Most Americans don't give a shit if the military is committing atrocities, either out of sheer apathy or because they actually approve of murdering civilians who are the wrong color and religion. And of those who do care and disapprove, there are people like you, who are tired of being bothered by unpleasant facts.
No, I think most Americans think Iraq and Afghanistan are better off with the US soldiers there, even with the deaths that occur as a result because it would be worse if we were gone. Iraq could very well fall into a civil war which makes the current death toll look like a playground, and Afghanistan will be a total mess if the Taliban come back to power. In that sense, having US soldiers there is the better of two bad options. When Wikileaks releases this kind of stuff, there's a sense that it will lead people to support the withdrawl US forces. While many liberal people would support that goal, I think it will be worse in the long run (worse for everyone: the Iraqis, the Afghans, the US, and the world). So, from that perspective, Wikileaks is helping influence people towards a bad course of action.
> "Within 2 days of shutting the groups down we received a call from the FBI threatening to shut us down. They said by censoring anything we become responsible for ALL content on our systems."
Huh? Why would the FBI do that? I could understand that a lawyer might contact you and say that, by "censoring" anything you become responsible for all the content, but I don't understand why the FBI would contact you to say that. Besides, if that's true, then it seems like all the filesharing sites that remove kiddie-porn are guilty of all the copyright infringement on their system. It's well known that the Piratebay has removed kiddie porn (although, they're not in the US, so maybe that's their way to sidestep the issue).
It seems to me that reasonable "common carrier" rules should allow companies to remove content at their discretion, but if they do so, then they should also be liable to respond to requests for removal of copyrighted material, as well. But, to say that they are automatically held responsible for all copyright infringement, even the stuff they don't know about, seems a bit extreme.
The current furor over homosexuality has been fueled by talks given by American Evangelicals there: "The bill was introduced several months after a visit by several American evangelicals, who spoke at a conference called the "Seminar on Exposing the Homosexual Agenda." One of them was Scott Lively, a pastor from Springfield, MA, who believes that countries like Uganda can still protect themselves from what he sees as the scourge of the gay agenda. "These are good Christians; better Christians than there are here in the states," says Lively. "They care about each other. And I think the reason they're pushing so hard on this law is that they don't want to see what happened to our country happen over there." http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/anti-homosexuality-bill-uganda-global-uproar/story?id=10045436
The problem is with theocratic governments, it doesn't matter in the least what the actual religion is.
You know that Islam doesn't recognize the separation of church and state, don't you? In the early years, the entire domain of Islam was ruled by a caliphate, which is essentially the pope and king rolled into one. I'm afraid that Islamic areas are always going to run into this problem because of the bad precedent set early in Islam's history - when church and state were one entity, and presumably, that's the way "God wanted it". The only hope is that people become so modernized that they stop caring about trying to recreate the imaginary golden-age of Islam.
I don't find anything wrong with the lend program. I realize Slashdot has a certain "information should be free" ethos, but it doesn't make much sense to build in the ability to give unlimited copies to everyone and think that it won't undermine the business. While the publishers "wish you to engage in two separate hallucinations", it seems like lots of other people want us to engage in another hallucination: that giving out unlimited copies won't turn into a financial problem for booksellers. For example, how many students are really going to buy their own digital copies of their textbooks, as opposed to passing around one copy for everyone? (Not that I really agree with the current economic model of expensive, often-updated textbooks, but I also can't agree with the pirates desire for unlimited free copies for everyone - as if that has no economic consequences, either.)
You must be pretty young. The economy did pretty well under GWBush with a Republican controlled congress. However, as I've stated repeatedly, I don't think the Prez has a whole lot to do with it.
I don't remember the economy ever doing well under Bush. It just sort of limped along. It did quite well under Clinton, however.
Here's a chart of GDP growth if you don't believe me: http://www.businessinsider.com/gdp-under-different-parties-2010-11
The section where George Bush has a Republican congress stands out as having lower than average growth compared to most everywhere else on the chart.
pushed the federal government to buy stock in private entities
You mean the bailout of the auto-industry which was actually under George Bush? Yeah, a lot of conservatives automatically assume that was Obama.
enacted "Obamacare" in a nearly completely partisan vote with little to no real input from the right
What nonsense. The Republicans wanted to drag their feet over everything, and then complain that Obama wouldn't compromise so that they could simultaneously stopping anything from happening and blame the president. Remember the "public option"? Oh right, Obama compromised on that, but FOX News has somehow painted the picture in all the sheeple's minds that Obama wouldn't compromise.
and has not compromised on any bill placed in front of him to sign.
