Force standards compliance -or- force freedom of choice. Choose one.
No, they are two sides of the same coin. If MS is standards compliant, web pages are written to be standards compliant, thus enabling choice because people can switch browsers and still access the pages they need. If people have choice of browsers, web pages are written to be standards compliant, thus requiring MS to standards compliance to render pages properly.
Here in Australia, a few years ago it was hard to find a bank whose website worked properly in firefox, now it is easy. Personally, I let every bank I couldn't access know why I was going to their competition. I must not have been the only one. I also used to switch people to firefox whenever I could, telling them to use IE only for banking etc if they needed to. People such as myself, who were prepared to make an effort to have a choice, have created an environment where that freedom of choice is available to many more people by using our market power to encourage standards compliance.
MSFT owns the desktop, Apple owns the PMP market, and Google owns search.
My browser (firefox) has both google and yahoo in the search bar, it is a 3 click process to bring up a list of other search engines for installation, including bing.
I can go into any electronics shop in my area and select from a number of different brands of media player. Most mobile phones will function as personal media players. If someone buys an ipod, it is clearly because they prefer it, not from a lack of choice. The only restriction is that they don't work with itunes, hardly an obstacle worth noting.
If I go to buy a desktop in a store, unless I specifically go to the Apple store, most will only have computers available bundled with MS windows.
Of the examples you gave, if I didn't know about those markets, I could accidentally use a non-dominant search engine, I could accidentally buy a non-dominant PMP. The likelihood that I could accidentally buy a desktop computer without MS software is remote. Additionally, I could change my default search engine in a couple of seconds. Unless you have a heap of itunes music files, it is trivial to change media players. MS has deliberately used their OS market position and office suite market position to make it very difficult to change OS. There is a difference between large market share and a monopoly position.
I believe that the reason people do not install Firefox, Safari, or Chrome is that they simply do not care. A computer is a tool for viewing friends' Facebook pages, looking up movie times, etc. The Slashdot community seems to be dogmatically resistant to recognizing this.
The computers of people who don't know or care about such things are tools for sending out spam and spreading malware. The preferences or apathy of such people is irrelevant. Anyone who really cares can get an alternative browser already, this lowers the interest/knowledge level required to use an alternative. There will surely be some people who switch as a result. It will make choice available to people who previously have been conditioned through monopolistic practices to serve microsoft's interests rather than their own.
I'd say publish the code, at least to paying customers, to qualify for copyright protection in the first place. Can you copyright the text of a secret book? Maybe you can now, but full disclosure should be required for the monopoly protection.
No one is talking about a computer virus, not viral as in code copying by itself. We're talking about a viral LICENCE.
I didn't dispute that, nevertheless the LICENCE does not self-replicate. I used the virus vs other malware point as an example of what causes something to be considered viral.
If the GPL applies to your code, it is only due to direct action on your part, thus it is not viral. If it were truly viral it could spread to your code without your intervention.
I'm not sure halos are even part of Christian canon.
Exodus 34:29 It happened, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the testimony in Moses' hand, when he came down from the mountain, that Moses didn't know that the skin of his face shone by reason of his speaking with him.
Ecclesiastes 8:1 Who is like the wise man? And who knows the interpretation of a thing? A man's wisdom makes his face shine, and the hardness of his face is changed.
Daniel 12:3 Those who are wise shall shine as the brightness of the expanse; and those who turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever.
Matthew 13:43 Then the righteous will shine forth like the sun in the Kingdom of their Father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
Matthew 17:2 He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his garments became as white as the light.
Acts 6:15. All who sat in the council, fastening their eyes on him, saw his face like it was the face of an angel.
Perhaps not exactly halos, but the concept of righteous people shining visible light is certainly there.
A virus infects a host. The GPL doesn't infect your existing software.
Sure it does. If I release v1.0 of my sotwar all written by me, it's all mine. If in v2.0 I copy a class out of a some GPL project into my source and compile the entire thing together and release it as v2.0, the license on that code says that my entire project, including everything that was in v1.0 is now GPL. That's viral. The license has infected my pre-existing code base.
