Actually, I could see an argument where it does. I absolutely abhor it, but Washington has in the last few decades set this country on a path where a large portion of the wealth we create as a society is intellectual wealth (I refuse to call it intellectual property). That means these things' value to society is primarily how much wealth it can generate in the global economy.
Whether this situation is good or bad is another question entirely. I would say it is bad. The point is, however, that you will encounter this argument: that the balance is struck not by adding to our cultural value, but our economic value.
"Even if you hate Bush you shouldn't stand for the power grab the Congress is going for lately. There is a reason we have a separation of powers. If you keep heading down this road the president becomes a figurehead, and soon the people that write the laws will be enforcing them as well. More likely not enforcing them and building bridges to nowhere."
Both yourself and GWB have a very strange idea of what the separation of powers and checks and balances are supposed to mean in this government. When did separation of powers be redefined to mean the executive can act unilaterally regardless of the law and without oversight? It is the DUTY of congress to reign in the rampant abuses of power, ethical lapses and flagrant disregard for the law that this administration has not only promoted within its agencies, but participated in first hand.
The executive has been acting for the past 7 years without balance. Both the legislature and the judiciary have been effectively neutered by this president and the republican majority. It is high time for the other two branches of government to get some balls and stand up to this pig, with whatever powers the traitorous republicans in congress failed to cede to Bush before Nov. 2006.
The power of a senator is constrained by 99 other senators, every member of the house, the rules of the senate, the judicial branch and constitution, executive veto power and executive discretion on enforcement issues, and ultimately the people of his state. Never mind that some of that is only symbolic due to the two dominant party system.
The president has vastly more power than any individual senator or congressman as he or she has executive control of dozens of agencies including the military, the power to appoint federal and supreme court justices, de facto leadership of his or her party (including those in congress), and virtually unlimited power of the press to appeal to popular sentiment. A simple term limit barely counts as a constraint on executive power.
The most influential a single senator or congressman can become is speaker, whip, or a committee chair, and have some (but not as much) influence via the press as the president.
Remember the US government is three branches that are supposed to be essentially equal in power, such that any one branch cannot unilaterally impose its will upon the people. If any one branch grows in power disproportionately to the others, as has been occurring in recent years, the system begins to fail. A swing in power back to the legislative branch could be seen as a correction, making the entire system more equal. Of course, it will take many more years of this before the judiciary can recover from this administration's castration of it, leaving the country in a very tenuous position where the congress and executive branch together have a lot of power to make law and implement policy, but the justice system is in a weakened position to act as a check against those laws.
Only if you can also predict energy prices for the next 25 years, and calculate the value added to this home in future markets (real estate is an investment too).
Bridges also undergo major revisions and upgrades, such as the Golden Gate being retrofitted to be able to survive larger magnitude earthquakes.
This is all beside the point, however. Bridge technology is not proprietary. Structural Engineering is a mature and very open field. Forgive me for saying so, and feel free to disagree, but the threat of liability may be a big reason the field is so open.
China knows that their huge population is too big for any company to ignore. They're ideally positioned to take over the tech world anyway, guven the population and the central ocntrol they have over things like education. A central government can plow money into any problem; if they decide that every single new graduate of eveey university must be a scientist or engineer, that will happen. It certainly isn't happening here.
So, do you want your government to sit by and let a country whose conduct is, to our western tastes, morally repugnant become the economic and technology powerhouse of the world? Set aside the argument that it is the law there, that it is the cost of doing business. Consider instead whether it is in our interests to have American companies aiding and encouraging regimes like China's. The potential impact of this does not limit itself to the Chinese people. It affects ALL OF US in the long run.
You are probably correct, but in each instance, it still requires me to uncheck 2 checkboxes to continue. I know apple isnt the worst out there. Anyway, I was just pointing out why people may be demanding so much more privacy (and also, it was good to rant).:)
I got an iPod for christmas. I installed the software, which required my name and email address, and was forced to opt out for spam. Then I had to update the iPod software. I was forced to enter my name and email address and opt-out for spam. Then I had to update the iTunes software, where I was yet again forced to enter my email address and opt-out for spam. Thats 3 times in 15 minutes that a single company attempted to get my information and permission for spam. At this point, I was so pissed off that I entered a really long, expletive-laced fake email address to download iTunes.
