"and yet you don't grasp that the behavior would put the grocery store and the farmer out of business?"
So what? Henry Ford put out of bussiness horse dealers and chariot builders; fire arms put an end to body armor craftsmen; pop music record companies killed great symphonic composers... and then, so what?
"Then, you'll have no magical grocery store where you can magically duplicate sausages"
That'd either mean that there's bussiness no more for grocery stores just like we see no more Roman garum dealers or that I'd magically duplicate my sausages out of the first sausage I duplicated just like we still go to a Beethoven concert even if record companies made impossible any new great symphonic composer, only 3 minutes pop hits or film sound tracks. In any case, so what?
"As long as we live in a society where people earn a living by getting paid for their work, there must be a method in place to compensate them for that work. That method is copyright protection"
It is not. By the very word of it. It is not called "workright protection" but "copyright protection" for a reason.
There are two, not just one, fallacies on your suposition.
On one hand there is the implicit assertion on your side that any given work must be payed for. It would be good for me, since I had beans for dinner, but nobody certainly owes me nothing for my hard worked farts. No: the only work that *must* be payed for is the one previously accorded to be so (others *may* be payed for even if there's no previous agreement but "may" doesn't mean "must"). I can't work no matter how hard in advance and expect you forcibly owe me nothing *unless* there's a previous contract between us that states that you will pay X amount for Y work.
"Copyright infringement [...] deprives someone of compensation for their work."
When did such someone and I sign an agreement on the value of his work? Whenever such someone comes to me asking for his compensation I'll ask him for my signed contract and then I'll certainly back up my signed numbers with my money (even if it's only a 'de facto' contract: I certainly didn't sign anything on a restaurant but I had the cart and show the prices and that made enough for a deal). In all other cases the tip is up to me.
On the other hand, work is work. The resultant of the work is not into direct consideration. If you are payed for programming 40 hours a week then you are payed no matter if the resulting program is sellable or not, not even if it compiles or not. Obviously you'll probably be fired in the end if your work is not of enough quality but meanwhile you are certainly payed for you working not for the result of such work. In other words, that's a truly situation of you being compensated FOR YOUR WORK, exactly as you asked for.
Copyright protection is a very different beast: it is not meant to pay for the work done itself but for the resulting value of the work. If you happen to be called Picasso, the result of five minutes of work on a napkin happen to be valued on the hundreds thousand dollars while an exhausting 14 hours a day work on a Bombay marketplace moving fruit boxes is valued peanuts. And then, because you, Picasso, worked *once* quite a lot years ago, now people will pay you (or your copyright holders -please pay attention they didn't work at all to earn it, not even ages ago) for the result of your work while the Indian guy will have to go to work each and every day if he wants to recieve money each and every day.
You can't talk about work protection on a straight face when your proposition involves paying wages no matter if you did in fact work that day or not.
"it is immoral to willfully violate a just law. Since copyright is not depriving you of any inalienable rights"
The fact is that it is. It is depriving not only of an inalienable right (there is not such a right since they can not stand by themselves against abuse of force "shouldn't be alienated" is not the same as "inaliable" just as "invincible" doesn't mean "you shouldn't fight against it") but of a natural right: that something that is made public *is* public. That fact is the very basis of any and all copyright violations: you can violate them because you have natural access to them and there's no natural way to avoid it except *not* making them public.
Once you say me something, I *know* that something, it's mine, no matter if such "something" is an idea, a song or a mathematical algorithm. It's so mine that unless you call on your side the superior force of the Res Publica (the State) and even then I agree to its superior value you can't avoid me making use of what I already own. Not even by force since I can flee and still the idea will be with me.
"There are acceptable reasons for doing all of the above, but "because you wa
"Your analogy is just as flawed as that of stealing from a grocery store. Software, unlike groceries from any source, has an immense up-front development cost, and in many cases a substantial ongoing cost (several posters have mentioned the huge number of support calls they receive from countries where their software isn't even sold...) Those costs represent a major investment. Selling the software is how you get a return on that investment."