WTF are you talking about? Get your news from a real news outlet rather than the mouthpiece of the Republican propaganda machine.
From the perspective of a conservative, his is THE most left-leaning and partisan Presidency to date.
*EVERY* Democratic President is automatically labeled the "most left-leaning and partisan president" by the right. Just pay attention to the attack ads during every presidential election and you'll realize that this is the perpetual refrain of the Right.
Exxon donated more to Obama than any other person in office, so that isn't true either, and that tidbit just chafes the leftwing mantra.
Corporations read the tea leaves and buy influence accordingly. (D) and (R) are just prostitutes who peddle influence to the highest bidder.
"The [oil and gas] industry has donated $180 million to political candidates since 1989, making it the eighth biggest spender out of 80 industries analyzed. Currently, ExxonMobil has donated over $600,000 to political candidates - second only to Koch Industries, a small oil company known for its high spending on Congressional candidates. The oil industry clearly favors republicans to push its agenda on Capitol Hill and ExxonMobil is no exception. In 2006, 89 percent of ExxonMobil's donations went to republicans."
"Through June, Exxon employees have given Obama $42,100 to McCain's $35,166. Chevron favors Obama $35,157 to $28,500, and Obama edges out McCain with BP $16,046 vs. $11,500," the center said.
But McCain has raised more from nearly every other top giver in the oil and gas industry, including Hess Corp. -- $91,000 to Obama's $8,000.
And, overall, McCain's campaign has received about three times more from the oil and gas industry than Obama's has -- $1.3 million compared to about $394,000."
> "Seriously, the restrictions of 14 days and lending only once is so ridiculous that it should push people over to the side of sharers."
To be fair, virtually anything a company does (short of policies that would result in their own bankruptcy) are easy excuses for "sharers". Example: "they charge money for books - that should push people over to the side of sharers." Presumably, the "solution" for them is to stop charging money for their products.
In response to the comments about the 'lend once' model: the major issue is maintaining the profitability of the book business. One could imagine a future where all books are read electronically. Now, if all books were just copied from a library server, then what's the point of buying ebooks? While some people might find the 'non-copyable digital copy' to be kind of an onerous restriction on something that can be infinitely copyable, and react with disdain towards the "why restrict what we can do with books for their own profit?", I'd say that "profit" is really a spectrum between bankruptcy (and we don't want authors to go bankrupt) and 'getting rich' (which we might justly or unjustly have a problem with).
What is the solution? One possibility would be if society - as a whole (not just small segments of the population) - was very generous about donating to authors. This way, authors wouldn't be forced between: (1) having copy restrictions on their work and getting paid vs (2) having no restrictions on copying their work, but not getting adequately paid for their work / going bankrupt.
And, to anticipate all the "Doctorow" arguments: there's a variety of reasons he continues to make money. First, most people still want printed books (this is changing though), and authors get paid for those printed sales. Second, he's famous, in part because of his role as a political activist, being the guy who gets mentioned whenever free-books comes up (which means lots of free promotion), and member of one of the most popular websites - which he can tap for free promotion, and people want to support him to promote his activism. Third, people appreciate that they can get his work for free despite the fact that most everyone else doesn't allow that - which influences people towards donations. He's also hinted at times that he really doesn't make much money from books - which is why I see him writing magazine articles and turning up in other places. I'm convinced that if all books were allowed for free - thus, that was "the norm" rather than "the thing that *this* author does when everyone else doesn't do it" - that people would pretty quickly forget about donations, or would suffer from donation fatigue (I donated to author W, so I've done my good deed - no reason to donate to author X,Y,Z). I'm pretty sure no students would be donating to textbook publishers - and while they may or may not be overpaid, that doesn't mean they won't be drastically underpaid with a "free for everyone, please donate" model.
So, there's your solution to a "free digital media" society: convince society that they should donate so that creators don't feel like they have to restrict their work in order to pay their bills.
Seems Steve Lieber has an explanation for why his sales increased (and it's not generalizable to other media - e.g. music, software, movies - which is "native" to digital format):
"The problem is this: I hate looking at the kind of comics I do on a screen. I read plenty of funny comics on the web, but adventure stories just don't work for me online. Heavy brush and ink line art art seems ill-suited for monitors, and the storytelling rhythm is sort of *off*, somehow. I think it's an inferior experience for the reader. Or at least it is for me, but when I'm creating a comic, I'm have to go by my own tastes."