I make no comment whether that is a good thing or a bad thing. It just is. It's ill-informed or dishonest to deny the viral nature of GPL.
Well, there's still the little issue of self-replication to be dealt with. The thing that differentiates a software virus from other types of malware is self-replication. So unless the GPL can, from the code base you deliberately put it in, insert itself into other projects it still doesn't qualify as viral. Every instance of GPL being applied to your code requires action on your part.
BTW, your example is not quite correct. If there was code in your v1.0 that didn't make it into v2.0 and was therefore never distributed compiled together with the GPL'd code it would be unaffected by the GPL.
A virus infects a host. The GPL doesn't infect your existing software. It does apply to derivative works of GPL'd code. In that case, the GPL is pre-existing and the newly written derivative code is the only thing that could be said to be invasive, if anything.
Try decompiling some MS software (non-GPL'd) and making a derivative work and see if you get less or more issues than if you had used GPL code instead. I think you'll find MS asking the courts to put conditions on you that will have you begging for something like the "viral GPL".
The pro-piracy folks around here say that copying isn't theft. I'd say that'd apply here too.
Not just the pro-piracy folks. Although I'd like to see reform, I am in favour of copyright. Incorrectly defining terms makes sensible discussion of a topic difficult or even impossible.
This topic doesn't inflame the argument so much because there is not a substantial portion of people who want "identity theft" to be legal. Since there is no debate on whether it should be allowed or not, using an incorrect term doesn't highjack the argument into being propaganda for one side. Theft and stealing are terms commonly used to describe things that are not in fact theft. That's usually ok, but when discussing proposed changes to laws that affect the whose society it isn't. For example, I would regard MPAA equating copying a movie with stealing a car, repetitively making that connection in the absence of opposing argument to the general population (on DVDs) as tainting the jury pool.
A teenage girl might accuse another of "stealing" her boyfriend. No problem, until you start proposing laws to have boyfriend thieves charged with theft. At that point, it would be necessary to point out the differences and that "stealing" is not really an appropriate term for what happened. That's where we are with copyright right now. In identity theft cases, I'm not sure there is a word to properly describe it yet. It is usually done in order to commit fraud, but the harvesting of the identity info is only the first step and probably isn't fraud in and of itself. Although fraud and theft are different, common usage of theft includes fraud, so theft is perhaps the best word to use right now even though it isn't exactly correct.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sample_(statistics) "In statistics, a sample is a subset of a population. Typically, the population is very large, making a census or a complete enumeration of all the values in the population impractical or impossible. The sample represents a subset of manageable size."
127 is the total number of shuttle missions. 2/127 is the current failure rate. 2/127 > 1/75. You made an incorrect statement. Deal with it.
By "stupid", I'd suggest that would include those viewing marriage as a romantic union, rather than a social union rooted in an an exchange of property rights (i.e., a business agreement).
Cynical? Perhaps.
I would regard that as realistic rather than cynical. Emotions are subject to change. Regardless of how you feel about that person during dating or on your wedding day, at some time you will feel differently. You will get angry, frustrated, etc at some time. Your spouse is not perfect and will do you wrong at some point, you also to them. A marriage based on emotions is doomed. Building and maintaining romance is the method by which you make your marriage work, not the reason to get married. It takes deliberate effort and will require you to act contrary to your emotions on many occasions.
I am in general agreement with your post and similar lifestyle, but I'd qualify the income part. I'd say roughly their own socio-economic upbringing or level of ambition. The way you think about money counts more than the amount you have managed to acquire.
My wife and I have both learned different aspects of handling money from each other. She was a (poor) student when I met her, but we shared a similar level of financial goals that have enabled us to work well together and get along.
Why does an "underprivileged" family need resources at all? We're talking public schools here.
BWAHAHAHA!
I get it now, you're joking, right?
Test results usually work pretty well in figuring out who is or is not capable of the "intellectual track".
Have a read of The Measurement of Intelligence. The system you propose isn't new, it's eugenics. Choice quote:
"Children of this group should be segregated in special classes and be given instruction which is concrete and practical. They cannot master abstractions, but they can often be made efficient workers, able to look out for themselves. There is no possibility at present of convincing society that they should not be allowed to reproduce, although from a eugenic point of view they constitute a grave problem because of their unusually prolific breeding."