That's only IF you try to make bussiness that way. It's by no means an inherent propiety of software. Whenever you advance money hoping to recover your costs (and add up a profit) you are risking not being able to recover your costs no matter if you are talking about software or about a grocery store.
I for one never wrote a source code line that was not paid up front so it means no difference to me if it was used just on one place or copied all over the world: my job was already payed for.
Of course, it may hurt you if your plan is working for X hours and then recover expenditures for 1000*X hours but that certainly is not so much about free market, where people is paid for the value of their work, and too much about government-granted monopolies where one can work once and take money from the people one, two... and ten thousand times. Too commie for me.
"By your logic I should be able to walk into a grocery store and take what I want as long as I don't open a restaurant."
Don't think so. It's more like it's all well and good to walk into a grocery store and take as many sausages as you want as long as there are as many sausages when you leave as there were when you went into.
"This is an odd comment to be making here. 10 seconds on Google looking through any real IT informational site (say, like/.) or DoD site will give you plenty of examples of China using malicious network activities to their political, and military use."
The point is that this is not the point. The point is that 10 seconds on Google looking through any real IT informational site (say, like/.) will show you that most other countries, for instance, USA, can be accused of just the same on a sounded ground (no: the DoD won't tell you that) so there shouldn't be an above average precaution on the Chinese government trying to spy on you versus, say, USA, EU or Russia to name a few.
"If you are building something that will be used for many years, will evolve over those years, and must be very reliable during all of those years then I believe that the best thing to do is to have a very strict "everything must be understood" policy."
Your policy seems reasonable. It's only reality shows otherwise. Just two examples: 1) Facebook: they could hold till they understool what their bussiness case was, what was the best technology to achive their well understood goals, plan for hugh scalability, etc... or they could be the first kid on the block and take the prize. 2) Any short to mid-sized software mill: they could do "the rigth way (TM)" and then bankrupt without even a prototype or they could test the waters with whatever they can hack together fast and be able to pay wages this month, and the next and the next one as they run.
Surely, I'd prefer the world being the way needed for your policy to be doable every single time.
"Whatever you choose--please do not let it be Trac, which is a piece of garbage. Go ahead and try to install and maintain it: I dare you. What a mishmash of bizarre pieces of other crap bolted together."
I do. It was just installing, about half a day to mildly understand its underpinnings and except for the odd "can you please add a new component" zero maintenance. It is not that it's perfect (it's focused on the "technical" side forgetting totally about the "managerial" part and, of course, it's unability to manage multiple projects from a single instance is a PITA) but what it does it does solid well.
But, disregarding my own experience your arguments on the issue are so thoroughful and convincing that I understand I must be wrong and you are certainly true.
"Fully understanding something always pays off in the long run."
The managerial problem being that in the long run we all are dead and it doesn't matter.
That means that sometimes it's a better strategy not to wait for the long run to recover your pays off and avoid the expenditure right now, even if that means a dirty hack instead of a solution solidly founded on understanding.
"This is a *horrible* idea. The laptops are never used, because the battery ends up lasting about 1 hour"
It's a new properly founded structure remember?
When I was a boy there still were desks around with a hole for an ink bottle, really. What's the problem for desks now having easy access to electricity so you don't need to run the laptops on battery?
"How else do you think a speech would be copyrighted? By writing or recording the speech."
The point is that the speech is not copyrighted. The recorded or written version is. As you said:
"Copyright protection subsists, in accordance with this title, in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression"
It is the fixed work the one protected.
"You realize documentaries and unscripted TV and radio are also copyrighted, right?"
Of course yes: they are on a protected medium.
"precisely the same as if you wrote down too closely what was said in a Star Trek episode."