This is why I also think books have done better with piracy than other media - people don't like reading books on their computer screen. Hence, people like Doctorow, who want to sing the praises of piracy, are ignorant of why their media is different from other people's media. I'd find it funny how clueless they are about their own situation if they weren't out there trolling people who make other media.
Seems Steve Lieber has an explanation for why his sales increased (and it's not generalizable to other media - e.g. music, software, movies - which is "native" to digital format):
"The problem is this: I hate looking at the kind of comics I do on a screen. I read plenty of funny comics on the web, but adventure stories just don't work for me online. Heavy brush and ink line art art seems ill-suited for monitors, and the storytelling rhythm is sort of *off*, somehow. I think it's an inferior experience for the reader. Or at least it is for me, but when I'm creating a comic, I'm have to go by my own tastes."
This is why I also think books have done better with piracy than other media - people don't like reading books on their computer screen. Hence, people like Doctorow, who want to sing the praises of piracy, are ignorant of why their media is different from other people's media. I'd find it funny how clueless they are about their own situation if they weren't out there trolling people who make other media.
"what are you talking about? "In Rainbows" would have never gotten that kind of marketing any other way and it is still selling. "
Radiohead's manager said they won't be repeating that stunt, so it couldn't have been that great. And, it really does seem to be a stunt. It generated lots of free advertising for them, but that's not an effect that every band can do with every album because that would make it the norm - meaning the free advertising disappears.
"And everyone knows bands make most of their money from their concerts so in cutting out their record company, EMI, they kept a much larger percentage of the earnings than they would have gotten from a traditional release. It was a huge success for them."
You mean it can be more profitable for a band to give away their music and ask for donations than going through a record company where they get a small fraction of the sales profits? Okay, but that's a very particular set of circumstances -- and it revolves heavily around the fact that the record company only gives them a small fraction.
Let me give you an example to illustrate this further: let's say you work for a lawn company. They charge customers $40 an hour for your work. You earn $4 an hour, and they pocket the rest. One day, you get fed up, so you decide you're going outside the "lawn company" structure. You start working for free and asking people to donate. You start earning $8 an hour. Now, here's the problem: you can't generalize this as "it's better to work for donations than asking people to pay a set amount". Once you include the lawn company's (record company's) cut, you'd realize that the company structure is a whole lot better at getting money from customers than donations are. It's just that the donation system is a lot better deal than the deal your lawn company (record company) is giving you. In other segments of the market (like iPhone apps) software developers are getting 70% of each sale, and that the percentage of each sale can make a big difference in determining the best way to go about selling stuff.
By the way, the same paper also included a table of income distribution in 1980 through 2006:
Table 6: Distribution of income in the United States, 1982-2006
1980: Top 1% earned 12.8% of all income, Bottom 80% earned 48.1% of all income
2006: Top 1% earned 21.3% of all income, Bottom 80% earned 38.6% of all income
Fine, that particular argument of mine was wrong, but the larger point is still true. Here's why:
First, the chart I provided showed tax rates beginning in 1960. The tax rates for the rich drop around the late 1970s. It fluctuates a bit between 1980 and present day. The PDF you provided paints the same picture as I just described - in the first page of your PDF, you can see that the tax rate of the rich fluctuates a bit (presumably because of a fluctuating economy and stock market), but don't really change. Most notable is the fact that your chart doesn't begin until 1979 - two decades after mine begins. Your chart leaves out the two decades where the tax rates were higher on the rich. (You can see the declining tax rates on the rich at the very beginning of your table - where, in 1979, the richest 1% paid 37%.) Also, your chart shows the richest 1%, but not the richest 0.01% as my chart did.
So, how is it possible that the rich pay a larger percentage of the federal budget in 2010 than they did in 1980 when the tax rates are roughly the same? In part because the richest 1% in 2010 make more money than the richest 1% in 1980. There's also a slight tax increase on the richest 20%, and a slight decrease on the poorest 40%.
I also find it funny that republicans complain that Obama is some kind of socialist / communist. Looking at the tax rates on the rich, we were putting a lot more of the tax burden on the rich during the 1960s and 1970s than today. I guess we can conclude that the United States was a socialist/communist country during the Space Race and the Cold War.
It's already been pointed out that the percentage the US' tax revenue paid by the rich can increase while the percentage of individual income paid by the rich falls as long as the rich's percentage of total US income increases faster than everyone else. But, I'll provide you with a chart:
In 1979, the richest 1% of Americans were earning roughly 38% of the income paid to Americans. By 2003, they were earning around 57% of it. Meanwhile, the poorest 80% of Americans were earning about 23% of income paid to Americans, and by 2003, it slipped to around 13%.
