I have to pull this, because it's kind of lame, but did you notice the domain of my URL? I can't be THAT stupid.
Anyway, I acknowledge that humanity is so complex that simplistic statements, such as BOTH of us have given, are probably always going to be wrong, or at best approximations of the truth. But you have clearly got some issues about this. You told me to kill myself? Jeez... Not consistent with you assertion that I'M the moron.
Your strawman argumentation is getting ridiculous. I don't think the country should be a free-for-all. And I don't think capitalism unrestrained is good, nor do I think money is the ultimate motivator, etc. The arguments of capitalism are far more subtle than you give them credit, and are as much about decentralization and emergent properties of large scale systems (e.g. the invisible hand) as they are about selfish freedom.
The USSR was an abject failure. People were standing in line for bread. It broke up internally, remember? If they were in the top ten, that's still pathetic because they should've been number 2 or 1 by size and resources. Were you some party goon or something? You've got all the marks of a brainwash case: hyperbolic statement, over-emotional reaction to dissenting views...
Anyway, you are right about one thing: this is pointless. I'll carefully read and consider whatever response you may have to this, assuming it's more intelligent than an invitation to kill myself, but expect no further responses.
I wasn't trying to attack you in particular, just the general notion that gets repeated a lot here. Anyway, if Apple decides that part of their corporate strategy involves you doing something immoral, does that make it ok for one to do it?
Which is probably just fine with Apple. The more that gets pirated the more that gets sold. It has worked well for MS, it will work for Apple as well. Remember, if you pirate it and you like it and you want to use it at work then you are going to get your work to buy it.
Man, I'm sick of hearing this rationalization. Wrong is wrong, no matter what the monetary results. I really hope some scientist doesn't discover that the health of the software industry is somehow correlated with the forced sodomization of squirrels. Half of the/. regulars will quit posting to devote themselves to squirrel fucking. Richard Stallman will give up writing emacs (which, in an ironicly recursive way will turn out to be the central element of the scientist's thesis) and form the non-profit FSFF.
I wonder what color they'd use for the "Your Squirrel Fucking Rights" section of/.?
It's nice to see that the free work of so many programmers was put to use to create an overpriced product with huge profit margins. Weren't we all supposed to benefit from opensource? It looks like the monetary fruits of OSS are going entirely to the deep pockets of a few.
I bet it's gotta kill guys like Linus and the people who spent years working on linux to go into a store and see a company trying to make them pay for what they wrote for free.
Don't flatter yourself into thinking you've got the market cornered on rational logic. Clearly, you've had some pretty heavy influences in what you believe, and you've got way too much emotion tied up in this stuff to be rational about it. The fact that you are a defender of the fricking USSR is a pretty big red flag for your ability to think logically.
Anyway, I never claimed socialism lead to corruption. I said it invited it. In the end, its hard to say why corruption takes hold. In the US, some state governments are corrupt and others aren't. The US used to be one of the least corrupt governments in the world. Now, who knows. All forms of government are prone to corruption. But small government probably is harder to corrupt than big. Surely you'd have to agree with that.
I agree that capitalism can lead to its own excess and wrongs in society. But those are still wrongs, and not part of capitalism. Everything has risks. Socialism often begets tyranny and fascism. You don't see guys like Stalin and Mussolini form free societies. But I'm not going to label socialism as inherently fascist. That's too easy and unfair to socialism.
You do realize that libertarianism is about freedom, right? Freedom to give all your money to the poor, if you like, or form cooperative societies within societies, just like your beloved USSR.
Capitalist free markets are a part of most socialist societies today. All the European countries you mentioned before have pretty much free markets. They also have huge taxation and wealth redistribution. So saying that free markets are bad is a bit specious. The issue is how the government controls individual wealth.
In a country like Sweden, the government takes far more than half of all your income, when all sources of taxation are taken into account. Maybe about 75%, at least. So for eight months of the year, Swedes are working for the government for free. That's a little too close to slavery, if you ask me. Sure, they get some of that back, but it's not in their control how they get it back.