Either the kid can or can't perform, and if he can't, it shouldn't matter how much money his parents have.
Some people would regard performance in school is a poor indicator of human wholeness. Schools are essentially a factory system, with the students being the product. No matter how good you make the school, some kids aren't going to fit the mould. That is not necessarily indicating anything bad about that child, it is an inevitability based on the individuality of people and the impossibility of making a mass schooling system that caters to every individual. If you are one of the children who doesn't fit the mould, do you have a responsibility to accept your "bad" label or warp your personality to fit the factory school? Or do you have a right to set your own path if the one handed to you doesn't work for you?
Just make school non-compulsory. The kids who are "bad" won't go. Those who just don't fit in can go and find something else to do. No need for "bad" kids to be locked up in what amounts to detention centres in the name of school. Most people wouldn't tolerate a compulsory system equivalent to school for the adult population, it's time we woke up to the fact that just because we're doing to children doesn't make it ok.
The senior dug that hole for himself. He undertook personal revenge, then switched tactics to use the court when the stakes got too high. The junior apparently correctly determined that senior was not prepared to push the issue very far privately.
If you wish to undertake a course of private revenge, to be successful you must be willing and able to follow that course far enough to win. You must escalate the situation higher, faster than your opponent is willing to risk. Senior was just lucky that junior followed private revenge rather than taking him to court for assault. His bluff got called.
Yes, understood, but there's a difference between having a de-facto *ability* to do something, and having a *right* to do something.
Yes there is but I don't think that applies to this issue. As I understand it the historical purpose of trial by jury is as a limitation on the power of the state to arbitrarily punish. That is why, for example, a guilty verdict can be overturned but an acquittal can't be overturned. There may be exceptions to that, but that is the general rule.
A jury that properly carries out its instructions...
That begs the question of whether a jury member is properly under the authority of the instructor as to their purpose in the courtroom, the correct course to follow or decision to make. It seems evident to me that if they were under any legitimate authority, that authority would have long since implemented a system of punishment for non-compliance.
In my own countries history, jury nullification brought the colonial government into line in a situation that may have otherwise resulted in a general revolt against the government. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka_stockade#Trials_for_Sedition_and_High_Treason It is a valid, non-violent form of resistance to the government. Unlike most other forms of resistance, it carries no threat of punishment and is legally binding on the government. It does not destroy the legal basis of society, as some here like to claim. People serious enough about justice to take such a step are not likely to be a lawless lot.
To be fair, if I sold records, my interest in releasing fewer records would be slim. Not saying that there wasn't a reason for them to do so of their own free will, but just food for thought.
Not so, because music recordings compete largely with other recordings. For a given level of market saturation customers are choosing between recording 1 and recording 2 rather than recording 1 and a non-music item. So if decreasing new releases from 20,000 to 18,000 records doesn't cause people to buy the non-music item, then the 18,000 records will on average be more profitable than the 20,000 would have been and the production cost of 2000 recordings is eliminated.
Tolkien lived until 1973. Should it have gone PD in his lifetime?
Sure, why not? The provision for copyright in the US Constitution says: "[The Congress shall have Power] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries"
As such, it is a social contract between the authors and the public, through the agency of the government. The obligations of that contract are (1) for the authors to release that work to the public domain for the public to use after the limited time and (2) for the public to refrain from copying for a limited time.
So here is my problem with current copyright terms: my grandchildren are not members of the public (not being even conceived yet), so I do not consider that for me to refrain from copying works for my entire life to obtain a benefit for people who may never exist to be the basis of a valid contract. In my view, copyright terms can never rationally be more than half the average life expectancy. There must be a benefit to the actual people refraining from copying.
On a practical level, to have a workable copyright system you need widespread agreement among the population to adhere to it, because copying is too easy. Mass enforcement will not prove to be possible. To get people to agree, you need to offer them a benefit. Other than release into the public domain within their lifetime, what else is there?
Inheritence is bullshit. It just perpetuates a lazy aristocracy. I've told my parents to die broke, and I will do the same.
