What solution do you propose? This is not an "artificial scarcity" problem. Sony doesn't have any PS3's sitting in warehouses somewhere and they are just waiting until demand is spiked to rush them out. If anything, they are doing the public a service by releasing the PS3 at below market value. That way, at least some actual gamers will get their hands on them. If they released it at the actual market value (by the look of ebay auctions that is around $2000), people would be yelling at Sony for being greedy. They're damned if they do and damned if they don't. Should they just lock up and not sell any PS3's because some people are going to make money off reselling the console? This isn't a rhetorical question, I really want to know what you propose.
I'll give you an analogy. Say a very popular band releases tickets to their national tour and they sell them for $50. That seems like a price a lot of people could afford to see a popular act. Say ticket scalpers take half the tickets and resell them for a large profit. Is it the band's fault for selling tickets below the actual market value? Of course not, and the Sony situation is no different.
As for the middlemen, I can't say that this is the greatest thing humanity as ever done, but it isn't exactly reprehensible either. Greed isn't necessarily a bad thing in itself, it is when greed is the motivation for doing bad things that it is a problem. I doubt reselling a fucking Playstation for a profit is high on most people's list of crimes against humanity. I also fail to see how hiring a homeless guy or college student to stand in line for a few hours is exploitative.
I agree with your first statement, but you're talking about an almost sure thing to turn a 100% profit (number pulled out of my ass, but probably not far off). It's as close to a sure thing as you can get that you would at least break even in the worst case scenario. Short-term trading on stocks and bonds (particularly in Japan) is very volatile, and much riskier. If you're buying a dozen PS3's and reselling them for a $500 profit (again estimated), that's $6000 easy money. It's pretty easy to see why people are doing this.
Also, the term businessman is pretty general. For all we know he could be the manager of a Best Buy or whatever the Japanese equivalent is. Most businessmen aren't day traders. These people probably don't have the capital to do high volume trades. Even if they do, it is hard to consistently make money trading in the short term. If it were easy, everybody would do it.
Not related to your post, but just as a general statement, why is it somehow Sony's fault for this happening? Every popular console I can remember was launched with a supply shortage. It takes a while for their manufacturing to get up to demand, and frankly, a limited supply has a lot of positive benefits for a high-profile product like the PS3. If they would raise the price to a point where the demand was only from 80,000 people, people would be decrying Sony for selling a console that only rich people can afford. The reality is that supply is fixed, and if a lot of people really want a PS3, then the people who will spend more money will end up with a PS3. Hardly groundbreaking news.
Pretty much everything you list has already been implemented in PC games. Certainly Microsoft has done well bringing these things to consoles (and enforcing conformity to standards across all games), but I would hardly call it innovation. Well executed no doubt, but not innovative. Also, when you take into account the subscription fee for Xbox Live, these things lose their value for a lot of people. If you are going to consider these things innovation, then certainly the internet access offered with the Dreamcast could be viewed as equally innovative.
A lot of people in the US observe the Sabbath on Saturday (most Jews and quite a few denominations of Christianity, I don't know about Muslims). I'm not sure about the specific religious beliefs regarding what you can or cannot do on the Sabbath for those various groups, but this would definitely cause a lot of people to not vote due to their religious beliefs.
Is this really an either/or proposition? Right now most of the videos on youtube are crap, but there is some really good stuff (granted they are few and far between). The same crappy videos will be getting lots of views, but now there will be the incentive for people to put forth the effort towards making really high quality stuff (in addition to the shit). In the worst case scenario most of the videos will still be awkward-looking people embarrassing themselves, so from my standpoint it's a good move.
Wow, wonderful insight from an AC. If I'm having a conversation with you, and you emphasise every point by getting really close to my face and yelling, it would probably accentuate my point (as you so eloquently put it). That isn't how you have a conversation, though.
Point taken, I think the main problem I have is with the phrasing when you said "red state Utahns will never vote for a democrat on principle alone". I'm not saying Utah isn't going to vote Republican in the fall. I'm just saying that dividing the states into red and blue and placing these two values opposite to each other is a foolish rhetorical tool. By doing so, you are reinforcing the exact values the two parties want you to believe. They (meaning the Democrats and Republicans) would like everyone to believe that there are only two options, and that anyone who isn't on their side of the option is the "enemy". Even in a state like Utah (which is certainly one of the most Republican staes) there is a strong Democratic minority, even if the Democrats are largely ineffective. When the term "red state" is used, it brings up a lot of connotations that are somewhat misleading.