Americans appreciate the notion of INDIVIDUAL responsibility and ownership. If wealth gets distributed unevenly, maybe some of that is abuse of the system and cheating, and some is natural. The goal of a good capitalist society should be to enforce fairness to avoid the first two. But the latter is just nature, and what makes Americans work harder than other people. If you took the absolute limit of socialism, where all wealth is completely redistributed (i.e. like communism) then you'd have no motivation to do much of anything. Which is why the USSR failed so miserably. People only produced when they were bribed by the party. You still had inequity, but it was the result of party favoritism and had little to do with individual effort or ability.
Are you saying that a free market is less natural than a huge central government that decides how to distribute the fruits of its citizens efforts? That seems pretty illogical. Now, I'd be more impressed if you argued that the natural order of things is for people to cheat and exploit each other, and that therefore UNnatural system like socialism are needed to fix that.
You are a moron who doesn't know anything about socialism if you think the US is socialist. Crawl back to your libertarian hole and STFU.
Eloquently said. Your arguments were pursuasive and well backed up. No I did NOT know that Sweden was one of the least corrupt countries. But if you say it is, well then bring on the 75% taxation!
Let me just ask you one thing: if we're a democracy, why don't you just voluntarily give your money to social programs and foundations, and leave me the hell alone? Why is it that socialists are only willing to help people if everybody is forced to do the exact same?
To whom a socialist government gives my money is of secondary concern to me. Personally, I'm angry when my productivity is taken from me against my will and without fair process, and I don't care if the person taking it is a selfish thief, or a misguided but well-meaning politician with a robin hood complex. Second, you're naive if you think even socialist governments are immune to corruption. In fact, as pointed out by Frederik Bastiat, they are the most prone to corruption, because they control so much wealth. And big central, socialist governments DO spend much on themselves. Have you seen the budget for our federal government?
And I call it stealing because of the underhanded way most government programs are put in place, and the complete lack of democratic transparency that's occurred as a result of special interest control. And that could've only happened since we went down the road towards socialism. It's really hard for a small, focused government to pull this kind of thing off.
If you expect too much to be done for you by government, you find that much will be done you didn't want. I can't believe you think that socialism actually works in practice. Look around. Socialism is a recipe for waste, inefficiency, beauracracy and corruption. The biggest mistake you can make is giving politicians money to play with.
State socialism, while not perfect, is infinitely better than corporation-dominated capitalism.
You gotta be kidding me. It's more like corporation-dominated capitalism isn't perfect, but infinitely better than socialism. At least corporations have to TRICK me into voluntarily giving them money. Socialist governments just plain steal your wealth and labor from you. But, we've got both right now, so have a fucking ball deciding which one is worse...
I think the fat and stupid part is also just a luxury afforded by our affluence and the ready availability of near-slave labor abroad. Once that is not longer the case, my hope is people will start to sit up and take notice. Maybe it will be too late, though, as it was for Rome.
It's a pity, really, since as far as hegemons go, we are really the nicest the world has seen. I shudder to imagine things if the USSR had won, or if China replaces us some day.
I ran for state house in CO on the same platform you propose. So did others in the Libertarian party, and they tried even harder than I did. No matter how hard each of us tried, we all basically just got about 5% of the vote. People don't give a shit about the candidates, just the party. Democracy doesn't work when people are fat and happy and stupid, and that's pretty much America.
Brilliant. It also explains the fixation on attaining ideal security. The adult nerd simply seeks to make his computer the fortress of perfect safety he constantly wished for as a tortured child.
Seriously, most things people do can be explained by psychology over logic.
Well, I reckun if the WalMart be keepin with the VHSes I can keep on wachin my Vern tapes. I loves them boys! Always gettin into trouble, that Vern. Who needs no north fangled laser-type discuses when you gots yer Vern tapes at the WalMart?
Yeh, I know that lots of people don't buy shareware. My own shareware non-income shows that. But if you're one of the guys who extends "trial use" indefinitely, so you don't consider lost sales a problem, why did this outrage you?