It's only that it is not "precisely the same": the Star Trek episode I did see on TV which makes it already covered. It's more that I snip a street conversation that happens to be saved by a mobile camera and the shown on TV. I can recall the conversation from direct hearing which is different to hear it on TV.
"Most professors in the United States that I know of barely touch what is in the material at all."
Are you stating that, for instance, profesors don't produce definitions that are literally taken from a source?
"If the teacher lectures the class from the teacher's slides and records the lecture, then the teacher has copyright in the written records, the recording, and the words spoken in class."
Don't think so (the "words" part). Can you offer something supporting this?
"If the student takes notes that are pretty close to the words the teacher utters, the student would be creating a derivative work of the teacher's (copyrighted) words, thus infringing the teacher's copyright."
By the same regard, if the words of the teacher are close enough to whatever said anyone else like, say, the textbook (and they must be: he is, gasp, teaching) then he would be also infringing other's copyright.
"There's usually at least one person in the class who needs the lecture recorded by the professor because they have a disability of some kind. At least, that was the norm when I went to university."
Then the teacher holds copyright on the recorded version of the lecture and on the recorded version only. Did the student take verbatim notes out of a recorded lecture?
"Actually, that's where you could be wrong. It depends on your university/college/school's small print that you agreed to when you enrolled on the course."
Actually no, sorry but no. A legally binding contract has to be, well, legally binging. Stupid nonsenses are not.
Or else by the here included small print you owe me 1 million US$ by the fact of reading this. Hey, I claimed having rights therefor I must have them!
On a two part agreement one part can try to get an abusive advantage. That doesn't immediately mean that by its mere claiming it becomes legally binding.
"By enrolling to the course, I effectively gave the university rights to use any of my work how they please (even profit from it). "
Again no, sorry but no. By enrolling to the course, they effectively claimed having rights to use your work. That's a very different thing from effectively having rights to use your work.
"When our head of department was confronted on this, she said that it is true, the university does take legal ownership for everyone's work"
That only means the head of department doesn't distinguish his head from his arse or he's a liar. All that he can say is that the university *claims* ownership for everyone's work.
"but most of the time, the uni doesn't care."
Or is it that they know those unsubstantiated claims are uneforceable and that's why they don't pay attention?
"Parent is correct. The notes belong to you, as you paid for the class."
Not even that. The notes belong to you because you wrote them down. The only way for this not to be the case is the teacher paying you (under a hiring contract) for such a job.
That's the legal part. The ethic part... it hurts: did the teacher discovered/invented whatever told on her lectures? What if whoever learnt from did the same? Hey, you now know what Adam Smith told but now you passed the grade forget about it immediately and never dare to repeat it out of these walls, specially not to fifty at a time on a classroom!
"Sure, one regulation taken by itself never seems too burdensome. You'll need to run a certification program, probably with a testing lab to verify power consumption claims."
It's exactly on reverse. *One* single regulation is burdensome: as you stated, you need a shunt on the transportation paths, you need the people, you need the labs... but you can leverage the costs by having *more* than one regulation. This is no different in USA than in Europe: all kinds of manufactures goes to labs to gain certifications (on electromagnetic emissions, on FDA saviness, on chemical hazards...) having one more for a new product while on its certification stage adds peanuts.
"Yes, I believe US farms pay a different rate for oil also. What's your point?"
I tought my point was obvious. My point was that even on the Land of the Free (market) taxing per usage, not per consumption is also a common thing, that it seeks a purpouse and that it enacts it properly.
"Imagine regulations deciding how long people's showers could be"
Imasgine your grandma' having wheels instead of legs... it would be a bicicle! But the fact is we are not talking about neither your grandma nor about showers.
"This is why I say separately regulating each type of energy use would be totalinarianism; I really mean every kind of energy use. Millions of regulations"
Your are absolutly right... it's only that nobody is talking about millions of regulations. You rise a concern anyway it that these kind of regulations need to be reassesed from time to time in order not to become millions.
