"Because simply owning stock in a company is not a crime."
Simply owning a pair of scissors is not a crime either. But making negligent use of your scissors, or even leaving them uncared *can* be a crime. Why the same doesn't rule if you own stocks instead of scissors?
"No, it wouldn't. Corporations are made up of people who already have the right to vote. One vote per person, remember?"
How the "one vote per person" is changed by an "and one vote per corporation" addendum?
This whole thread is about corporations *not* being made up of people but being people by themselves. "Flesh people" *work for* a corporation, but do not *make up* the corporation itself. Note that I'm not endorsing such opinion but that it is not logically flawed.
The fact that it is not the case, not in this world, not now, doesn't make him irrational. Was somebody irrational in 1890 if he thought heavier than air flying machines could be built?
"I don't get to pick the stocks I own in my 401(k)."
Then you get to pick the stocks you own in your 401(k). Is that impossible? Change the procedures to make it possible.
"I could either not participate, or the fund manager selects what I own."
As soon as the law changes so it makes you responsible, you ballance your risks and, if you deem them too high, you choose not participate. Right now, drug dealers can get gross benefits; if one of them offers you participations in his bussiness, you can either participate or not participate too.
"The fund manager is the owner of record, votes my shares, and all that. I have no choice of stocks, no direct ownership of them"
Again, that's how the system works *now*. That doesn't make irrational to think about alternatives. Heck, you even already told you could *not* participate. You do it because *now* it pays for you. Maybe a tomorrow can be built when it won't pay.
"So your proposal is to punish people who buy mutual funds, but not those that actually buy and own the shares of the companies they do the wrongdoing."
"You put the money, you get the responsibility" doesn't sound too irrational to me.
"Furthermore, your proposal would result in people being punished for something they couldn't have prevented."
Oh, but you *can* prevent it, even now: you can always choose *not* participate.
"Criminal Negligence is called that for a reason, because it can get a person prison time. Simple negligence cannot. [...] but a person who doesn't even realize they own a portion of corp X while corp X is acting on their behalf, is displaying negligent behavior"
As long as it's dictated that he should have known better you can be charged for criminal negligence without intention. After all, that's the point of "criminal negligence" since "negligence" always implies no direct intention for the damage.
"And what if tommorow we would find a trick for deep space travel. Would that make us suddenly uber awesome?"
It depends both on your definition of "uber awesome" and the exact technology for deep space travel.
If "uber awesome" means "terryfing" and... "Technology" is one that allows us to move big payloads (in the tens of tons) somehow faster than light then...
Yes, that would make us "uber awesome".
If you have the technology for "real deep space travels" (as in hundreds of light years in weeks) for big payloads, you can bring terror to all corners of the galaxy: you just need to "drop" your big spaceship down to the planet. Gravity will do the rest.
"Why would you even think aliens were so extremely smart?"
Well, they have the technology for "real deep space travel" and we even think that to be impossible. It probably says something (at least for a meaning of "smart" that means "technologically advanced").
"but this is what gets you in trouble when you try to argue the sign said "80" in strong winds, heavy rainfall and 10m visibility."
And rightly so. Under such circumnstances you should drive slower.
On the other hand, you are German, so what about the fact that the autobahn has no speed limit for tourisms and yet it seems as safe as segments with controlled speeds (and safer than other types of roads)?
"It's doubtful that the economy could carry such an increase in musicians"
The point is that they wouldn't have to "increase" anything if they forbode non-live music on public places from the begining as RIAA is trying to do now with anything not within their reach.
"at any decent wage"
Well, USA has somewhere between 12 to 20 millions of illegal immigrants. Surely some of them play some instrument.
"aggregate spent on audiovisual entertainment is limited and at a maximum related to disposable income of the consumers in the economy"
You do explain it as if live music were a novelty and not the standard for everybody pre-world war II. Do you really think the world was richer by 1930?
"If Iran is so damned intent on obtaining nuclear capability (for military or civilian purposes) and not wanting to catch flak for it, just withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Otherwise its just a blatant violation of the treaty."