For example, Utah and Nevada are both red states (majorities voted for Bush in 2004 and 2000). However, would you claim that Utah and Nevada have similar values, either socially or politically? New Mexico voted for Gore in 2000 but voted for Bush in 2004. So did Iowa. Does that make them red states or blue states? Kansas is a red state, but they are most likely going to send more Democratic representatives to Congress in the upcoming election. Florida is a red state and Pennsylvania is a blue state, but both are pretty evenly mixed with Democrat and Republican supporters. Colorado voted Republican in 2004 but also replaced a retiring Republican senator with a Democratic senator. Colorado also has a slight majority of Democrats in the state house and senate. Even within Utah there are divisions. SLC is much more liberal than the rest of the state. You can break it down even further into specific neighborhoods in SLC and find similar contrasting liberal and conservative areas.
My point is that using these terms in anything other than very, very specific descriptions (such as presidential election results) almost always results in an over-generalization. You really have to question why you are using the term red state and what it actually means.
Also, I apologize for using some strong language(shut up, etc). I was a little irrational and attacking a stereotypical viewpoint that you probably don't even share. The red state/blue state thing is one of my pet peeves. Thanks for responding in a reasonable manner.
For one, find a another republican (red state Utahns will never vote for a democrat on principle alone) to replace Orrin Hatch PLEASE.
Please shut up. I agree with you that Orrin Hatch is an asshole (I certainly won't be voting for him) but this blue state/red state nonsense has to stop. The reason he gets re-elected is because he brings home the pork for Utah voters. To claim that Utahns would never vote for a Democrat because they are a "red state" is ridiculous. There are many elected officials from Utah that are Democrats, especially in state and city offices. This dividing of states into blue and red is complete and utter rhetorical bullshit, and it irritates me when people use it as if it is something concrete and real.
Also, to infer that another senator (whether Democratic or Republican) would not have voted for the copyright extension is idiotic. The last copyright extension passed by a voice vote. I can't remember there being any opposition in either the house or the senate, obviously there wasn't enough to stop the act from being passed.
Besides, even if you could get Orrin Hatch ousted, would that really have any effect? There obviously wasn't (and still isn't for that matter) a sizeable public outcry against copyright extension. Wouldn't the media companies just lobby other powerful senators?
Well, I think we are talking in different languages, so to speak. Like I said, they may have lost their ambition and creativity, but the company wouldn't have failed. I completely agree that too much success early on could destroy a company's original ideals and goals, but it's not like the company itself would have gone anywhere.
Pretty much every European country has invaded at least one of its neighbours at some point.
It's bigoted because this is true about pretty much any region, especially in the "Old World". You could say the same thing about East Asia, South Asia, Middle East, Africa, the Americas, etc. Pretty much any group of people that have been living next to each other for long enough will fight. To make the claim that Europeans fight more than other people is pretty ridiculous (although there's a good chance the original poster was either trying to be funny or just trolling).
It would be racist, but it isn't about race. "European" is not a race (not that race has any scientific meaning, but I digress). It is bigoted, xenophobic, possibly nationalistic but not racist.
I was working there during the time Warcraft became very popular, and I don't think Workshop would have been able to handle that kind of growth at that point in its history without self-destructing.
This reminds me of Wizards of the Coast. Maybe something similar could've happened to Games Workshop where initially they couldn't handle the large increase in popularity, but the huge exposure eventually led them to becoming a huge company. Maybe they would've lost some of their ambition and drive, but I don't think a company ever failed by becoming too popular.
I think it is innacurate when you say "teens" look for a community of their own, corporations move in, etc. It is not really anything exclusive to teenagers. This happens to all types of subcultures, and usually age is not a factor. If anything, teenagers are usually the ones that are being sold the hacked up pieces of somebody else's culture (good example with rap, others like punk and skater culture).
However, myspace doesn't really fit into that. The idea behind myspace was to make money the entire time. They weren't minding their own business until some evil corporation swooped in and ruined it. Myspace is pretty much the same now as it was before News Corp took over. People are still free to do whatever it is they were doing before. They are and always were part of the system.