Well, that apparent hyprocracy was my original point. It didn't hit me until last night that what I'm doing with software is pretty analogous to what my friend is doing with books at the bookstore. There are subtleties, mostly of social expectation, but essentially they are the same. So, I should be outraged at myself, too. And I'm starting to be. I figured I'm not the only one here who has all sorts of rationalizations for pirating software but who would react similary to a story of a person "borrowing" a video recorder or a book from a store. So I figured I share the thought.
When you borrow a book from a library, you don't expect to get a mint condition copy, so "borrowing" a book from a store has a direct impact on the next customer or on the store, but it has the same impact on the author as borrowing it from the library or a friend or buying it from a used book store.
Borrowing a book from the store is quite different from borrowing it from the library, even though it's hard to see when you consider an individual. If there were some magic way to prevent bookstore "borrowing" then a lot of the people who commit that act of dishonesty would be forced to either buy the book or wait in line at the library for weeks. Many of them would just buy the book. They are availing themselves of an option they shouldn't have, just as I am when I download software that I say I wouldn't normally buy. The truth is, I might end up buying one or two of the software packages that I "try out" on my computer if I were prevented from obtaining them in other ways. Basically, I'm weaseling out of my obligation to contribute a share of the development costs. The people that really get screwed are the honest users who end up paying too much for the software they use.
Both are amoral, and I don't approve of either. However, I would like you to replace the phrase "buys books from the store" with "borrows books from the library" and see how that might change things...
It changes things the exact same way you might replace "downloads a pirate copy of Word from warez.com" with "downloads a site licensed copy of Word from mit.edu". Library borrowing is limited, and under "license" from the copyright holder in a sense. That's why you have huge waits for a popular book. In fact, my wife's friend "borrows" book from the bookstore for that very reason. What were you getting at exactly?
There was a study a few years ago that asserted that OVER 65% of Microsoft Windows installations were pirated copies. This means that more than half of their market share is due to piracy.
By definition, market share cannot be based on piracy. It's defined by sales data. But your point is taken. I'm sure a lot of the people buying Windows machines probably got their first few copies of Windows illegally.
My wife brought up an interesting point last night. She was talking about a friend who buys books from the store, reads them and returns them. I was pretty indignant about this, and felt it was highly amoral. However, it occurred to me that it's very similar to software piracy, which I don't frown upon the same way. Anybody have any thoughts on this?
Actually, in the case of Apple it would appear to be exactly their problem. Something tells me Jobs has never been very happy about seeing his beloved Mac go from market dominance to market irrelevence.
Everybody talks on and on about the Mac experience, but here's my Mac experience: all to often software I needed was only available on the PC.
And don't blame Bill for this. If Apple had even managed to keep something like 40% market share, companies would be compelled to develop for both platforms. But at less than 5% market share, it's just too easy to ignore. Even Google ignores the Mac, which has to drive people around here crazy.
Here's a thought for you: If a kid gets a degree in marine bio and ends up working at an amusement park, can you imagine the shit he'd be doing WITHOUT the college degree? Some people go to college to learn a skill, and others go because it gives you a wide range of skills that are useful pretty much everywhere, including HR jobs at amusement parks. In college I learned some jazz piano, public speaking, creative writing and how to unhook a bra with one hand. There was probably even something about a major in there somewhere, but I wouldn't give up those skills for the world.
The original poster was not as asshatty as you seem to think. And it's prety much generally accepted that Jobs is, in fact, a huge dick. I'll give him the iPod idea. But that's it. Everything else was the work of creative technical people. Who, by the way, probably went to college.
What is it with the recent self-promotional use of/.? Next week, I'm going to try to get my own research on Slashdot: It is a liquid crystal display designed to be used by a man and cat, simultaneously. I call it kittiplexing, and it shows the human user their normal Windows XP desktop while showing a bouncing ball around the screen for the benefit of the cat. It requires that the cat wear a head-mounted optical unit I call the Digital Light Directing Optic. But once you strap it to the pussy, you just keep getting Windows until the batteries run out on the DLDO.
Thanks for the information. I did indeed miss the fact that it was an art program. However, the guy presented it as a technological first, which is totally ludicrous. It sounds like a first class example of self-promotion of second-class art using third-class technology. I thought/. editors were supposed to say 'no' sometimes.