Given that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is about weapons, not civil nuclear uses, no: wanting to obtain civil nuclear capability is not any kind of violation of the treaty.
In fact, the very NNPT recognizes "the inalienable right of sovereign states to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes" so there you go, Mr. Anonymous Coward.
"Sharing passwords is a bad idea because it's a big security risk"
Alert. No reasons provided!!!
A password is nothing but an authorization token. An authorization token on untrusted hands is a security risk only proportional to the nature of the secured item (ICBM launch codes vs. my luggagge combination). An authorization token on trusted hands is mere "bussiness as usual".
"If you don't want them to have permanent access, then you shouldn't be giving them your password. If you don't want them to have permanent access, then you shouldn't be giving them your password."
If I want them to have temporary access (right now, just now), what should I do?
"Then obviously they didn't teach themselves what they needed to."
Like the point when they learn what they should learn? It seems quite a catch 22, doesn't it?
And quite at the "real scotsman fallacy" or the "tautology" too: -Hey, teaching oneself is the way to go! -My experience doesn't follow that. I know the selfteached often have big holes in his knowledge. -That's because they weren't *properly* selfteached. I know that, because proper selfteached are always the way to go!
Maybe it's because your selfteaching forgot about a bit of logics.
"a degree or professional qualification is necessary, either because it is required in the field (eg accountancy, engineering) Right now accountants, especially new graduates, are also having a really hard time."
And this has to do with the thread... how?
Are in any way ungraduated accountants making any better than the graduated ones?
"For me. when I was at University I found the most useful stuff was in the last couple of years of my degree."
It probably depends on your definition of "useful". Useful to know your trade and become a knowledgeful techie? Yeah, sure, your latter years are more valuable. Knowing enough about that "techie" stuff to become a bussinessman that hires techies? Probably you can save yourself the "petty details" from the advanced courses.
"Geeks tend to be "difficult" to work with, they "know" what to do and do it... This is very useful in a field where the management often doesn't know what the f**k is going on"
That seems to be quite a fine definition of all this cyber warfare issue.
Take it one you deem characteristic, then, an let others criticise it till you find a common ground agreement.
"If it were a typical problem, hopefully you'd just be able to avoid the whole thing and pull a typical solution off the shelf"
You ain't too experienced, are you? There are *a lot* of typical problems. That's why you can find "best practices" which basically are 'of the shelf' conceptual solutions. There are two problems, though:
1) While logically typical, devil is in the details so while 90% of your solution is common, it is the other 10% which makes the deal. That, of course, doesn't go in the way of allowing for metrics on the 90% "bussiness as usual" part.
2) In order for a "typical problem" being described as such, the one in charge must be able to recognice it as such. Given IT is basically a "lemon market"*1, bad professionals (defined here as those unable to recognice a pattern a palm off their nose) is no surprise that a lot of environments are uneedly managed 'by exception' instead of being 'normalized' to a standard.
"A DBMS only matters for complex problems that come from complexities in the real world organization"
Being complex doesn't preclude being common: there a lot of common complex problems. Anyway, I already gave a useful common representation of how could it work: car competitions. It really doesn't matter what the exact problem could be as much as there can be an agreement on a given problem to be representative (as there could be quite a lot of different race rules, a matter that doesn't preclude *a* fixed set of rules, say F1, to be accepted by enough incumbents).
"You could try to implement two solutions in two different systems, assuming that you're equally knowledgeable in both. But that's tricky, too, because you'd have to use them for long enough that you read the data, not just write it."
So you are supporting my second point upwards: it is not that it can't be produced a common framework but that you declare yourself being savvy not enough to discover it. That can be resolved by an incumbents' agreement.
"Suppose someone claimed that they were the performer on a recording of John Cage's 4'33", and not the person credited for it. How on Earth could you prove it one way or another?"
Buy one of our new flabbergasting gold-plated audio contactors and even *you* will be able to tell the difference!!!
"I guess I could offer GM a contract that says, "I will not sue you for using wheels on your cars in return for $5," and if they sign the contract, they owe me $5. I don't need to have a patent on wheels for the contract to be legitimate."