"The amount of government bureaucracy required to separately evaluate and regulate every type of energy use would border on totalitarianism, and furthermore would be far less efficient than a simple tax on energy sources like oil"
I don't know how it works on the USA but in EU oil already has different taxes depending on type of usage at least on three groups that I know of: "all purpouse", heating and agriculture and there's a strong movement to add a fourth: transportation. On a general approach I don't know how simple are in the USA ax regulations but in the EU you are already taxed differently if you buy your home or you rent it; if we are talking about personal incomes or corporate; if your activitiy is "for profit" or is not; if your activity is declared of special interest or not; if it comes from bussiness activity or it is a heritage and the count goes on and on. Even on indirect taxes such VAT it is not the same the general tax (16% in my country) than the special interest one (4% in my country). Anyway, remember I think that in this case max wattage regulation is good enough and it has not your stated problems: it is simple and cheap to enforce.
You are of course free to think that European social style is bordering totalitarism just as much as thinking USA democrat party is "lefty" but most people in Europe (me included) seem to think otherwise.
"And the nonlinearity of such a "tax" defeats the purpose. If the limit is 500 watts, the manufacturer gets to 498W and is done. With a constant energy tax, manufacturers and consumers always have incentives to reduce power consumption."
That's a good reasoning... already demonstrated *not* to work. What's the magic of a tax? After all, it's just a price tag on the bill and the very existance of power-hungry TV sets already demonstrates that your proposed incentives on the producers to reduce power consumption do not exist or it would be already working. Banning TV sets over certain wattage certainly may not make producers go after the 498W tag (as per your example) but it makes certain they'll go under 500W which is much better than current situation based only on the amount on the electricity bill which gives us 850W TV sets.
You should understand that UE intentions are not to reduce overall electrity consumption (if such were the point a linear tax may do the trick) but to reduce *undesired* electricity consumption (as in we don't want industries generally taxed on this making our products less competitive than others') so taxing and/or regulating certain markets/products is a natural outcome.
"Yes, the same way that the tax on a gallon of gas should be the same whether you're driving to a homeless shelter to volunteer or to a bar to get wasted."
Suprise! it is not. At least on my country on the EU "general purpouse" gas is not taxed the same than the one for heating or the one for agriculture.
"The environmental damage is the same regardless of your intentions."
True. But the environmental damage is not an absolute value: it is already ballanced against intentions. Some purposes are above environmental damage, some are not, and on some others are acceptable up to certain limits.
" It's quite likely there are ways to decrease overall energy use that would be much more effective and efficient than changing what type of TVs we buy. A tax on energy would cause the market to start searching for those better ways to save energy."
It seems UE thinks exactly like you. That's why their are not considering banning plasma TVs (but how the hell takes the time to follow the links, right?) but banning TVs over certain wattage.
Which is nothing but applying an infinite tax on TV sets over such wattage and will certainly result in producers to start searching for manufacturing TV sets that will save energy at least under certain wattage, exactly your proposition.
"The largest energy consumers would be the hardest hit by the tax"
Oh! you mean taxing directly on the Watt, I see... So you consider a Watt used on a hospital diagnostic scanner should be taxed just the same as a Watt used on a 50" TV for the superbowl? Please consider that it might happen that not everybody thinks the same.
"So still for each person individually it is a better deal to live far out however it costs the people on the whole a much more."
A very American approach. As if we were money machines instead of human beings. It's a better deal because it's cheaper, full stop. The hell with nonsenses like live quality or sustainability for our grandchildren.
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"and yet you don't grasp that the behavior would put the grocery store and the farmer out of business?"
So what? Henry Ford put out of bussiness horse dealers and chariot builders; fire arms put an end to body armor craftsmen; pop music record companies killed great symphonic composers... and then, so what?