The rich still pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes, but that percentage has dropped quite a bit over the past few decades. Between 1960 and the mid-70s, the richest 0.01% Americans paid roughly 70% of their income in federal taxes, but by 2004 that percentage had dropped to about 35%: http://post.cloudfront.goodinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/nytimes_taxes_graph.jpg
After WWII Russia didn't even have enough fuel to drive their tanks home, they used Horses & Mules. Russia never was and never would be a threat to anyone.
Boom! Irrefutable logic. The USSR had so little fuel (or poor supply lines) that they couldn't drive their tanks home in 1945. Ergo, they were completely powerless between 1945 and 1992. I heard that Khrushchev did *not* in fact go to the United Nations and declare that "We will bury you". And since the Soviet Union didn't have enough fuel in 1945, it's obvious that they didn't launch Sputnik into space, didn't have nuclear weapons, and didn't have ICBMs. It's all fiction - how could a country lacking in fuel in 1945 possibly get all those other things? Hellllll, I bet the Soviet Union didn't even have enough fuel to get Khrushchev to the UN in the first place!
As for 'Soviet style communism', Russia never was a communist country.
Even if it was true, it's totally, utterly irrelevant. The Soviet Union wasn't a threat because it wasn't a "true" communist country?
"Society is not $75,000 poorer. If this guy had a mortgage, he had homeowner's insurance. The insurance company is poorer but that's the point of insurance. If it didn't work that way, no one would get it."
How ridiculous to say that society, as a whole, is not poorer. One day there was a house. Now there is a burnt-out one. Whether or not the insurance company pays is irrelevant - because all it does is change who is poorer. I suppose you'd also argue that if a million people died, society is no worse off (personally or financially) by their absence, especially if they had life-insurance.
Should car insurance work the way this idiot wants, you drive with no insurance, and if you have an accident, you just pay $75, and the insurance company pay you for a new car.
No, because once you get into a car accident, the damage is already done. With the fire-department situation, there's a period of time where the fire can be stopped before the destruction is done (and the cost of the firefighting service is much less than the cost of the destroyed property). The solution would be to make the homeowner pay a fee for firefighting services (e.g. $1500). Perhaps a better example would be to say that someone could get health insurance, but they don't. Later, they get sick. The doctor arrives with a medicine that could cure the person, but it costs $50. The doctor says that he's not going to help the patient because he didn't pay for health insurance, AND he's not going to sell the patient the cure for $50 -- arguing that it would be better to let the patient die than let him "free ride" on the system. Of course, this leads to a situation where society is worse off because of a person's death -- much worse off than they would've been if they could've paid the $50. Ultimately, it results in a society that is actually a lot worse off because of libertarian "thinking".
"If they agreed to this EVERYONE would fail to pay the $75/year and they'd just offer to pay after the fire dept came. You have to realize that it costs a lot more than $75 to pay for FD services. The $75 is effectively an insurance, $75 alone doesn't come anywhere NEAR the cost of putting out a single fire."
Except that, if you read the story, you'd see that the fire department HAS responded to fires where people didn't pay the $75 fee, and there ARE still people paying the fee. (Based on your argument, *everyone* would've stopped paying years ago.) Regardless of that issue, they could've given him a different payment option - like paying $1500 (equal to twenty years of payments). This is one of the real tragedies of libertarian thinking: because he didn't pay the $75 fee, and they didn't allow a "pay now" option with a higher price, they'd let a $75,000 house burn to the ground. While libertarians might claim that they're "helping society" through their political philosophy, the reality is that society (as a whole) is $75,000 poorer. That's bad. How can libertarian philosophy possibly be making the world a better place to live when it results in the destruction of property?
Most taxes go to pay the salaries of government employees, who are certainly not poor.
"New study finds public workers earn less than private sector workers, even factoring in benefits"
"Once age and education are factored in, state and local workers actually earn less, on average, than their private-sector counterparts. The wage penalty for state and local government workers in New England is close to 3 percent." http://www.physorg.com/news203874436.html
The biggest conservative BS myth is that they *earned* every dollar they've made - as if they're an island unto themselves and society had nothing to do with it. I suggest we drop those millionaires into Jamaica or some other destitute third-world country. When they fail to become equally rich in Jamaica as they did in America, then we've proved that the society around them has something to do with their wealth.
Nothing ever gets changed politically by people who are being reasonable. To end up in the middle, you have to pull as strong in your direction as your opponents pull in the other direction. Sad but true.
