Those situations you have described are "intentional killing", not intentional maiming. That's the line the Geneva Conventions are trying to draw. If those tactics are unsuccessful at killing, then yes, usually maiming will result, but the goal is supposed to be a complete kill.
I believe that one of the goals of the Geneva Convention was to try and discourage the use of tactics which would cause huge numbers of disabled, who would end up being a major economic burden on any society (winners and losers) trying to rebuild after a war.
That's impressive, but that would make you an exceptional case.
If you are a "social engineer", and are designing some kind of social system, then you have to design it with the TYPICAL case in mind, and not the exceptional. In the situation of being trapped by self-destructive behavior, most people will find it difficult to find the path out without some help.
In the worst case, if there are people who are actively working to stop the typical people from improving their own standard of living (like in a slavery situation), then it may be pretty much impossible for all but superhumans to thrive. Do you think your drive & determination would have been successful if someone with equal drive & determination, and much more resources, had been working to undermine any attempt you made to get out of your bad situation?
I also suspect you will have to maintain strict mental discipline for the rest of your life to avoid falling into old, bad behavior patterns, especially during a time of stress. Best wishes with that.
You got lucky. I don't deny that you probably worked your ass off too, and you might be as smart as a whip, but if you had grown up in the wrong neighborhood or family, you'd probably be dead by now no matter how hard you worked or how smart you were.
Do they give you any criteria when teaching you your Constitutional duties about how you're supposed to recognize that you have to arrest your leaders for trying to destroy the Constitution?
Bummer, it looks like you've rationalized your hypocrisy (yes, this is a criticism).
Aside from trademarks (which I consider to be more of an identity & fraud issue than "intellectual property"), copyright & patent law are most definitely an attempt to institutionalize control of what people can do with concepts & ideas. You are merely playing with semantics when you try to separate the definition of "facts & knowledge" from the ways that they can be expressed. If the latter is not protected, then the former is a useless distinction.
I'm watching a porno^H^H^H^H^Heducational video online,
It occurs to me that the Open Source movement & the porn industry have some commonality: attracting eyeballs by showing _everything_. Maybe some Open Source projects could be financed by investing in porn:-)
However with Microsoft's extensive patent portfolio, I wonder just how hard they're trying with this case.
An extensive, defensive patent portfolio is worthless against a litigant that sells no service or product, and is therefore immune to any counter patent claims that the defendee might normally attack back with.
Has "Van Zant" or their agent made any comment on how they feel about what Sony is doing to their audience in their names? (Would they even understand what Sony has done?)
Sure, right up until the South Korean government decides it's their turn to be stripped of their "intellectual property" rights.
As long as the government makes clear that they are doing so as a last resort only because Microsoft is refusing to sell any product at all in the S.K., I doubt most companies would have the reaction that you think they would. Most of them will just think that Microsoft was being arrogant & unreasonable and enjoy the chance to compete in a lucrative market without having to worry about the presence of Microsoft's competition-crushing financial tactics.
Nevertheless, *billions* of dollars of economic activity hinge on the principals of "intellectual property". Much as I like to dream of world sans IP laws, it's not ever going to happen without a massive global upheaval.
Yeah, that is a real problem - so many companies have risen to take advantage of the draconian IP laws that have been passed, big chunks of the various nations economy are based on it. It's too bad, since much of the use of the IP laws seem to be more parasitic (either preventing competition or extorting money) rather than productive, and most of the implementation of IP laws seem to encourage stagnation rather than encouraging innovation.
Still, at some point in the near future I think the IP industry is going to have to do _something_ to adapt to a more reasonable approach. China & the similar regional markets don't have anywhere near the cultural respect for IP laws that seem to be part of the Western mindset, and they are in a similar historical growth situation that the U.S. was during the Industrial Revolution.