"Then, you'll have no magical grocery store where you can magically duplicate sausages"
That'd either mean that there's bussiness no more for grocery stores just like we see no more Roman garum dealers or that I'd magically duplicate my sausages out of the first sausage I duplicated just like we still go to a Beethoven concert even if record companies made impossible any new great symphonic composer, only 3 minutes pop hits or film sound tracks. In any case, so what?
"As long as we live in a society where people earn a living by getting paid for their work, there must be a method in place to compensate them for that work. That method is copyright protection"
It is not. By the very word of it. It is not called "workright protection" but "copyright protection" for a reason.
There are two, not just one, fallacies on your suposition.
On one hand there is the implicit assertion on your side that any given work must be payed for. It would be good for me, since I had beans for dinner, but nobody certainly owes me nothing for my hard worked farts. No: the only work that *must* be payed for is the one previously accorded to be so (others *may* be payed for even if there's no previous agreement but "may" doesn't mean "must"). I can't work no matter how hard in advance and expect you forcibly owe me nothing *unless* there's a previous contract between us that states that you will pay X amount for Y work.
"Copyright infringement [...] deprives someone of compensation for their work."
When did such someone and I sign an agreement on the value of his work? Whenever such someone comes to me asking for his compensation I'll ask him for my signed contract and then I'll certainly back up my signed numbers with my money (even if it's only a 'de facto' contract: I certainly didn't sign anything on a restaurant but I had the cart and show the prices and that made enough for a deal). In all other cases the tip is up to me.
On the other hand, work is work. The resultant of the work is not into direct consideration. If you are payed for programming 40 hours a week then you are payed no matter if the resulting program is sellable or not, not even if it compiles or not. Obviously you'll probably be fired in the end if your work is not of enough quality but meanwhile you are certainly payed for you working not for the result of such work. In other words, that's a truly situation of you being compensated FOR YOUR WORK, exactly as you asked for.
Copyright protection is a very different beast: it is not meant to pay for the work done itself but for the resulting value of the work. If you happen to be called Picasso, the result of five minutes of work on a napkin happen to be valued on the hundreds thousand dollars while an exhausting 14 hours a day work on a Bombay marketplace moving fruit boxes is valued peanuts. And then, because you, Picasso, worked *once* quite a lot years ago, now people will pay you (or your copyright holders -please pay attention they didn't work at all to earn it, not even ages ago) for the result of your work while the Indian guy will have to go to work each and every day if he wants to recieve money each and every day.
You can't talk about work protection on a straight face when your proposition involves paying wages no matter if you did in fact work that day or not.
"it is immoral to willfully violate a just law. Since copyright is not depriving you of any inalienable rights"
The fact is that it is. It is depriving not only of an inalienable right (there is not such a right since they can not stand by themselves against abuse of force "shouldn't be alienated" is not the same as "inaliable" just as "invincible" doesn't mean "you shouldn't fight against it") but of a natural right: that something that is made public *is* public. That fact is the very basis of any and all copyright violations: you can violate them because you have natural access to them and there's no natural way to avoid it except *not* making them public.
Once you say me something, I *know* that something, it's mine, no matter if such "something" is an idea, a song or a mathematical algorithm. It's so mine that unless you call on your side the superior force of the Res Publica (the State) and even then I agree to its superior value you can't avoid me making use of what I already own. Not even by force since I can flee and still the idea will be with me.
"There are acceptable reasons for doing all of the above, but "because you wa
"Your analogy is just as flawed as that of stealing from a grocery store.
Software, unlike groceries from any source, has an immense up-front development cost, and in many cases a substantial ongoing cost (several posters have mentioned the huge number of support calls they receive from countries where their software isn't even sold...) Those costs represent a major investment. Selling the software is how you get a return on that investment."
That's only IF you try to make bussiness that way. It's by no means an inherent propiety of software. Whenever you advance money hoping to recover your costs (and add up a profit) you are risking not being able to recover your costs no matter if you are talking about software or about a grocery store.
I for one never wrote a source code line that was not paid up front so it means no difference to me if it was used just on one place or copied all over the world: my job was already payed for.
