recent alumnus of UT and was flabbergasted to see this article. A large amount of people used the UGL as a study library. It was the only library that was open 24 hours. Now that they're turning it into a recreation center, where the hell are people suposed to go when they're trying to cram for a test the next day? Also, I'm not sure if any of you are familiar with the structure of the campus, but there is a student union RIGHT NEXT to the UGL. I don't udnerstand why they don't expand upon that. I also understand that the UGL was a place where a lot of kids would hang out in the lobby while they were "doing their homework." (i.e. - it was a place for them to hang out with other kids and check out the co-eds...) But I'm not so sure we want to encourage kids to procrastinate... especially since our average time for graduation is around 5 or 6 years... (wow, one year out and i'm already starting to sound like an adult... damnit...) Anyhow, those are my two cents...
The problem at issue here is not really the reverse engineering. This is somewhat different than having someone figure out the secret forumla to Coca-cola and reproducing it for their own profit. The DRM that they are breaking is merely a method of allowing for the file to play on an iPod. It might be a little more analogous to getting a locksmith to copy a key for you. The physical act of copying the key or having possession of the copied key may not be illegal but the act of using the key to enter into another person's house might be... The real question is whether or not Apple has the right to enforce the types of files that it allows on its iPods. (I think that they do, but then again, I'm not comfortable with the idea that people can tell me what I can and cannot do with my own hardware...)
When the first film came out, I firmly believed that the only way for Lucas to win back the audience was by starting out the second with a black screen and have Jar-Jar walk on and spontaneously combust... and roll around for about ten minutes... I expect that these fanfilmers would do well to take heed of my suggestion. ^_~