Much of the reason that the U.S. became such an economic powerhouse so quickly is because, the U.S. industrial entrepreneurs essentially "stole" whatever European industrial ideas they felt like to build up the technology of the U.S. industry, ignoring protests from Europe about the "theft" of IP. China is doing the exact same thing right now, and if the First World countries allow IP laws (and anti-science viewpoints) to strangle their rate of innovation, it is almost inevitable that China will become the economic powerhouse of the world, while the so-called First World countries will become economic has-been backwaters.
That would be an immensely stupid thing for any government to do, and would probably be not-long-followed by an economic meltdown.
In what way? It's not like it's a real product which can be physically withheld from S.K. & its citizens. S.K. wouldn't even be changing its IP laws - just allowing a blanket exception for Microsoft products. All other companies would be perfectly free to protect their own IP, so it's not like anybody else would step up to defend Microsoft.
It's pretty funny how so many of my respondents are so absolutely sure that such a move would hurt S.K. more than it would hurt Microsoft, but haven't proposed any kind of economic reasoning to argue why that would be so. IP isn't a "real" product. It has potential value as a product only because governments enforce artificial scarcity. If a host government doesn't enforce that artificial scarcity, then there's not a damn thing that a company that depends totally on IP for its income can do about it.
Because of WIPO and the WTO South Korea couldn't tell people there Windows, Office, or anything else MS puts out is open source.
Like the S.K. government is going to give a damn about that if Microsoft tries to tell them they can't use any copies of Windows.
Let's see: "Economic destruction or let our people use Windows for free! I know, let's destroy our country! Yeah, that makes sense!"
As I said before, companies whose business model is based on intellectual property MUST have the cooperation of the host government (as does any business that depends on artificial-induced scarcity to suck money out of citizens' pockets).
It's their software, shouldn't they be able to sell it or not sell it where they wish?
Sure - but once they sell it, they have to play nice with the people who they sold it to if they want those people to voluntarily respect their "intellectual property".
Private consumers aren't the only ones using PCs - enterprises and businesses use PCs too. And they do not get away with corporate-wide piracy of Windows.
And how would you expect Microsoft to stop them? If they piss off the S.K. government too badly, the government can say to their corporations & citizens: "All Microsoft products are now public domain - have fun!".
Hell, not having to pay the Microsoft "tax" would probably give the S.K. companies a competitive financial advantage over companies from other countries.
If you depend on enforcement of IP laws for your business, then you can NOT tick off the government doing the enforcement for you. That's one of the problems with a business model based on a legal fiction.
George Carlin: "Government wants to control language because that's how you control thought. And, basically, that's the business they're in."
Actually, I would say that RELIGION is in the business of controlling peoples' thoughts. All other forms of governance just want to be able to have that level of control over the people they supposedly exist to serve.
It's easier to trust 1 authority than to trust hundreds or thousands of authorities.
I take it that you don't trust your local governments to assign things like street addresses, street names, landmark names, etc. It would throw the world into total confusion if there wasn't one central authority responsible for naming all of those things - you might end up with different cities reusing the same street names and stuff, and nobody would EVER be able to figure out where they were going.
Sorry, there are currently no U.S. government agencies which can be trusted to give a report with any kind of "scientific" credibility. You'd get more trustworthy results by doing a survey of random people walking by your house.
IP is property, and anyone that says otherwise has never contributed a critical proprietary idea to society.
IP is NOT property, and anyone who says otherwise has a really inflated idea of how much a "critical proprietary idea" is worth in a free market. Hint: it's not what the SELLER thinks it's worth - it's what the BUYER thinks it's worth.
If you have a one-in-a-million idea, you deserve to be compensated for it - regardless of the fact that some people may kill for it.
If you have a "one-in-a-million" idea, and you can't use it to beat competitors in business (even if they copy the idea), or someone else comes up with the same idea independently, then it wasn't really a one-in-a-million idea, was it?
I know Drug companies can get greedy at times, but even if you were running at cost you would be spending tens of millions on research.
If a company is making billions in profit, even after taking into account a 40% marketing budget, then they can afford to spend more on research.