Hmm. I like it even less as art, but at least this whole thing makes more sense. I definitely wouldn't have been as harsh if I'd known it was an art program.
Regardless, it's annoying to see my post get modded down as a troll. It was a flame, not a troll. There's a difference. I know because I cross it all the time.
Not for ads... they'd have to come up with something seriously revolutionary. I'm not saying they've got such a thing -- I'm speculating that if their vast resources were turned toward a Nobel of some kind, Economics is the only field that makes sense.
Slashdot Mirror
Greatest line on /. ever.
Overall, birge, you are really very stupid.
I have to pull this, because it's kind of lame, but did you notice the domain of my URL? I can't be THAT stupid.
Anyway, I acknowledge that humanity is so complex that simplistic statements, such as BOTH of us have given, are probably always going to be wrong, or at best approximations of the truth. But you have clearly got some issues about this. You told me to kill myself? Jeez... Not consistent with you assertion that I'M the moron.
Your strawman argumentation is getting ridiculous. I don't think the country should be a free-for-all. And I don't think capitalism unrestrained is good, nor do I think money is the ultimate motivator, etc. The arguments of capitalism are far more subtle than you give them credit, and are as much about decentralization and emergent properties of large scale systems (e.g. the invisible hand) as they are about selfish freedom.
The USSR was an abject failure. People were standing in line for bread. It broke up internally, remember? If they were in the top ten, that's still pathetic because they should've been number 2 or 1 by size and resources. Were you some party goon or something? You've got all the marks of a brainwash case: hyperbolic statement, over-emotional reaction to dissenting views... Anyway, you are right about one thing: this is pointless. I'll carefully read and consider whatever response you may have to this, assuming it's more intelligent than an invitation to kill myself, but expect no further responses.
I agree with your analysis. I have to admit I'd be very tempted to give it a go if the dev release were to make its way on to the net.
I wasn't trying to attack you in particular, just the general notion that gets repeated a lot here. Anyway, if Apple decides that part of their corporate strategy involves you doing something immoral, does that make it ok for one to do it?
Man, I'm sick of hearing this rationalization. Wrong is wrong, no matter what the monetary results. I really hope some scientist doesn't discover that the health of the software industry is somehow correlated with the forced sodomization of squirrels. Half of the /. regulars will quit posting to devote themselves to squirrel fucking. Richard Stallman will give up writing emacs (which, in an ironicly recursive way will turn out to be the central element of the scientist's thesis) and form the non-profit FSFF.
I wonder what color they'd use for the "Your Squirrel Fucking Rights" section of /.?
It's nice to see that the free work of so many programmers was put to use to create an overpriced product with huge profit margins. Weren't we all supposed to benefit from opensource? It looks like the monetary fruits of OSS are going entirely to the deep pockets of a few.
I bet it's gotta kill guys like Linus and the people who spent years working on linux to go into a store and see a company trying to make them pay for what they wrote for free.
Don't flatter yourself into thinking you've got the market cornered on rational logic. Clearly, you've had some pretty heavy influences in what you believe, and you've got way too much emotion tied up in this stuff to be rational about it. The fact that you are a defender of the fricking USSR is a pretty big red flag for your ability to think logically.
Anyway, I never claimed socialism lead to corruption. I said it invited it. In the end, its hard to say why corruption takes hold. In the US, some state governments are corrupt and others aren't. The US used to be one of the least corrupt governments in the world. Now, who knows. All forms of government are prone to corruption. But small government probably is harder to corrupt than big. Surely you'd have to agree with that.
I agree that capitalism can lead to its own excess and wrongs in society. But those are still wrongs, and not part of capitalism. Everything has risks. Socialism often begets tyranny and fascism. You don't see guys like Stalin and Mussolini form free societies. But I'm not going to label socialism as inherently fascist. That's too easy and unfair to socialism.
You do realize that libertarianism is about freedom, right? Freedom to give all your money to the poor, if you like, or form cooperative societies within societies, just like your beloved USSR.
Capitalist free markets are a part of most socialist societies today. All the European countries you mentioned before have pretty much free markets. They also have huge taxation and wealth redistribution. So saying that free markets are bad is a bit specious. The issue is how the government controls individual wealth.