PS, there was a really good Frontline episode that dug into the "cool hunting" business a couple years back: The Merchants Of Cool
That doesn't mean you should use a computer to watch every last thing your child does online, just on the off chance they'll start writing depressing poetry or planning a school shooting.
I don't think anybody in this thread (either me or the original poster which you responded to) claims to support monitoring every single thing children do online. Those are your words.
There are many helpful uses of this technology. You haven't explained yet why watching your child's activity online is any different than what parents used to do. Of course it is a bad thing if you create an overly strict and intolerant atmosphere where you monitor your child's every move. That is not what anybody is claiming. Stop making ridiculous statements.
Well, as a wizened old sage (I'm 20), I call bullshit on that. It is not ridiculous to check logs, history, etc. I know personally, my parents kept fairly close tabs on me and my siblings. Some of it was through the normal means (talking to our friends' parents and our teachers) and a some of it was by computer. One time my mother was worried about my sister's mental health, and even looked through her private journal and poetry, as well as checked out her Yahoo and ICQ profile, friends, etc. It turns out there was some pretty bad things going on that my sister denied, and my mom probably wouldn't have found out until my sister ran away, committed suicide, or done some other awful thing. This was clearly an invasion of privacy, and it pissed my sister off like nothing else I've ever seen. However, now she recognizes that it was a good thing.
Parenting is not this well-defined black and white scenario you lay out. There are many dubious decisions to be made. Just saying that when you use a computer to monitor your children you are doing harm is ridiculous. Parents have a responsibility to make sure their children are doing the right things. If that includes checking in on their online activity, so be it.
That was a very poorly written article. Granted, it was an editorial, but a little more in the way of rational argument would've been nice. Instead of presenting opposing points and showing their weaknesses, the author simply writes off opposing arguments as ridiculous and baseless. How about actually showing why they are wrong.
For example, he writes this in the beginning:
Despite my regular updates on the poor performance of U.S. job growth in the 21st century, economists have insisted that offshoring is a manifestation of free trade and can only have positive benefits overall for Americans.
Unless he is countering a specific argument made against him in the past (which I doubt, based on the language he uses) this is as far as he goes as presenting the opposition argument he is so adamantly against. This is a straw man. He uses the blanket term "economists", as if all economists believe this. As anyone who has spent any time with economists knows, it is rare to find two economists who agree exactly on a given issue. Even if they agree generally, they may dispute endlessly about small details. To claim that offshoring is a practice that all economists consider useful is just wrong. Also, notice his choice of words. "Offshoring...can only have positive benefits overall for Americans." This is very obviously an over-simplification of the argument.
Other great fallacies include the numerous ad hominem attacks (mixed well with the aforementioned straw man). Here are a few:
American economists, some from incompetence and some from being bought and paid for, described globalization as a "win-win" development.
The denial of jobs reality has become an art form for economists, libertarians, the Bush regime, and journalists.
Economists have failed to examine the incompatibility of offshoring with free trade. Economists are so accustomed to shouting down protectionists that they dismiss any complaint about globalization's impact on domestic jobs as the ignorant voice of a protectionist seeking to preserve the buggy whip industry.
He also does a very good job of making himself look like an ass by making claims without any explanation or reasoning to support these claims. Here are a few examples:
At a Brookings Institution conference in Washington, D.C., in January 2004, I predicted that if the pace of jobs outsourcing and occupational destruction continued, the U.S. would be a third world country in 20 years.
Business organizations have successfully used pubic relations firms and bought-and-paid-for "economic studies" to convince policymakers that American business cannot function without H-1B visas that permit the importation of indentured employees from abroad who are paid less than the going U.S. salaries. The so-called shortage is, in fact, a replacement of American employees with foreign employees, with the soon-to-be-discharged American employee first required to train his replacement... It is amazing to see free-market economists rush to the defense of H-1B visas. The visas are nothing but a subsidy to U.S. companies at the expense of U.S. citizens.
American employees have been abandoned by American corporations and by their representatives in Congress. America remains a land of opportunity but for foreigners not for the native born.
No one seems to understand that research, development, design, and innovation take place in countries where things are made. The loss of manufacturing means ultimately the loss of engineering and science. The newest plants embody the latest technology. If these plants are abroad, that is where the cutting edge resides.