Only GM won't let you $5 for nothing. The contract more probably would say something in the lines of "Due to Suecorp owning a patent on cars using wheels you can't use them without its consent. Suecorp hereby grants you consent in exchange of $5".
"What really matters is whether the data is readily accessible in a known format."
The problem is that for anything more complex than a tin whistle the letter of the specification is bound to have ambiguities and/or holes (no to talk about the case where the specification board has a vested interest on such ambiguities/holes) so having an unencumbered reference implementation becomes a must. Obviously, an open source implementation makes quite a good fit for an "unencumbered reference implementation". TCP/IP, HTTP or SMTP are examples of protocols that due to the existance of a strong unencumbered reference implementation (BSD's TCP/IP, NSCA httpd, Sendmail) have effectively levelled the playing field.
"For example, while OSS theoretically implies being able to access your data in a known format, I would still rather use a closed source solution with a cleaner known data format than an OSS solution where the code that manipulates the file format is difficult to understand and the format itself is more awkward."
Sure in and ideal world that would be the case, but then as soon as the vendor decides time has come, he can modify its implementation so the real 'de facto' standard is the one from that vendor whith everybody else playing catch up. Examples: Adobe's PDF or Microsoft's CIFS.
"Does it really matter where the server is and who technically owns it if you have no control over your data and how it's processed?"
No, it doesn't. That's exactly why the parent post said "They should be careful not to let buzzwords govern their decision". If your are going for the change, try that it will be for the better insted of moving in order to stay at the same place.
Slashdot Mirror
"How do you imprison a corporation?"
By "freezing" their assets and operations for a given time.
"Also there will never again be a corporate death penalty."
You kill them by confiscating all their assets and capitals.
"Because simply owning stock in a company is not a crime."
Simply owning a pair of scissors is not a crime either. But making negligent use of your scissors, or even leaving them uncared *can* be a crime. Why the same doesn't rule if you own stocks instead of scissors?
"No, it wouldn't. Corporations are made up of people who already have the right to vote. One vote per person, remember?"
How the "one vote per person" is changed by an "and one vote per corporation" addendum?
This whole thread is about corporations *not* being made up of people but being people by themselves. "Flesh people" *work for* a corporation, but do not *make up* the corporation itself. Note that I'm not endorsing such opinion but that it is not logically flawed.
"You are irrational."
The fact that it is not the case, not in this world, not now, doesn't make him irrational. Was somebody irrational in 1890 if he thought heavier than air flying machines could be built?
"I don't get to pick the stocks I own in my 401(k)."
Then you get to pick the stocks you own in your 401(k). Is that impossible? Change the procedures to make it possible.
"I could either not participate, or the fund manager selects what I own."
As soon as the law changes so it makes you responsible, you ballance your risks and, if you deem them too high, you choose not participate. Right now, drug dealers can get gross benefits; if one of them offers you participations in his bussiness, you can either participate or not participate too.
"The fund manager is the owner of record, votes my shares, and all that. I have no choice of stocks, no direct ownership of them"
Again, that's how the system works *now*. That doesn't make irrational to think about alternatives. Heck, you even already told you could *not* participate. You do it because *now* it pays for you. Maybe a tomorrow can be built when it won't pay.
"So your proposal is to punish people who buy mutual funds, but not those that actually buy and own the shares of the companies they do the wrongdoing."
"You put the money, you get the responsibility" doesn't sound too irrational to me.
"Furthermore, your proposal would result in people being punished for something they couldn't have prevented."
Oh, but you *can* prevent it, even now: you can always choose *not* participate.
"None of it makes any sense."
Are you sure?
"Criminal Negligence is called that for a reason, because it can get a person prison time. Simple negligence cannot.
[...]
but a person who doesn't even realize they own a portion of corp X while corp X is acting on their behalf, is displaying negligent behavior"
As long as it's dictated that he should have known better you can be charged for criminal negligence without intention. After all, that's the point of "criminal negligence" since "negligence" always implies no direct intention for the damage.
"And what if tommorow we would find a trick for deep space travel. Would that make us suddenly uber awesome?"
It depends both on your definition of "uber awesome" and the exact technology for deep space travel.