Yes, because your parents accumulating enough wealth to make you independent of social security and banks is a terrible idea.
Personally, I'd like our society to have a greatly reduced dependence on borrowing. I think a person living normally ought to have a reasonable chance to go through life without significant debt. The only ways I've thought of this being possible are if houses become very cheap or if it becomes common for people to inherit their accommodation.
If I manage to leave such an inheritance to my children (a house or unit each) I don't think I would be perpetuating a lazy aristocracy. Mind you, I already have a house and my parents aren't dead, but I've had some lucky breaks. Unless my children can save the cash for a house themselves, they will be dependent on a landlord, a bank or the government to be able to get accommodation. So they will either get it from people who want (reasonably) to profit from them, from people who raise the money by taxation, or from me. Surely the best thing for society is for them to get it from me since I am willing (no need for tax) and do not require profits for helping my children (more efficient than banks/landlords).
In any event, why should the money supply be tied to a rare, precious metal? Matching the growth (or shrinkage!) of the money supply based solely on the discovery, loss, or recovery of a particular natural resource hardly seems like a good plan for managing the economy.
Indeed, the goal is to make it much more difficult to manage the economy. When we let select groups manage the economy, they seem to do it primarily for the benefit of themselves and their friends.
Gold (or other commodity backed) currency is a currency based on tangible reality. Fiat currency or fractional reserve lending "chequebook money" are based on the promises of politicians or bankers. Given the choice between tangible reality and a politicians promise, I choose reality. YMMV.
Slashdot Mirror
Force standards compliance -or- force freedom of choice. Choose one.
No, they are two sides of the same coin. If MS is standards compliant, web pages are written to be standards compliant, thus enabling choice because people can switch browsers and still access the pages they need. If people have choice of browsers, web pages are written to be standards compliant, thus requiring MS to standards compliance to render pages properly.
Here in Australia, a few years ago it was hard to find a bank whose website worked properly in firefox, now it is easy. Personally, I let every bank I couldn't access know why I was going to their competition. I must not have been the only one. I also used to switch people to firefox whenever I could, telling them to use IE only for banking etc if they needed to. People such as myself, who were prepared to make an effort to have a choice, have created an environment where that freedom of choice is available to many more people by using our market power to encourage standards compliance.
MSFT owns the desktop, Apple owns the PMP market, and Google owns search.
My browser (firefox) has both google and yahoo in the search bar, it is a 3 click process to bring up a list of other search engines for installation, including bing.
I can go into any electronics shop in my area and select from a number of different brands of media player. Most mobile phones will function as personal media players. If someone buys an ipod, it is clearly because they prefer it, not from a lack of choice. The only restriction is that they don't work with itunes, hardly an obstacle worth noting.
If I go to buy a desktop in a store, unless I specifically go to the Apple store, most will only have computers available bundled with MS windows.
Of the examples you gave, if I didn't know about those markets, I could accidentally use a non-dominant search engine, I could accidentally buy a non-dominant PMP. The likelihood that I could accidentally buy a desktop computer without MS software is remote. Additionally, I could change my default search engine in a couple of seconds. Unless you have a heap of itunes music files, it is trivial to change media players. MS has deliberately used their OS market position and office suite market position to make it very difficult to change OS. There is a difference between large market share and a monopoly position.
I believe that the reason people do not install Firefox, Safari, or Chrome is that they simply do not care. A computer is a tool for viewing friends' Facebook pages, looking up movie times, etc. The Slashdot community seems to be dogmatically resistant to recognizing this.
The computers of people who don't know or care about such things are tools for sending out spam and spreading malware. The preferences or apathy of such people is irrelevant. Anyone who really cares can get an alternative browser already, this lowers the interest/knowledge level required to use an alternative. There will surely be some people who switch as a result. It will make choice available to people who previously have been conditioned through monopolistic practices to serve microsoft's interests rather than their own.
I'd say publish the code, at least to paying customers, to qualify for copyright protection in the first place. Can you copyright the text of a secret book? Maybe you can now, but full disclosure should be required for the monopoly protection.
No one is talking about a computer virus, not viral as in code copying by itself. We're talking about a viral LICENCE.