In a country like Sweden, the government takes far more than half of all your income, when all sources of taxation are taken into account. Maybe about 75%, at least. So for eight months of the year, Swedes are working for the government for free. That's a little too close to slavery, if you ask me. Sure, they get some of that back, but it's not in their control how they get it back.
Americans appreciate the notion of INDIVIDUAL responsibility and ownership. If wealth gets distributed unevenly, maybe some of that is abuse of the system and cheating, and some is natural. The goal of a good capitalist society should be to enforce fairness to avoid the first two. But the latter is just nature, and what makes Americans work harder than other people. If you took the absolute limit of socialism, where all wealth is completely redistributed (i.e. like communism) then you'd have no motivation to do much of anything. Which is why the USSR failed so miserably. People only produced when they were bribed by the party. You still had inequity, but it was the result of party favoritism and had little to do with individual effort or ability.
Are you saying that a free market is less natural than a huge central government that decides how to distribute the fruits of its citizens efforts? That seems pretty illogical. Now, I'd be more impressed if you argued that the natural order of things is for people to cheat and exploit each other, and that therefore UNnatural system like socialism are needed to fix that.
Eloquently said. Your arguments were pursuasive and well backed up. No I did NOT know that Sweden was one of the least corrupt countries. But if you say it is, well then bring on the 75% taxation!
Let me just ask you one thing: if we're a democracy, why don't you just voluntarily give your money to social programs and foundations, and leave me the hell alone? Why is it that socialists are only willing to help people if everybody is forced to do the exact same?
To whom a socialist government gives my money is of secondary concern to me. Personally, I'm angry when my productivity is taken from me against my will and without fair process, and I don't care if the person taking it is a selfish thief, or a misguided but well-meaning politician with a robin hood complex. Second, you're naive if you think even socialist governments are immune to corruption. In fact, as pointed out by Frederik Bastiat, they are the most prone to corruption, because they control so much wealth. And big central, socialist governments DO spend much on themselves. Have you seen the budget for our federal government?
And I call it stealing because of the underhanded way most government programs are put in place, and the complete lack of democratic transparency that's occurred as a result of special interest control. And that could've only happened since we went down the road towards socialism. It's really hard for a small, focused government to pull this kind of thing off.
If you expect too much to be done for you by government, you find that much will be done you didn't want. I can't believe you think that socialism actually works in practice. Look around. Socialism is a recipe for waste, inefficiency, beauracracy and corruption. The biggest mistake you can make is giving politicians money to play with.
You gotta be kidding me. It's more like corporation-dominated capitalism isn't perfect, but infinitely better than socialism. At least corporations have to TRICK me into voluntarily giving them money. Socialist governments just plain steal your wealth and labor from you. But, we've got both right now, so have a fucking ball deciding which one is worse...
I think the fat and stupid part is also just a luxury afforded by our affluence and the ready availability of near-slave labor abroad. Once that is not longer the case, my hope is people will start to sit up and take notice. Maybe it will be too late, though, as it was for Rome.
It's a pity, really, since as far as hegemons go, we are really the nicest the world has seen. I shudder to imagine things if the USSR had won, or if China replaces us some day.
I ran for state house in CO on the same platform you propose. So did others in the Libertarian party, and they tried even harder than I did. No matter how hard each of us tried, we all basically just got about 5% of the vote. People don't give a shit about the candidates, just the party. Democracy doesn't work when people are fat and happy and stupid, and that's pretty much America.
So, only 3% of us have actually had our boards touched by a woman. That sounds about right.
No, fool. That article was about motherboards. This one's about mainboards.
Brilliant. It also explains the fixation on attaining ideal security. The adult nerd simply seeks to make his computer the fortress of perfect safety he constantly wished for as a tortured child.
Seriously, most things people do can be explained by psychology over logic.
Well, I reckun if the WalMart be keepin with the VHSes I can keep on wachin my Vern tapes. I loves them boys! Always gettin into trouble, that Vern. Who needs no north fangled laser-type discuses when you gots yer Vern tapes at the WalMart?