I wouldn't pay too much attention to their "it costs so much!" whine. If they had any real competition in their marketplace at all, they'd be paying for whatever research was necessary to stay ahead of their competition, and they'd be happy to scrape out any kind of profit at all. And according to Adam Smith's "invisible hand", that's the way ANY marketplace should be if you want maximum benefit for the society.
Slashdot Mirror
Those situations you have described are "intentional killing", not intentional maiming. That's the line the Geneva Conventions are trying to draw. If those tactics are unsuccessful at killing, then yes, usually maiming will result, but the goal is supposed to be a complete kill.
I believe that one of the goals of the Geneva Convention was to try and discourage the use of tactics which would cause huge numbers of disabled, who would end up being a major economic burden on any society (winners and losers) trying to rebuild after a war.
All pedestrians would probably end up wearing welding goggles...
Quantum mechanics aren't real good at obeying laws...
That's impressive, but that would make you an exceptional case.
If you are a "social engineer", and are designing some kind of social system, then you have to design it with the TYPICAL case in mind, and not the exceptional. In the situation of being trapped by self-destructive behavior, most people will find it difficult to find the path out without some help.
In the worst case, if there are people who are actively working to stop the typical people from improving their own standard of living (like in a slavery situation), then it may be pretty much impossible for all but superhumans to thrive. Do you think your drive & determination would have been successful if someone with equal drive & determination, and much more resources, had been working to undermine any attempt you made to get out of your bad situation?
I also suspect you will have to maintain strict mental discipline for the rest of your life to avoid falling into old, bad behavior patterns, especially during a time of stress. Best wishes with that.
You got lucky. I don't deny that you probably worked your ass off too, and you might be as smart as a whip, but if you had grown up in the wrong neighborhood or family, you'd probably be dead by now no matter how hard you worked or how smart you were.
Ouch. Don't they have to declare you an enemy combatant before they can inflict that kind of punishment on you?
Do they give you any criteria when teaching you your Constitutional duties about how you're supposed to recognize that you have to arrest your leaders for trying to destroy the Constitution?
Bummer, it looks like you've rationalized your hypocrisy (yes, this is a criticism).
Aside from trademarks (which I consider to be more of an identity & fraud issue than "intellectual property"), copyright & patent law are most definitely an attempt to institutionalize control of what people can do with concepts & ideas. You are merely playing with semantics when you try to separate the definition of "facts & knowledge" from the ways that they can be expressed. If the latter is not protected, then the former is a useless distinction.
To be consistent then, you also do not like the concept of IP? (Not criticising, just checking for consistency :-)
It occurs to me that the Open Source movement & the porn industry have some commonality: attracting eyeballs by showing _everything_. Maybe some Open Source projects could be financed by investing in porn :-)
An extensive, defensive patent portfolio is worthless against a litigant that sells no service or product, and is therefore immune to any counter patent claims that the defendee might normally attack back with.
You've got to wonder if there will be books published where the contents are designed to increase the book's Google Page Rank.
Has "Van Zant" or their agent made any comment on how they feel about what Sony is doing to their audience in their names? (Would they even understand what Sony has done?)
And the smartest ones control the government, and by extension, most of the law enforcement mechanism. Profit indeed.
An amusing article I just saw:
l ?articleID=172900626
http://informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtm
As long as the government makes clear that they are doing so as a last resort only because Microsoft is refusing to sell any product at all in the S.K., I doubt most companies would have the reaction that you think they would. Most of them will just think that Microsoft was being arrogant & unreasonable and enjoy the chance to compete in a lucrative market without having to worry about the presence of Microsoft's competition-crushing financial tactics.
Yeah, that is a real problem - so many companies have risen to take advantage of the draconian IP laws that have been passed, big chunks of the various nations economy are based on it. It's too bad, since much of the use of the IP laws seem to be more parasitic (either preventing competition or extorting money) rather than productive, and most of the implementation of IP laws seem to encourage stagnation rather than encouraging innovation.