I didn't dispute that, nevertheless the LICENCE does not self-replicate. I used the virus vs other malware point as an example of what causes something to be considered viral.
If the GPL applies to your code, it is only due to direct action on your part, thus it is not viral. If it were truly viral it could spread to your code without your intervention.
I'm not sure halos are even part of Christian canon.
Exodus 34:29 It happened, when Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of the testimony in Moses' hand, when he came down from the mountain, that Moses didn't know that the skin of his face shone by reason of his speaking with him.
Ecclesiastes 8:1 Who is like the wise man? And who knows the interpretation of a thing? A man's wisdom makes his face shine, and the hardness of his face is changed.
Daniel 12:3 Those who are wise shall shine as the brightness of the expanse; and those who turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever.
Matthew 13:43 Then the righteous will shine forth like the sun in the Kingdom of their Father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.
Matthew 17:2 He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his garments became as white as the light.
Acts 6:15. All who sat in the council, fastening their eyes on him, saw his face like it was the face of an angel.
Perhaps not exactly halos, but the concept of righteous people shining visible light is certainly there.
A virus infects a host. The GPL doesn't infect your existing software.
Sure it does. If I release v1.0 of my sotwar all written by me, it's all mine. If in v2.0 I copy a class out of a some GPL project into my source and compile the entire thing together and release it as v2.0, the license on that code says that my entire project, including everything that was in v1.0 is now GPL. That's viral. The license has infected my pre-existing code base. I make no comment whether that is a good thing or a bad thing. It just is. It's ill-informed or dishonest to deny the viral nature of GPL.
Well, there's still the little issue of self-replication to be dealt with. The thing that differentiates a software virus from other types of malware is self-replication. So unless the GPL can, from the code base you deliberately put it in, insert itself into other projects it still doesn't qualify as viral. Every instance of GPL being applied to your code requires action on your part.
BTW, your example is not quite correct. If there was code in your v1.0 that didn't make it into v2.0 and was therefore never distributed compiled together with the GPL'd code it would be unaffected by the GPL.
The GPL *IS* viral by design.
A virus infects a host. The GPL doesn't infect your existing software. It does apply to derivative works of GPL'd code. In that case, the GPL is pre-existing and the newly written derivative code is the only thing that could be said to be invasive, if anything.
Try decompiling some MS software (non-GPL'd) and making a derivative work and see if you get less or more issues than if you had used GPL code instead. I think you'll find MS asking the courts to put conditions on you that will have you begging for something like the "viral GPL".
What Smith didn't realize, is that humanity doesn't act rationally;
No, you just don't understand the term in the context it's being used in.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rational_choice_theory
"The 'rationality' described by rational choice theory is different from the colloquial and most philosophical uses of rationality."
It's sad when the competent ones are driving tow trucks, and the incompetent ones are manning the dealership mechanic shop.
Seems backward.
At a guess, I'd say a mechanic shop has a higher start-up cost than a tow truck. The competent one wants to own his own business.
Counterfeiting would seem to be a better description than theft, lacking a new word.
The pro-piracy folks around here say that copying isn't theft. I'd say that'd apply here too.
Not just the pro-piracy folks. Although I'd like to see reform, I am in favour of copyright. Incorrectly defining terms makes sensible discussion of a topic difficult or even impossible.
This topic doesn't inflame the argument so much because there is not a substantial portion of people who want "identity theft" to be legal. Since there is no debate on whether it should be allowed or not, using an incorrect term doesn't highjack the argument into being propaganda for one side. Theft and stealing are terms commonly used to describe things that are not in fact theft. That's usually ok, but when discussing proposed changes to laws that affect the whose society it isn't. For example, I would regard MPAA equating copying a movie with stealing a car, repetitively making that connection in the absence of opposing argument to the general population (on DVDs) as tainting the jury pool.
A teenage girl might accuse another of "stealing" her boyfriend. No problem, until you start proposing laws to have boyfriend thieves charged with theft. At that point, it would be necessary to point out the differences and that "stealing" is not really an appropriate term for what happened. That's where we are with copyright right now. In identity theft cases, I'm not sure there is a word to properly describe it yet. It is usually done in order to commit fraud, but the harvesting of the identity info is only the first step and probably isn't fraud in and of itself. Although fraud and theft are different, common usage of theft includes fraud, so theft is perhaps the best word to use right now even though it isn't exactly correct.