Of course, it may hurt you if your plan is working for X hours and then recover expenditures for 1000*X hours but that certainly is not so much about free market, where people is paid for the value of their work, and too much about government-granted monopolies where one can work once and take money from the people one, two... and ten thousand times. Too commie for me.
"By your logic I should be able to walk into a grocery store and take what I want as long as I don't open a restaurant."
Don't think so. It's more like it's all well and good to walk into a grocery store and take as many sausages as you want as long as there are as many sausages when you leave as there were when you went into.
"This is an odd comment to be making here. 10 seconds on Google looking through any real IT informational site (say, like /.) or DoD site will give you plenty of examples of China using malicious network activities to their political, and military use."
The point is that this is not the point. The point is that 10 seconds on Google looking through any real IT informational site (say, like /.) will show you that most other countries, for instance, USA, can be accused of just the same on a sounded ground (no: the DoD won't tell you that) so there shouldn't be an above average precaution on the Chinese government trying to spy on you versus, say, USA, EU or Russia to name a few.
"with a nice bit of injected culture on top of it..."
With a nice bit of injected *merchandishing* on top of it.
There. Corrected for you.
"If you are building something that will be used for many years, will evolve over those years, and must be very reliable during all of those years then I believe that the best thing to do is to have a very strict "everything must be understood" policy."
Your policy seems reasonable. It's only reality shows otherwise. Just two examples:
1) Facebook: they could hold till they understool what their bussiness case was, what was the best technology to achive their well understood goals, plan for hugh scalability, etc... or they could be the first kid on the block and take the prize.
2) Any short to mid-sized software mill: they could do "the rigth way (TM)" and then bankrupt without even a prototype or they could test the waters with whatever they can hack together fast and be able to pay wages this month, and the next and the next one as they run.
Surely, I'd prefer the world being the way needed for your policy to be doable every single time.
"Whatever you choose--please do not let it be Trac, which is a piece of garbage. Go ahead and try to install and maintain it: I dare you. What a mishmash of bizarre pieces of other crap bolted together."
I do. It was just installing, about half a day to mildly understand its underpinnings and except for the odd "can you please add a new component" zero maintenance. It is not that it's perfect (it's focused on the "technical" side forgetting totally about the "managerial" part and, of course, it's unability to manage multiple projects from a single instance is a PITA) but what it does it does solid well.
But, disregarding my own experience your arguments on the issue are so thoroughful and convincing that I understand I must be wrong and you are certainly true.
"Fully understanding something always pays off in the long run."
The managerial problem being that in the long run we all are dead and it doesn't matter.
That means that sometimes it's a better strategy not to wait for the long run to recover your pays off and avoid the expenditure right now, even if that means a dirty hack instead of a solution solidly founded on understanding.
"Because Opera is so wide used, right?"
Yes, I'd say is orders of magnitude more used than IE on the Linux platform.
"This is a *horrible* idea. The laptops are never used, because the battery ends up lasting about 1 hour"
It's a new properly founded structure remember?
When I was a boy there still were desks around with a hole for an ink bottle, really. What's the problem for desks now having easy access to electricity so you don't need to run the laptops on battery?
"There is no such thing as a low security lab in possession of more than a fraction of a gram of plutonium."
Are you ready to bet for it? Sure?
Not even in Israel, UK, France, ex-USSR, India, Pakistan, China or North Korea?
"How else do you think a speech would be copyrighted? By writing or recording the speech."
The point is that the speech is not copyrighted. The recorded or written version is. As you said:
"Copyright protection subsists, in accordance with this title, in original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression"
It is the fixed work the one protected.
"You realize documentaries and unscripted TV and radio are also copyrighted, right?"
Of course yes: they are on a protected medium.
"precisely the same as if you wrote down too closely what was said in a Star Trek episode."