If "uber awesome" means "terryfing" and...
"Technology" is one that allows us to move big payloads (in the tens of tons) somehow faster than light then...
Yes, that would make us "uber awesome".
If you have the technology for "real deep space travels" (as in hundreds of light years in weeks) for big payloads, you can bring terror to all corners of the galaxy: you just need to "drop" your big spaceship down to the planet. Gravity will do the rest.
"Why would you even think aliens were so extremely smart?"
Well, they have the technology for "real deep space travel" and we even think that to be impossible. It probably says something (at least for a meaning of "smart" that means "technologically advanced").
"but this is what gets you in trouble when you try to argue the sign said "80" in strong winds, heavy rainfall and 10m visibility."
And rightly so. Under such circumnstances you should drive slower.
On the other hand, you are German, so what about the fact that the autobahn has no speed limit for tourisms and yet it seems as safe as segments with controlled speeds (and safer than other types of roads)?
"That should be enough for reasonable doubt right there."
Hence, since there is reasonable doubt, the cops will be fred from the brutality charges.
QED.
"It's doubtful that the economy could carry such an increase in musicians"
The point is that they wouldn't have to "increase" anything if they forbode non-live music on public places from the begining as RIAA is trying to do now with anything not within their reach.
"at any decent wage"
Well, USA has somewhere between 12 to 20 millions of illegal immigrants. Surely some of them play some instrument.
"aggregate spent on audiovisual entertainment is limited and at a maximum related to disposable income of the consumers in the economy"
You do explain it as if live music were a novelty and not the standard for everybody pre-world war II. Do you really think the world was richer by 1930?
"It looks bad, but it tastes like Tastee Wheat."
That's what you say... but how do you know it does indeed taste like Tastee Wheat? What if somebody mistook the flavours?
"In an ideal world, you should give them a temporary authentication token with a set expiry date."
Like my credit card that I want returned in five minutes.
Which, oh, surprise! it's exactly what I do.
"If Iran is so damned intent on obtaining nuclear capability (for military or civilian purposes) and not wanting to catch flak for it, just withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Otherwise its just a blatant violation of the treaty."
Given that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is about weapons, not civil nuclear uses, no: wanting to obtain civil nuclear capability is not any kind of violation of the treaty.
In fact, the very NNPT recognizes "the inalienable right of sovereign states to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes" so there you go, Mr. Anonymous Coward.
"I don't understand why I should be wary of this technology in and of itself."
I have no eyes, you insensitive clod!
"Sharing passwords is a bad idea because it's a big security risk"
Alert. No reasons provided!!!
A password is nothing but an authorization token. An authorization token on untrusted hands is a security risk only proportional to the nature of the secured item (ICBM launch codes vs. my luggagge combination). An authorization token on trusted hands is mere "bussiness as usual".
"If you don't want them to have permanent access, then you shouldn't be giving them your password. If you don't want them to have permanent access, then you shouldn't be giving them your password."
If I want them to have temporary access (right now, just now), what should I do?
"All you need (or should need) is knowledge. If you have that, you can get things done."
Maybe. But I prefer money and luck any day.
By the way, the cases of Gates and Zuckerberg seem to support my point much more than yours.
"Then obviously they didn't teach themselves what they needed to."
Like the point when they learn what they should learn? It seems quite a catch 22, doesn't it?
And quite at the "real scotsman fallacy" or the "tautology" too:
-Hey, teaching oneself is the way to go!
-My experience doesn't follow that. I know the selfteached often have big holes in his knowledge.
-That's because they weren't *properly* selfteached. I know that, because proper selfteached are always the way to go!
Maybe it's because your selfteaching forgot about a bit of logics.
"a degree or professional qualification is necessary, either because it is required in the field (eg accountancy, engineering)
Right now accountants, especially new graduates, are also having a really hard time."
And this has to do with the thread... how?
Are in any way ungraduated accountants making any better than the graduated ones?
"For me. when I was at University I found the most useful stuff was in the last couple of years of my degree."