Not necessarily true. In a similar vein, if you oppose race-based affirmative action, I'd suggest that people *not* join the KKK or the nazi party in an effort to "end up in the middle".
Information wants to be free! There should be no laws against transmitting knowledge! You can't steal information - you're only making a copy of it! [/sarcasm]
Slashdot Mirror
No, I think most Americans think Iraq and Afghanistan are better off with the US soldiers there, even with the deaths that occur as a result because it would be worse if we were gone. Iraq could very well fall into a civil war which makes the current death toll look like a playground, and Afghanistan will be a total mess if the Taliban come back to power. In that sense, having US soldiers there is the better of two bad options. When Wikileaks releases this kind of stuff, there's a sense that it will lead people to support the withdrawl US forces. While many liberal people would support that goal, I think it will be worse in the long run (worse for everyone: the Iraqis, the Afghans, the US, and the world). So, from that perspective, Wikileaks is helping influence people towards a bad course of action.
> "Within 2 days of shutting the groups down we received a call from the FBI threatening to shut us down. They said by censoring anything we become responsible for ALL content on our systems."
Huh? Why would the FBI do that? I could understand that a lawyer might contact you and say that, by "censoring" anything you become responsible for all the content, but I don't understand why the FBI would contact you to say that. Besides, if that's true, then it seems like all the filesharing sites that remove kiddie-porn are guilty of all the copyright infringement on their system. It's well known that the Piratebay has removed kiddie porn (although, they're not in the US, so maybe that's their way to sidestep the issue).
It seems to me that reasonable "common carrier" rules should allow companies to remove content at their discretion, but if they do so, then they should also be liable to respond to requests for removal of copyrighted material, as well. But, to say that they are automatically held responsible for all copyright infringement, even the stuff they don't know about, seems a bit extreme.
I'm guessing he was talking about "The Lord's Resistance Army" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord%27s_Resistance_Army) and the current oppression of homosexuals in Uganda:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uganda_Anti-Homosexuality_Bill
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/10/20/ugandan-embassy-defends-equal-rights-gay-list-appears-newspaper/
The current furor over homosexuality has been fueled by talks given by American Evangelicals there: "The bill was introduced several months after a visit by several American evangelicals, who spoke at a conference called the "Seminar on Exposing the Homosexual Agenda." One of them was Scott Lively, a pastor from Springfield, MA, who believes that countries like Uganda can still protect themselves from what he sees as the scourge of the gay agenda. "These are good Christians; better Christians than there are here in the states," says Lively. "They care about each other. And I think the reason they're pushing so hard on this law is that they don't want to see what happened to our country happen over there."
http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/anti-homosexuality-bill-uganda-global-uproar/story?id=10045436
There's also the continuing problem of naming witches:
"African Children Denounced As "Witches" By Christian Pastors"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/18/african-children-denounce_n_324943.html
The problem is with theocratic governments, it doesn't matter in the least what the actual religion is.
You know that Islam doesn't recognize the separation of church and state, don't you? In the early years, the entire domain of Islam was ruled by a caliphate, which is essentially the pope and king rolled into one. I'm afraid that Islamic areas are always going to run into this problem because of the bad precedent set early in Islam's history - when church and state were one entity, and presumably, that's the way "God wanted it". The only hope is that people become so modernized that they stop caring about trying to recreate the imaginary golden-age of Islam.
I don't find anything wrong with the lend program. I realize Slashdot has a certain "information should be free" ethos, but it doesn't make much sense to build in the ability to give unlimited copies to everyone and think that it won't undermine the business. While the publishers "wish you to engage in two separate hallucinations", it seems like lots of other people want us to engage in another hallucination: that giving out unlimited copies won't turn into a financial problem for booksellers. For example, how many students are really going to buy their own digital copies of their textbooks, as opposed to passing around one copy for everyone? (Not that I really agree with the current economic model of expensive, often-updated textbooks, but I also can't agree with the pirates desire for unlimited free copies for everyone - as if that has no economic consequences, either.)
You must be pretty young. The economy did pretty well under GWBush with a Republican controlled congress. However, as I've stated repeatedly, I don't think the Prez has a whole lot to do with it.
I don't remember the economy ever doing well under Bush. It just sort of limped along. It did quite well under Clinton, however.