I could take the time to refute these one by one, but I re
Nothing like watching a couple 500 lb. gorillas wrestle each other. Except of course if you're the consumer. Either way, they're sure to get screwed out of a possible format for viewing movies. Now that studios are finally coming around to digital distribution, Wal-Mart has to rain on everybody's parade.
Way to go Wal-Mart! With all that positive propoganda coming out of Bentonville, some people were actually starting to like you again. Thanks for reinforcing negative images of your company.
I am getting really sick of all these addiction stories. Is WoW addictive? Are video games addictive? Yes. Any activity that brings someone pleasure (or provides some other incentive) can be potentially addictive. This is just pointing out the obvious.
I second that, although a more accurate description would probably be they start to smell like LAN parties. The lingering stench of stale pizza and unwashed geek.... *shudders*
Slashdot Mirror
What solution do you propose? This is not an "artificial scarcity" problem. Sony doesn't have any PS3's sitting in warehouses somewhere and they are just waiting until demand is spiked to rush them out. If anything, they are doing the public a service by releasing the PS3 at below market value. That way, at least some actual gamers will get their hands on them. If they released it at the actual market value (by the look of ebay auctions that is around $2000), people would be yelling at Sony for being greedy. They're damned if they do and damned if they don't. Should they just lock up and not sell any PS3's because some people are going to make money off reselling the console? This isn't a rhetorical question, I really want to know what you propose.
I'll give you an analogy. Say a very popular band releases tickets to their national tour and they sell them for $50. That seems like a price a lot of people could afford to see a popular act. Say ticket scalpers take half the tickets and resell them for a large profit. Is it the band's fault for selling tickets below the actual market value? Of course not, and the Sony situation is no different.
As for the middlemen, I can't say that this is the greatest thing humanity as ever done, but it isn't exactly reprehensible either. Greed isn't necessarily a bad thing in itself, it is when greed is the motivation for doing bad things that it is a problem. I doubt reselling a fucking Playstation for a profit is high on most people's list of crimes against humanity. I also fail to see how hiring a homeless guy or college student to stand in line for a few hours is exploitative.
I agree with your first statement, but you're talking about an almost sure thing to turn a 100% profit (number pulled out of my ass, but probably not far off). It's as close to a sure thing as you can get that you would at least break even in the worst case scenario. Short-term trading on stocks and bonds (particularly in Japan) is very volatile, and much riskier. If you're buying a dozen PS3's and reselling them for a $500 profit (again estimated), that's $6000 easy money. It's pretty easy to see why people are doing this.
Also, the term businessman is pretty general. For all we know he could be the manager of a Best Buy or whatever the Japanese equivalent is. Most businessmen aren't day traders. These people probably don't have the capital to do high volume trades. Even if they do, it is hard to consistently make money trading in the short term. If it were easy, everybody would do it.
Not related to your post, but just as a general statement, why is it somehow Sony's fault for this happening? Every popular console I can remember was launched with a supply shortage. It takes a while for their manufacturing to get up to demand, and frankly, a limited supply has a lot of positive benefits for a high-profile product like the PS3. If they would raise the price to a point where the demand was only from 80,000 people, people would be decrying Sony for selling a console that only rich people can afford. The reality is that supply is fixed, and if a lot of people really want a PS3, then the people who will spend more money will end up with a PS3. Hardly groundbreaking news.
Pretty much everything you list has already been implemented in PC games. Certainly Microsoft has done well bringing these things to consoles (and enforcing conformity to standards across all games), but I would hardly call it innovation. Well executed no doubt, but not innovative. Also, when you take into account the subscription fee for Xbox Live, these things lose their value for a lot of people. If you are going to consider these things innovation, then certainly the internet access offered with the Dreamcast could be viewed as equally innovative.
A lot of people in the US observe the Sabbath on Saturday (most Jews and quite a few denominations of Christianity, I don't know about Muslims). I'm not sure about the specific religious beliefs regarding what you can or cannot do on the Sabbath for those various groups, but this would definitely cause a lot of people to not vote due to their religious beliefs.
Excellent foresight! :)
For those of you that missed the joke the first time.