Still, at some point in the near future I think the IP industry is going to have to do _something_ to adapt to a more reasonable approach. China & the similar regional markets don't have anywhere near the cultural respect for IP laws that seem to be part of the Western mindset, and they are in a similar historical growth situation that the U.S. was during the Industrial Revolution.
Much of the reason that the U.S. became such an economic powerhouse so quickly is because, the U.S. industrial entrepreneurs essentially "stole" whatever European industrial ideas they felt like to build up the technology of the U.S. industry, ignoring protests from Europe about the "theft" of IP. China is doing the exact same thing right now, and if the First World countries allow IP laws (and anti-science viewpoints) to strangle their rate of innovation, it is almost inevitable that China will become the economic powerhouse of the world, while the so-called First World countries will become economic has-been backwaters.
In what way? It's not like it's a real product which can be physically withheld from S.K. & its citizens. S.K. wouldn't even be changing its IP laws - just allowing a blanket exception for Microsoft products. All other companies would be perfectly free to protect their own IP, so it's not like anybody else would step up to defend Microsoft.
It's pretty funny how so many of my respondents are so absolutely sure that such a move would hurt S.K. more than it would hurt Microsoft, but haven't proposed any kind of economic reasoning to argue why that would be so. IP isn't a "real" product. It has potential value as a product only because governments enforce artificial scarcity. If a host government doesn't enforce that artificial scarcity, then there's not a damn thing that a company that depends totally on IP for its income can do about it.
Like the S.K. government is going to give a damn about that if Microsoft tries to tell them they can't use any copies of Windows.
Let's see: "Economic destruction or let our people use Windows for free! I know, let's destroy our country! Yeah, that makes sense!"
As I said before, companies whose business model is based on intellectual property MUST have the cooperation of the host government (as does any business that depends on artificial-induced scarcity to suck money out of citizens' pockets).
Sure - but once they sell it, they have to play nice with the people who they sold it to if they want those people to voluntarily respect their "intellectual property".
And how would you expect Microsoft to stop them? If they piss off the S.K. government too badly, the government can say to their corporations & citizens: "All Microsoft products are now public domain - have fun!".
Hell, not having to pay the Microsoft "tax" would probably give the S.K. companies a competitive financial advantage over companies from other countries.
If you depend on enforcement of IP laws for your business, then you can NOT tick off the government doing the enforcement for you. That's one of the problems with a business model based on a legal fiction.
Actually, I would say that RELIGION is in the business of controlling peoples' thoughts. All other forms of governance just want to be able to have that level of control over the people they supposedly exist to serve.
I take it that you don't trust your local governments to assign things like street addresses, street names, landmark names, etc. It would throw the world into total confusion if there wasn't one central authority responsible for naming all of those things - you might end up with different cities reusing the same street names and stuff, and nobody would EVER be able to figure out where they were going.
Sorry, there are currently no U.S. government agencies which can be trusted to give a report with any kind of "scientific" credibility. You'd get more trustworthy results by doing a survey of random people walking by your house.
IP is NOT property, and anyone who says otherwise has a really inflated idea of how much a "critical proprietary idea" is worth in a free market. Hint: it's not what the SELLER thinks it's worth - it's what the BUYER thinks it's worth.
If you have a "one-in-a-million" idea, and you can't use it to beat competitors in business (even if they copy the idea), or someone else comes up with the same idea independently, then it wasn't really a one-in-a-million idea, was it?
If a company is making billions in profit, even after taking into account a 40% marketing budget, then they can afford to spend more on research.
I wouldn't pay too much attention to their "it costs so much!" whine. If they had any real competition in their marketplace at all, they'd be paying for whatever research was necessary to stay ahead of their competition, and they'd be happy to scrape out any kind of profit at all. And according to Adam Smith's "invisible hand", that's the way ANY marketplace should be if you want maximum benefit for the society.