Here's a chart of GDP growth if you don't believe me: http://www.businessinsider.com/gdp-under-different-parties-2010-11
The section where George Bush has a Republican congress stands out as having lower than average growth compared to most everywhere else on the chart.
pushed the federal government to buy stock in private entities
You mean the bailout of the auto-industry which was actually under George Bush? Yeah, a lot of conservatives automatically assume that was Obama.
enacted "Obamacare" in a nearly completely partisan vote with little to no real input from the right
What nonsense. The Republicans wanted to drag their feet over everything, and then complain that Obama wouldn't compromise so that they could simultaneously stopping anything from happening and blame the president. Remember the "public option"? Oh right, Obama compromised on that, but FOX News has somehow painted the picture in all the sheeple's minds that Obama wouldn't compromise.
and has not compromised on any bill placed in front of him to sign.
WTF are you talking about? Get your news from a real news outlet rather than the mouthpiece of the Republican propaganda machine.
From the perspective of a conservative, his is THE most left-leaning and partisan Presidency to date.
*EVERY* Democratic President is automatically labeled the "most left-leaning and partisan president" by the right. Just pay attention to the attack ads during every presidential election and you'll realize that this is the perpetual refrain of the Right.
http://www.exxposeexxon.com/ExxonMobil_politics.html
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/politicalintelligence/2008/08/both_mccain_oba.html
> "Seriously, the restrictions of 14 days and lending only once is so ridiculous that it should push people over to the side of sharers."
To be fair, virtually anything a company does (short of policies that would result in their own bankruptcy) are easy excuses for "sharers". Example: "they charge money for books - that should push people over to the side of sharers." Presumably, the "solution" for them is to stop charging money for their products.
In response to the comments about the 'lend once' model: the major issue is maintaining the profitability of the book business. One could imagine a future where all books are read electronically. Now, if all books were just copied from a library server, then what's the point of buying ebooks? While some people might find the 'non-copyable digital copy' to be kind of an onerous restriction on something that can be infinitely copyable, and react with disdain towards the "why restrict what we can do with books for their own profit?", I'd say that "profit" is really a spectrum between bankruptcy (and we don't want authors to go bankrupt) and 'getting rich' (which we might justly or unjustly have a problem with).
What is the solution? One possibility would be if society - as a whole (not just small segments of the population) - was very generous about donating to authors. This way, authors wouldn't be forced between: (1) having copy restrictions on their work and getting paid vs (2) having no restrictions on copying their work, but not getting adequately paid for their work / going bankrupt.
And, to anticipate all the "Doctorow" arguments: there's a variety of reasons he continues to make money. First, most people still want printed books (this is changing though), and authors get paid for those printed sales. Second, he's famous, in part because of his role as a political activist, being the guy who gets mentioned whenever free-books comes up (which means lots of free promotion), and member of one of the most popular websites - which he can tap for free promotion, and people want to support him to promote his activism. Third, people appreciate that they can get his work for free despite the fact that most everyone else doesn't allow that - which influences people towards donations. He's also hinted at times that he really doesn't make much money from books - which is why I see him writing magazine articles and turning up in other places. I'm convinced that if all books were allowed for free - thus, that was "the norm" rather than "the thing that *this* author does when everyone else doesn't do it" - that people would pretty quickly forget about donations, or would suffer from donation fatigue (I donated to author W, so I've done my good deed - no reason to donate to author X,Y,Z). I'm pretty sure no students would be donating to textbook publishers - and while they may or may not be overpaid, that doesn't mean they won't be drastically underpaid with a "free for everyone, please donate" model.
So, there's your solution to a "free digital media" society: convince society that they should donate so that creators don't feel like they have to restrict their work in order to pay their bills.
Seems Steve Lieber has an explanation for why his sales increased (and it's not generalizable to other media - e.g. music, software, movies - which is "native" to digital format):
"The problem is this: I hate looking at the kind of comics I do on a screen. I read plenty of funny comics on the web, but adventure stories just don't work for me online. Heavy brush and ink line art art seems ill-suited for monitors, and the storytelling rhythm is sort of *off*, somehow. I think it's an inferior experience for the reader. Or at least it is for me, but when I'm creating a comic, I'm have to go by my own tastes."
This is why I also think books have done better with piracy than other media - people don't like reading books on their computer screen. Hence, people like Doctorow, who want to sing the praises of piracy, are ignorant of why their media is different from other people's media. I'd find it funny how clueless they are about their own situation if they weren't out there trolling people who make other media.