Yes, and 127 is an enormous sample.
Actually, it isn't a sample at all.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sample_(statistics)
"In statistics, a sample is a subset of a population. Typically, the population is very large, making a census or a complete enumeration of all the values in the population impractical or impossible. The sample represents a subset of manageable size."
127 is the total number of shuttle missions. 2/127 is the current failure rate. 2/127 > 1/75. You made an incorrect statement. Deal with it.
True, but we don't know that 2/127 is the failure rate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuttle_missions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disaster
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Columbia_disaster
I'm not sure what you mean by that.
2/127 is not massively out of line with 1/75 either.
The claim I was responding to was "they are achieving well within the original estimates" of 1/75.
"is not massively out of line with" != "well within"
With two catastrophic failures out of 127 STS missions flown, they are achieving well within the original estimates.
When the program was being designed, it was estimated there would be a 1 in 75 "disaster potential."
2/127 is not less than 1/75
By "stupid", I'd suggest that would include those viewing marriage as a romantic union, rather than a social union rooted in an an exchange of property rights (i.e., a business agreement).
Cynical? Perhaps.
I would regard that as realistic rather than cynical. Emotions are subject to change. Regardless of how you feel about that person during dating or on your wedding day, at some time you will feel differently. You will get angry, frustrated, etc at some time. Your spouse is not perfect and will do you wrong at some point, you also to them. A marriage based on emotions is doomed. Building and maintaining romance is the method by which you make your marriage work, not the reason to get married. It takes deliberate effort and will require you to act contrary to your emotions on many occasions.
I am in general agreement with your post and similar lifestyle, but I'd qualify the income part. I'd say roughly their own socio-economic upbringing or level of ambition. The way you think about money counts more than the amount you have managed to acquire.
My wife and I have both learned different aspects of handling money from each other. She was a (poor) student when I met her, but we shared a similar level of financial goals that have enabled us to work well together and get along.
How about service? Better contract terms?
Why does an "underprivileged" family need resources at all? We're talking public schools here.
BWAHAHAHA!
I get it now, you're joking, right?
Test results usually work pretty well in figuring out who is or is not capable of the "intellectual track".
Have a read of The Measurement of Intelligence. The system you propose isn't new, it's eugenics. Choice quote:
"Children of this group should be segregated in special classes and be given instruction which is concrete and practical. They cannot master abstractions, but they can often be made efficient workers, able to look out for themselves. There is no possibility at present of convincing society that they should not be allowed to reproduce, although from a eugenic point of view they constitute a grave problem because of their unusually prolific breeding."
Either the kid can or can't perform, and if he can't, it shouldn't matter how much money his parents have.
Some people would regard performance in school is a poor indicator of human wholeness. Schools are essentially a factory system, with the students being the product. No matter how good you make the school, some kids aren't going to fit the mould. That is not necessarily indicating anything bad about that child, it is an inevitability based on the individuality of people and the impossibility of making a mass schooling system that caters to every individual. If you are one of the children who doesn't fit the mould, do you have a responsibility to accept your "bad" label or warp your personality to fit the factory school? Or do you have a right to set your own path if the one handed to you doesn't work for you?
Just make school non-compulsory. The kids who are "bad" won't go. Those who just don't fit in can go and find something else to do. No need for "bad" kids to be locked up in what amounts to detention centres in the name of school. Most people wouldn't tolerate a compulsory system equivalent to school for the adult population, it's time we woke up to the fact that just because we're doing to children doesn't make it ok.
The senior dug that hole for himself. He undertook personal revenge, then switched tactics to use the court when the stakes got too high. The junior apparently correctly determined that senior was not prepared to push the issue very far privately.
If you wish to undertake a course of private revenge, to be successful you must be willing and able to follow that course far enough to win. You must escalate the situation higher, faster than your opponent is willing to risk. Senior was just lucky that junior followed private revenge rather than taking him to court for assault. His bluff got called.