It probably depends on your definition of "useful". Useful to know your trade and become a knowledgeful techie? Yeah, sure, your latter years are more valuable. Knowing enough about that "techie" stuff to become a bussinessman that hires techies? Probably you can save yourself the "petty details" from the advanced courses.
"Geeks tend to be "difficult" to work with, they "know" what to do and do it... This is very useful in a field where the management often doesn't know what the f**k is going on"
That seems to be quite a fine definition of all this cyber warfare issue.
"In the real world, there are real problems."
Take it one you deem characteristic, then, an let others criticise it till you find a common ground agreement.
"If it were a typical problem, hopefully you'd just be able to avoid the whole thing and pull a typical solution off the shelf"
You ain't too experienced, are you? There are *a lot* of typical problems. That's why you can find "best practices" which basically are 'of the shelf' conceptual solutions. There are two problems, though:
1) While logically typical, devil is in the details so while 90% of your solution is common, it is the other 10% which makes the deal. That, of course, doesn't go in the way of allowing for metrics on the 90% "bussiness as usual" part.
2) In order for a "typical problem" being described as such, the one in charge must be able to recognice it as such. Given IT is basically a "lemon market"*1, bad professionals (defined here as those unable to recognice a pattern a palm off their nose) is no surprise that a lot of environments are uneedly managed 'by exception' instead of being 'normalized' to a standard.
"A DBMS only matters for complex problems that come from complexities in the real world organization"
Being complex doesn't preclude being common: there a lot of common complex problems. Anyway, I already gave a useful common representation of how could it work: car competitions. It really doesn't matter what the exact problem could be as much as there can be an agreement on a given problem to be representative (as there could be quite a lot of different race rules, a matter that doesn't preclude *a* fixed set of rules, say F1, to be accepted by enough incumbents).
"You could try to implement two solutions in two different systems, assuming that you're equally knowledgeable in both. But that's tricky, too, because you'd have to use them for long enough that you read the data, not just write it."
So you are supporting my second point upwards: it is not that it can't be produced a common framework but that you declare yourself being savvy not enough to discover it. That can be resolved by an incumbents' agreement.
*1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons
"Suppose someone claimed that they were the performer on a recording of John Cage's 4'33", and not the person credited for it. How on Earth could you prove it one way or another?"
Buy one of our new flabbergasting gold-plated audio contactors and even *you* will be able to tell the difference!!!
And now, just for $599,99!!!
"I guess I could offer GM a contract that says, "I will not sue you for using wheels on your cars in return for $5," and if they sign the contract, they owe me $5. I don't need to have a patent on wheels for the contract to be legitimate."
Only GM won't let you $5 for nothing. The contract more probably would say something in the lines of "Due to Suecorp owning a patent on cars using wheels you can't use them without its consent. Suecorp hereby grants you consent in exchange of $5".
"What really matters is whether the data is readily accessible in a known format."
The problem is that for anything more complex than a tin whistle the letter of the specification is bound to have ambiguities and/or holes (no to talk about the case where the specification board has a vested interest on such ambiguities/holes) so having an unencumbered reference implementation becomes a must. Obviously, an open source implementation makes quite a good fit for an "unencumbered reference implementation". TCP/IP, HTTP or SMTP are examples of protocols that due to the existance of a strong unencumbered reference implementation (BSD's TCP/IP, NSCA httpd, Sendmail) have effectively levelled the playing field.
"For example, while OSS theoretically implies being able to access your data in a known format, I would still rather use a closed source solution with a cleaner known data format than an OSS solution where the code that manipulates the file format is difficult to understand and the format itself is more awkward."
Sure in and ideal world that would be the case, but then as soon as the vendor decides time has come, he can modify its implementation so the real 'de facto' standard is the one from that vendor whith everybody else playing catch up. Examples: Adobe's PDF or Microsoft's CIFS.
"Does it really matter where the server is and who technically owns it if you have no control over your data and how it's processed?"
No, it doesn't. That's exactly why the parent post said "They should be careful not to let buzzwords govern their decision". If your are going for the change, try that it will be for the better insted of moving in order to stay at the same place.
"Thank goodness then that most artists don't make their works public"
Most? Tune up your radio.