Seems Steve Lieber has an explanation for why his sales increased (and it's not generalizable to other media - e.g. music, software, movies - which is "native" to digital format):
"The problem is this: I hate looking at the kind of comics I do on a screen. I read plenty of funny comics on the web, but adventure stories just don't work for me online. Heavy brush and ink line art art seems ill-suited for monitors, and the storytelling rhythm is sort of *off*, somehow. I think it's an inferior experience for the reader. Or at least it is for me, but when I'm creating a comic, I'm have to go by my own tastes."
This is why I also think books have done better with piracy than other media - people don't like reading books on their computer screen. Hence, people like Doctorow, who want to sing the praises of piracy, are ignorant of why their media is different from other people's media. I'd find it funny how clueless they are about their own situation if they weren't out there trolling people who make other media.
"what are you talking about? "In Rainbows" would have never gotten that kind of marketing any other way and it is still selling. "
Radiohead's manager said they won't be repeating that stunt, so it couldn't have been that great. And, it really does seem to be a stunt. It generated lots of free advertising for them, but that's not an effect that every band can do with every album because that would make it the norm - meaning the free advertising disappears.
"And everyone knows bands make most of their money from their concerts so in cutting out their record company, EMI, they kept a much larger percentage of the earnings than they would have gotten from a traditional release. It was a huge success for them."
You mean it can be more profitable for a band to give away their music and ask for donations than going through a record company where they get a small fraction of the sales profits? Okay, but that's a very particular set of circumstances -- and it revolves heavily around the fact that the record company only gives them a small fraction.
Let me give you an example to illustrate this further: let's say you work for a lawn company. They charge customers $40 an hour for your work. You earn $4 an hour, and they pocket the rest. One day, you get fed up, so you decide you're going outside the "lawn company" structure. You start working for free and asking people to donate. You start earning $8 an hour. Now, here's the problem: you can't generalize this as "it's better to work for donations than asking people to pay a set amount". Once you include the lawn company's (record company's) cut, you'd realize that the company structure is a whole lot better at getting money from customers than donations are. It's just that the donation system is a lot better deal than the deal your lawn company (record company) is giving you. In other segments of the market (like iPhone apps) software developers are getting 70% of each sale, and that the percentage of each sale can make a big difference in determining the best way to go about selling stuff.
By the way, the same paper also included a table of income distribution in 1980 through 2006:
Table 6: Distribution of income in the United States, 1982-2006
1980: Top 1% earned 12.8% of all income, Bottom 80% earned 48.1% of all income
2006: Top 1% earned 21.3% of all income, Bottom 80% earned 38.6% of all income
Fine, that particular argument of mine was wrong, but the larger point is still true. Here's why:
First, the chart I provided showed tax rates beginning in 1960. The tax rates for the rich drop around the late 1970s. It fluctuates a bit between 1980 and present day. The PDF you provided paints the same picture as I just described - in the first page of your PDF, you can see that the tax rate of the rich fluctuates a bit (presumably because of a fluctuating economy and stock market), but don't really change. Most notable is the fact that your chart doesn't begin until 1979 - two decades after mine begins. Your chart leaves out the two decades where the tax rates were higher on the rich. (You can see the declining tax rates on the rich at the very beginning of your table - where, in 1979, the richest 1% paid 37%.) Also, your chart shows the richest 1%, but not the richest 0.01% as my chart did.
So, how is it possible that the rich pay a larger percentage of the federal budget in 2010 than they did in 1980 when the tax rates are roughly the same? In part because the richest 1% in 2010 make more money than the richest 1% in 1980. There's also a slight tax increase on the richest 20%, and a slight decrease on the poorest 40%.
I also find it funny that republicans complain that Obama is some kind of socialist / communist. Looking at the tax rates on the rich, we were putting a lot more of the tax burden on the rich during the 1960s and 1970s than today. I guess we can conclude that the United States was a socialist/communist country during the Space Race and the Cold War.
It's already been pointed out that the percentage the US' tax revenue paid by the rich can increase while the percentage of individual income paid by the rich falls as long as the rich's percentage of total US income increases faster than everyone else. But, I'll provide you with a chart:
Figure 5: Share of capital income earned by top 1% and bottom 80%, 1979-2003
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/images/wealth/Figure_5.gif
(From here: http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html)
In 1979, the richest 1% of Americans were earning roughly 38% of the income paid to Americans. By 2003, they were earning around 57% of it. Meanwhile, the poorest 80% of Americans were earning about 23% of income paid to Americans, and by 2003, it slipped to around 13%.
The rich still pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes, but that percentage has dropped quite a bit over the past few decades. Between 1960 and the mid-70s, the richest 0.01% Americans paid roughly 70% of their income in federal taxes, but by 2004 that percentage had dropped to about 35%: http://post.cloudfront.goodinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/nytimes_taxes_graph.jpg
After WWII Russia didn't even have enough fuel to drive their tanks home, they used Horses & Mules. Russia never was and never would be a threat to anyone.