Well, that apparent hyprocracy was my original point. It didn't hit me until last night that what I'm doing with software is pretty analogous to what my friend is doing with books at the bookstore. There are subtleties, mostly of social expectation, but essentially they are the same. So, I should be outraged at myself, too. And I'm starting to be. I figured I'm not the only one here who has all sorts of rationalizations for pirating software but who would react similary to a story of a person "borrowing" a video recorder or a book from a store. So I figured I share the thought.
Borrowing a book from the store is quite different from borrowing it from the library, even though it's hard to see when you consider an individual. If there were some magic way to prevent bookstore "borrowing" then a lot of the people who commit that act of dishonesty would be forced to either buy the book or wait in line at the library for weeks. Many of them would just buy the book. They are availing themselves of an option they shouldn't have, just as I am when I download software that I say I wouldn't normally buy. The truth is, I might end up buying one or two of the software packages that I "try out" on my computer if I were prevented from obtaining them in other ways. Basically, I'm weaseling out of my obligation to contribute a share of the development costs. The people that really get screwed are the honest users who end up paying too much for the software they use.
It changes things the exact same way you might replace "downloads a pirate copy of Word from warez.com" with "downloads a site licensed copy of Word from mit.edu". Library borrowing is limited, and under "license" from the copyright holder in a sense. That's why you have huge waits for a popular book. In fact, my wife's friend "borrows" book from the bookstore for that very reason. What were you getting at exactly?
By definition, market share cannot be based on piracy. It's defined by sales data. But your point is taken. I'm sure a lot of the people buying Windows machines probably got their first few copies of Windows illegally.
My wife brought up an interesting point last night. She was talking about a friend who buys books from the store, reads them and returns them. I was pretty indignant about this, and felt it was highly amoral. However, it occurred to me that it's very similar to software piracy, which I don't frown upon the same way. Anybody have any thoughts on this?
Actually, in the case of Apple it would appear to be exactly their problem. Something tells me Jobs has never been very happy about seeing his beloved Mac go from market dominance to market irrelevence.
Everybody talks on and on about the Mac experience, but here's my Mac experience: all to often software I needed was only available on the PC.
And don't blame Bill for this. If Apple had even managed to keep something like 40% market share, companies would be compelled to develop for both platforms. But at less than 5% market share, it's just too easy to ignore. Even Google ignores the Mac, which has to drive people around here crazy.
Here's a thought for you: If a kid gets a degree in marine bio and ends up working at an amusement park, can you imagine the shit he'd be doing WITHOUT the college degree? Some people go to college to learn a skill, and others go because it gives you a wide range of skills that are useful pretty much everywhere, including HR jobs at amusement parks. In college I learned some jazz piano, public speaking, creative writing and how to unhook a bra with one hand. There was probably even something about a major in there somewhere, but I wouldn't give up those skills for the world.
The original poster was not as asshatty as you seem to think. And it's prety much generally accepted that Jobs is, in fact, a huge dick. I'll give him the iPod idea. But that's it. Everything else was the work of creative technical people. Who, by the way, probably went to college.
What is it with the recent self-promotional use of /.? Next week, I'm going to try to get my own research on Slashdot: It is a liquid crystal display designed to be used by a man and cat, simultaneously. I call it kittiplexing, and it shows the human user their normal Windows XP desktop while showing a bouncing ball around the screen for the benefit of the cat. It requires that the cat wear a head-mounted optical unit I call the Digital Light Directing Optic. But once you strap it to the pussy, you just keep getting Windows until the batteries run out on the DLDO.
Thanks for the information. I did indeed miss the fact that it was an art program. However, the guy presented it as a technological first, which is totally ludicrous. It sounds like a first class example of self-promotion of second-class art using third-class technology. I thought /. editors were supposed to say 'no' sometimes.
Hmm. I like it even less as art, but at least this whole thing makes more sense. I definitely wouldn't have been as harsh if I'd known it was an art program.
Regardless, it's annoying to see my post get modded down as a troll. It was a flame, not a troll. There's a difference. I know because I cross it all the time.
Oh, I agree then!