Is this really an either/or proposition? Right now most of the videos on youtube are crap, but there is some really good stuff (granted they are few and far between). The same crappy videos will be getting lots of views, but now there will be the incentive for people to put forth the effort towards making really high quality stuff (in addition to the shit). In the worst case scenario most of the videos will still be awkward-looking people embarrassing themselves, so from my standpoint it's a good move.
Wow, wonderful insight from an AC. If I'm having a conversation with you, and you emphasise every point by getting really close to my face and yelling, it would probably accentuate my point (as you so eloquently put it). That isn't how you have a conversation, though.
Turn off the caps lock. You have every right to dislike Sony, but acting like an indignant asshole is uncalled for.
Point taken, I think the main problem I have is with the phrasing when you said "red state Utahns will never vote for a democrat on principle alone". I'm not saying Utah isn't going to vote Republican in the fall. I'm just saying that dividing the states into red and blue and placing these two values opposite to each other is a foolish rhetorical tool. By doing so, you are reinforcing the exact values the two parties want you to believe. They (meaning the Democrats and Republicans) would like everyone to believe that there are only two options, and that anyone who isn't on their side of the option is the "enemy". Even in a state like Utah (which is certainly one of the most Republican staes) there is a strong Democratic minority, even if the Democrats are largely ineffective. When the term "red state" is used, it brings up a lot of connotations that are somewhat misleading.
For example, Utah and Nevada are both red states (majorities voted for Bush in 2004 and 2000). However, would you claim that Utah and Nevada have similar values, either socially or politically? New Mexico voted for Gore in 2000 but voted for Bush in 2004. So did Iowa. Does that make them red states or blue states? Kansas is a red state, but they are most likely going to send more Democratic representatives to Congress in the upcoming election. Florida is a red state and Pennsylvania is a blue state, but both are pretty evenly mixed with Democrat and Republican supporters. Colorado voted Republican in 2004 but also replaced a retiring Republican senator with a Democratic senator. Colorado also has a slight majority of Democrats in the state house and senate. Even within Utah there are divisions. SLC is much more liberal than the rest of the state. You can break it down even further into specific neighborhoods in SLC and find similar contrasting liberal and conservative areas.
My point is that using these terms in anything other than very, very specific descriptions (such as presidential election results) almost always results in an over-generalization. You really have to question why you are using the term red state and what it actually means.
Also, I apologize for using some strong language(shut up, etc). I was a little irrational and attacking a stereotypical viewpoint that you probably don't even share. The red state/blue state thing is one of my pet peeves. Thanks for responding in a reasonable manner.
Please shut up. I agree with you that Orrin Hatch is an asshole (I certainly won't be voting for him) but this blue state/red state nonsense has to stop. The reason he gets re-elected is because he brings home the pork for Utah voters. To claim that Utahns would never vote for a Democrat because they are a "red state" is ridiculous. There are many elected officials from Utah that are Democrats, especially in state and city offices. This dividing of states into blue and red is complete and utter rhetorical bullshit, and it irritates me when people use it as if it is something concrete and real.
Also, to infer that another senator (whether Democratic or Republican) would not have voted for the copyright extension is idiotic. The last copyright extension passed by a voice vote. I can't remember there being any opposition in either the house or the senate, obviously there wasn't enough to stop the act from being passed.
Besides, even if you could get Orrin Hatch ousted, would that really have any effect? There obviously wasn't (and still isn't for that matter) a sizeable public outcry against copyright extension. Wouldn't the media companies just lobby other powerful senators?
Well, I think we are talking in different languages, so to speak. Like I said, they may have lost their ambition and creativity, but the company wouldn't have failed. I completely agree that too much success early on could destroy a company's original ideals and goals, but it's not like the company itself would have gone anywhere.
It's bigoted because this is true about pretty much any region, especially in the "Old World". You could say the same thing about East Asia, South Asia, Middle East, Africa, the Americas, etc. Pretty much any group of people that have been living next to each other for long enough will fight. To make the claim that Europeans fight more than other people is pretty ridiculous (although there's a good chance the original poster was either trying to be funny or just trolling).
It would be racist, but it isn't about race. "European" is not a race (not that race has any scientific meaning, but I digress). It is bigoted, xenophobic, possibly nationalistic but not racist.