Boom! Irrefutable logic. The USSR had so little fuel (or poor supply lines) that they couldn't drive their tanks home in 1945. Ergo, they were completely powerless between 1945 and 1992. I heard that Khrushchev did *not* in fact go to the United Nations and declare that "We will bury you". And since the Soviet Union didn't have enough fuel in 1945, it's obvious that they didn't launch Sputnik into space, didn't have nuclear weapons, and didn't have ICBMs. It's all fiction - how could a country lacking in fuel in 1945 possibly get all those other things? Hellllll, I bet the Soviet Union didn't even have enough fuel to get Khrushchev to the UN in the first place!
As for 'Soviet style communism', Russia never was a communist country.
Even if it was true, it's totally, utterly irrelevant. The Soviet Union wasn't a threat because it wasn't a "true" communist country?
"Society is not $75,000 poorer. If this guy had a mortgage, he had homeowner's insurance. The insurance company is poorer but that's the point of insurance. If it didn't work that way, no one would get it."
How ridiculous to say that society, as a whole, is not poorer. One day there was a house. Now there is a burnt-out one. Whether or not the insurance company pays is irrelevant - because all it does is change who is poorer. I suppose you'd also argue that if a million people died, society is no worse off (personally or financially) by their absence, especially if they had life-insurance.
Should car insurance work the way this idiot wants, you drive with no insurance, and if you have an accident, you just pay $75, and the insurance company pay you for a new car.
No, because once you get into a car accident, the damage is already done. With the fire-department situation, there's a period of time where the fire can be stopped before the destruction is done (and the cost of the firefighting service is much less than the cost of the destroyed property). The solution would be to make the homeowner pay a fee for firefighting services (e.g. $1500). Perhaps a better example would be to say that someone could get health insurance, but they don't. Later, they get sick. The doctor arrives with a medicine that could cure the person, but it costs $50. The doctor says that he's not going to help the patient because he didn't pay for health insurance, AND he's not going to sell the patient the cure for $50 -- arguing that it would be better to let the patient die than let him "free ride" on the system. Of course, this leads to a situation where society is worse off because of a person's death -- much worse off than they would've been if they could've paid the $50. Ultimately, it results in a society that is actually a lot worse off because of libertarian "thinking".
"If they agreed to this EVERYONE would fail to pay the $75/year and they'd just offer to pay after the fire dept came. You have to realize that it costs a lot more than $75 to pay for FD services. The $75 is effectively an insurance, $75 alone doesn't come anywhere NEAR the cost of putting out a single fire."
Except that, if you read the story, you'd see that the fire department HAS responded to fires where people didn't pay the $75 fee, and there ARE still people paying the fee. (Based on your argument, *everyone* would've stopped paying years ago.) Regardless of that issue, they could've given him a different payment option - like paying $1500 (equal to twenty years of payments). This is one of the real tragedies of libertarian thinking: because he didn't pay the $75 fee, and they didn't allow a "pay now" option with a higher price, they'd let a $75,000 house burn to the ground. While libertarians might claim that they're "helping society" through their political philosophy, the reality is that society (as a whole) is $75,000 poorer. That's bad. How can libertarian philosophy possibly be making the world a better place to live when it results in the destruction of property?
Most taxes go to pay the salaries of government employees, who are certainly not poor.
"New study finds public workers earn less than private sector workers, even factoring in benefits"
"Once age and education are factored in, state and local workers actually earn less, on average, than their private-sector counterparts. The wage penalty for state and local government workers in New England is close to 3 percent."
http://www.physorg.com/news203874436.html
The biggest conservative BS myth is that they *earned* every dollar they've made - as if they're an island unto themselves and society had nothing to do with it. I suggest we drop those millionaires into Jamaica or some other destitute third-world country. When they fail to become equally rich in Jamaica as they did in America, then we've proved that the society around them has something to do with their wealth.
Nothing ever gets changed politically by people who are being reasonable. To end up in the middle, you have to pull as strong in your direction as your opponents pull in the other direction. Sad but true.
Not necessarily true. In a similar vein, if you oppose race-based affirmative action, I'd suggest that people *not* join the KKK or the nazi party in an effort to "end up in the middle".
Information wants to be free! There should be no laws against transmitting knowledge! You can't steal information - you're only making a copy of it! [/sarcasm]