It's only that it is not "precisely the same": the Star Trek episode I did see on TV which makes it already covered. It's more that I snip a street conversation that happens to be saved by a mobile camera and the shown on TV. I can recall the conversation from direct hearing which is different to hear it on TV.
"Most professors in the United States that I know of barely touch what is in the material at all."
Are you stating that, for instance, profesors don't produce definitions that are literally taken from a source?
"If the teacher lectures the class from the teacher's slides and records the lecture, then the teacher has copyright in the written records, the recording, and the words spoken in class."
Don't think so (the "words" part). Can you offer something supporting this?
"If the student takes notes that are pretty close to the words the teacher utters, the student would be creating a derivative work of the teacher's (copyrighted) words, thus infringing the teacher's copyright."
By the same regard, if the words of the teacher are close enough to whatever said anyone else like, say, the textbook (and they must be: he is, gasp, teaching) then he would be also infringing other's copyright.
"There's usually at least one person in the class who needs the lecture recorded by the professor because they have a disability of some kind. At least, that was the norm when I went to university."
Then the teacher holds copyright on the recorded version of the lecture and on the recorded version only. Did the student take verbatim notes out of a recorded lecture?
"Actually, that's where you could be wrong. It depends on your university/college/school's small print that you agreed to when you enrolled on the course."
Actually no, sorry but no. A legally binding contract has to be, well, legally binging. Stupid nonsenses are not.
Or else by the here included small print you owe me 1 million US$ by the fact of reading this. Hey, I claimed having rights therefor I must have them!
On a two part agreement one part can try to get an abusive advantage. That doesn't immediately mean that by its mere claiming it becomes legally binding.
"By enrolling to the course, I effectively gave the university rights to use any of my work how they please (even profit from it). "
Again no, sorry but no. By enrolling to the course, they effectively claimed having rights to use your work. That's a very different thing from effectively having rights to use your work.
"When our head of department was confronted on this, she said that it is true, the university does take legal ownership for everyone's work"
That only means the head of department doesn't distinguish his head from his arse or he's a liar. All that he can say is that the university *claims* ownership for everyone's work.
"but most of the time, the uni doesn't care."
Or is it that they know those unsubstantiated claims are uneforceable and that's why they don't pay attention?
"Parent is correct. The notes belong to you, as you paid for the class."
Not even that. The notes belong to you because you wrote them down. The only way for this not to be the case is the teacher paying you (under a hiring contract) for such a job.
That's the legal part. The ethic part... it hurts: did the teacher discovered/invented whatever told on her lectures? What if whoever learnt from did the same? Hey, you now know what Adam Smith told but now you passed the grade forget about it immediately and never dare to repeat it out of these walls, specially not to fifty at a time on a classroom!
"Why lie? Tell her that you posted the notes on bittorrent,"
Why to go to far on explanations? Tell her the notes are yours not hers and that's all about the issue.
"Sure, one regulation taken by itself never seems too burdensome. You'll need to run a certification program, probably with a testing lab to verify power consumption claims."
It's exactly on reverse. *One* single regulation is burdensome: as you stated, you need a shunt on the transportation paths, you need the people, you need the labs... but you can leverage the costs by having *more* than one regulation. This is no different in USA than in Europe: all kinds of manufactures goes to labs to gain certifications (on electromagnetic emissions, on FDA saviness, on chemical hazards...) having one more for a new product while on its certification stage adds peanuts.
"Yes, I believe US farms pay a different rate for oil also. What's your point?"
I tought my point was obvious. My point was that even on the Land of the Free (market) taxing per usage, not per consumption is also a common thing, that it seeks a purpouse and that it enacts it properly.
"Imagine regulations deciding how long people's showers could be"
Imasgine your grandma' having wheels instead of legs... it would be a bicicle! But the fact is we are not talking about neither your grandma nor about showers.
"This is why I say separately regulating each type of energy use would be totalinarianism; I really mean every kind of energy use. Millions of regulations"
Your are absolutly right... it's only that nobody is talking about millions of regulations. You rise a concern anyway it that these kind of regulations need to be reassesed from time to time in order not to become millions.