This reminds me of Wizards of the Coast. Maybe something similar could've happened to Games Workshop where initially they couldn't handle the large increase in popularity, but the huge exposure eventually led them to becoming a huge company. Maybe they would've lost some of their ambition and drive, but I don't think a company ever failed by becoming too popular.
I think it is innacurate when you say "teens" look for a community of their own, corporations move in, etc. It is not really anything exclusive to teenagers. This happens to all types of subcultures, and usually age is not a factor. If anything, teenagers are usually the ones that are being sold the hacked up pieces of somebody else's culture (good example with rap, others like punk and skater culture).
However, myspace doesn't really fit into that. The idea behind myspace was to make money the entire time. They weren't minding their own business until some evil corporation swooped in and ruined it. Myspace is pretty much the same now as it was before News Corp took over. People are still free to do whatever it is they were doing before. They are and always were part of the system.
PS, there was a really good Frontline episode that dug into the "cool hunting" business a couple years back: The Merchants Of Cool
Lawyers don't have garages?
I don't think anybody in this thread (either me or the original poster which you responded to) claims to support monitoring every single thing children do online. Those are your words.
There are many helpful uses of this technology. You haven't explained yet why watching your child's activity online is any different than what parents used to do. Of course it is a bad thing if you create an overly strict and intolerant atmosphere where you monitor your child's every move. That is not what anybody is claiming. Stop making ridiculous statements.
Well, as a wizened old sage (I'm 20), I call bullshit on that. It is not ridiculous to check logs, history, etc. I know personally, my parents kept fairly close tabs on me and my siblings. Some of it was through the normal means (talking to our friends' parents and our teachers) and a some of it was by computer. One time my mother was worried about my sister's mental health, and even looked through her private journal and poetry, as well as checked out her Yahoo and ICQ profile, friends, etc. It turns out there was some pretty bad things going on that my sister denied, and my mom probably wouldn't have found out until my sister ran away, committed suicide, or done some other awful thing. This was clearly an invasion of privacy, and it pissed my sister off like nothing else I've ever seen. However, now she recognizes that it was a good thing.
Parenting is not this well-defined black and white scenario you lay out. There are many dubious decisions to be made. Just saying that when you use a computer to monitor your children you are doing harm is ridiculous. Parents have a responsibility to make sure their children are doing the right things. If that includes checking in on their online activity, so be it.
That was a very poorly written article. Granted, it was an editorial, but a little more in the way of rational argument would've been nice. Instead of presenting opposing points and showing their weaknesses, the author simply writes off opposing arguments as ridiculous and baseless. How about actually showing why they are wrong.
For example, he writes this in the beginning:
Unless he is countering a specific argument made against him in the past (which I doubt, based on the language he uses) this is as far as he goes as presenting the opposition argument he is so adamantly against. This is a straw man. He uses the blanket term "economists", as if all economists believe this. As anyone who has spent any time with economists knows, it is rare to find two economists who agree exactly on a given issue. Even if they agree generally, they may dispute endlessly about small details. To claim that offshoring is a practice that all economists consider useful is just wrong. Also, notice his choice of words. "Offshoring...can only have positive benefits overall for Americans." This is very obviously an over-simplification of the argument.
Other great fallacies include the numerous ad hominem attacks (mixed well with the aforementioned straw man). Here are a few:
He also does a very good job of making himself look like an ass by making claims without any explanation or reasoning to support these claims. Here are a few examples:
I could take the time to refute these one by one, but I re
This is even funnier because selling a ridiculous website with no business model is how Mark Cuban initially made his money.
Nothing like watching a couple 500 lb. gorillas wrestle each other. Except of course if you're the consumer. Either way, they're sure to get screwed out of a possible format for viewing movies. Now that studios are finally coming around to digital distribution, Wal-Mart has to rain on everybody's parade.
Way to go Wal-Mart! With all that positive propoganda coming out of Bentonville, some people were actually starting to like you again. Thanks for reinforcing negative images of your company.
I am getting really sick of all these addiction stories. Is WoW addictive? Are video games addictive? Yes. Any activity that brings someone pleasure (or provides some other incentive) can be potentially addictive. This is just pointing out the obvious.
I second that, although a more accurate description would probably be they start to smell like LAN parties. The lingering stench of stale pizza and unwashed geek.... *shudders*
It's like an emo kid, but with a lot less crying.