Yes, understood, but there's a difference between having a de-facto *ability* to do something, and having a *right* to do something.
Yes there is but I don't think that applies to this issue. As I understand it the historical purpose of trial by jury is as a limitation on the power of the state to arbitrarily punish. That is why, for example, a guilty verdict can be overturned but an acquittal can't be overturned. There may be exceptions to that, but that is the general rule.
A jury that properly carries out its instructions ...
That begs the question of whether a jury member is properly under the authority of the instructor as to their purpose in the courtroom, the correct course to follow or decision to make. It seems evident to me that if they were under any legitimate authority, that authority would have long since implemented a system of punishment for non-compliance.
In my own countries history, jury nullification brought the colonial government into line in a situation that may have otherwise resulted in a general revolt against the government. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka_stockade#Trials_for_Sedition_and_High_Treason It is a valid, non-violent form of resistance to the government. Unlike most other forms of resistance, it carries no threat of punishment and is legally binding on the government. It does not destroy the legal basis of society, as some here like to claim. People serious enough about justice to take such a step are not likely to be a lawless lot.
To be fair, if I sold records, my interest in releasing fewer records would be slim. Not saying that there wasn't a reason for them to do so of their own free will, but just food for thought.
Not so, because music recordings compete largely with other recordings. For a given level of market saturation customers are choosing between recording 1 and recording 2 rather than recording 1 and a non-music item. So if decreasing new releases from 20,000 to 18,000 records doesn't cause people to buy the non-music item, then the 18,000 records will on average be more profitable than the 20,000 would have been and the production cost of 2000 recordings is eliminated.
Tolkien lived until 1973. Should it have gone PD in his lifetime?
Sure, why not? The provision for copyright in the US Constitution says: "[The Congress shall have Power] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries"
As such, it is a social contract between the authors and the public, through the agency of the government. The obligations of that contract are (1) for the authors to release that work to the public domain for the public to use after the limited time and (2) for the public to refrain from copying for a limited time.
So here is my problem with current copyright terms: my grandchildren are not members of the public (not being even conceived yet), so I do not consider that for me to refrain from copying works for my entire life to obtain a benefit for people who may never exist to be the basis of a valid contract. In my view, copyright terms can never rationally be more than half the average life expectancy. There must be a benefit to the actual people refraining from copying.
On a practical level, to have a workable copyright system you need widespread agreement among the population to adhere to it, because copying is too easy. Mass enforcement will not prove to be possible. To get people to agree, you need to offer them a benefit. Other than release into the public domain within their lifetime, what else is there?
Inheritence is bullshit. It just perpetuates a lazy aristocracy. I've told my parents to die broke, and I will do the same.
Yes, because your parents accumulating enough wealth to make you independent of social security and banks is a terrible idea.
Personally, I'd like our society to have a greatly reduced dependence on borrowing. I think a person living normally ought to have a reasonable chance to go through life without significant debt. The only ways I've thought of this being possible are if houses become very cheap or if it becomes common for people to inherit their accommodation.
If I manage to leave such an inheritance to my children (a house or unit each) I don't think I would be perpetuating a lazy aristocracy. Mind you, I already have a house and my parents aren't dead, but I've had some lucky breaks. Unless my children can save the cash for a house themselves, they will be dependent on a landlord, a bank or the government to be able to get accommodation. So they will either get it from people who want (reasonably) to profit from them, from people who raise the money by taxation, or from me. Surely the best thing for society is for them to get it from me since I am willing (no need for tax) and do not require profits for helping my children (more efficient than banks/landlords).
In any event, why should the money supply be tied to a rare, precious metal? Matching the growth (or shrinkage!) of the money supply based solely on the discovery, loss, or recovery of a particular natural resource hardly seems like a good plan for managing the economy.
Indeed, the goal is to make it much more difficult to manage the economy. When we let select groups manage the economy, they seem to do it primarily for the benefit of themselves and their friends.
Gold (or other commodity backed) currency is a currency based on tangible reality. Fiat currency or fractional reserve lending "chequebook money" are based on the promises of politicians or bankers. Given the choice between tangible reality and a politicians promise, I choose reality. YMMV.