"are you saying they don't know, or are lying, or what?"
Taking into acount previous Microsoft history and facts I bet "lying".
"..Or most people being perfectly content with XP"
Which it would be included among "other factors besides economic malaise that contributed to the losses" so your "or" is completly out of place.
"The amount of government bureaucracy required to separately evaluate and regulate every type of energy use would border on totalitarianism, and furthermore would be far less efficient than a simple tax on energy sources like oil"
I don't know how it works on the USA but in EU oil already has different taxes depending on type of usage at least on three groups that I know of: "all purpouse", heating and agriculture and there's a strong movement to add a fourth: transportation. On a general approach I don't know how simple are in the USA ax regulations but in the EU you are already taxed differently if you buy your home or you rent it; if we are talking about personal incomes or corporate; if your activitiy is "for profit" or is not; if your activity is declared of special interest or not; if it comes from bussiness activity or it is a heritage and the count goes on and on. Even on indirect taxes such VAT it is not the same the general tax (16% in my country) than the special interest one (4% in my country). Anyway, remember I think that in this case max wattage regulation is good enough and it has not your stated problems: it is simple and cheap to enforce.
You are of course free to think that European social style is bordering totalitarism just as much as thinking USA democrat party is "lefty" but most people in Europe (me included) seem to think otherwise.
"And the nonlinearity of such a "tax" defeats the purpose. If the limit is 500 watts, the manufacturer gets to 498W and is done. With a constant energy tax, manufacturers and consumers always have incentives to reduce power consumption."
That's a good reasoning... already demonstrated *not* to work. What's the magic of a tax? After all, it's just a price tag on the bill and the very existance of power-hungry TV sets already demonstrates that your proposed incentives on the producers to reduce power consumption do not exist or it would be already working. Banning TV sets over certain wattage certainly may not make producers go after the 498W tag (as per your example) but it makes certain they'll go under 500W which is much better than current situation based only on the amount on the electricity bill which gives us 850W TV sets.
You should understand that UE intentions are not to reduce overall electrity consumption (if such were the point a linear tax may do the trick) but to reduce *undesired* electricity consumption (as in we don't want industries generally taxed on this making our products less competitive than others') so taxing and/or regulating certain markets/products is a natural outcome.
"Yes, the same way that the tax on a gallon of gas should be the same whether you're driving to a homeless shelter to volunteer or to a bar to get wasted."
Suprise! it is not. At least on my country on the EU "general purpouse" gas is not taxed the same than the one for heating or the one for agriculture.
"The environmental damage is the same regardless of your intentions."
True. But the environmental damage is not an absolute value: it is already ballanced against intentions. Some purposes are above environmental damage, some are not, and on some others are acceptable up to certain limits.
" It's quite likely there are ways to decrease overall energy use that would be much more effective and efficient than changing what type of TVs we buy. A tax on energy would cause the market to start searching for those better ways to save energy."
It seems UE thinks exactly like you. That's why their are not considering banning plasma TVs (but how the hell takes the time to follow the links, right?) but banning TVs over certain wattage.
Which is nothing but applying an infinite tax on TV sets over such wattage and will certainly result in producers to start searching for manufacturing TV sets that will save energy at least under certain wattage, exactly your proposition.
"The largest energy consumers would be the hardest hit by the tax"
Oh! you mean taxing directly on the Watt, I see... So you consider a Watt used on a hospital diagnostic scanner should be taxed just the same as a Watt used on a 50" TV for the superbowl? Please consider that it might happen that not everybody thinks the same.
"So still for each person individually it is a better deal to live far out however it costs the people on the whole a much more."
A very American approach. As if we were money machines instead of human beings. It's a better deal because it's cheaper, full stop. The hell with nonsenses like live quality or sustainability for our grandchildren.