It doesn't matter to me if a company has a reasonable privacy policy when they do everything in their power to get your permission for spam anyway. Like all advertising, it is invasive, persistent, underhanded, and extremely annoying. As far as I'm concerned, it has nothing to do with privacy. It is unreasonable marketing practices that piss me off. I think it pisses a lot of people off, and the backlash from that is a demand for more privacy.
It is my understanding that the majority of accessibility tools available are third party applications that only work with Microsoft Office. The limitations do not necessarily rest with the OpenDocument format or the available implementations of it.
One might conclude that the limitations are a symptom of Microsoft's stranglehold on office applications where accessibility tool developers have little incentive to develop their tools to interoperate. Given that OpenDocument is completely open and unencumbered, having the market-leader support ODF would create a huge incentive for those third party developers to build interoperable tools that work on any application that supports ODF. In other words, if Microsoft Office joins the rest of the industry in implementing ODF, all add-on tools and applications, including accessibility software, will have a single, standard avenue to co-operate with any office application. That would be the biggest win for accessibility issues.
Connecticut residents pay income tax to New York if they work in NYC.
New Jersey residents pay income tax to New York if they work in NYC.
Neither Connecticut nor New Jersey residents are able to vote in New York or New York City elections. Allowing such a thing would be near anarchy and elections everywhere would become rife with voter fraud.
The only difference is that those people physically commute to work in a different state. Whether that should make a difference is the only issue, physical commute (gets taxed, always will) versus telecommute. It has nothing to do with taxation without representation. The guy is quite free to move to New York if he feels unrepresented by those who tax him.
States will undoubtedly see this as a fairness issue. If people are allowed to move to 'tax-shelter' states, those states without income tax, and telecommute to work for companies in other states, those states are losing out on taxes that they would otherwise get. This is a big loophole. This is similar to rich people moving their money off-shore, out of the reach of the IRS, to avoid paying their proper share of taxes.
This isnt as simple of an issue as people are making it out to be. As of this moment, the only fair and proper way to determine which state taxes a person's income is based upon where they work. Telecommuting confuses the 'where you work' part -- especially when, in this case, a person is only telecommuting part of the time, yet getting paid in one lump sum by their employer.
Yet many keep igorning the "..that suggests presidential support or endorsement" part of that clause. You know, I see the presidential seal on CNN all the time. When the whitehouse correpsondent is on-air, sometimes they're set against the presidential seal in the background. CNN is a commercial venture. Does it mean they are in violation? No, because the presence of the seal in the background does not necessarily suggest the support or endorsement of the president. Whether or not The Onion's particular use of the seal suggests support or endorsement would be a question for a court of law, but most reasonable people would assume The Onion has nothing to fret over. More than likely, though, they will simply get permission from the whitehouse to use the seal with conditions to make it clear that they are not speaking for the president.
I wouldn't call this 'capitalist' at all. This article is telling me that somehow, completely independently of one another, every major record label suddenly decided to make apple change their pricing model to the exact same thing at the exact same time? I don't think so. These labels are not in competition at all.
I don't think this has much of anything to do with actual profit by the labels. They're making plenty right now, and growing plenty simply by virtue of increased volume. This is a power play. This is the industry telling Apple, "We own you, we don't need you. You do what WE say."
Basically, since they can't compete with Apple in digital distribution individually, they are colluding to strong-arm Apple and will likely run iTMS into the ground eventually. I think laws are being broken here, but I don't expect anything to be done about it.
* Identify a problem * Identify the causes of said problem * Decide which of those causes it is possible to correct, and do something about it.
I'll take your little rant and break it down for you: <i>"Oh, we can't blame the criminal for doing that, we should blame society/the gun/the judicial system/anybody but the bad guy"</i>
1. We already blame the criminal. Its called criminal justice and the penal system. We've had that solution in place since, oh, the dawn of time. Violence keeps happening, though, doesn't it?
2. Blame society. Of course! This godless, amoral society that doesn't even allow the ten commandments to be posted in our courthouses! Oh, wait, thats not a liberal thing.
3. Yes, guns kill people. People who fire those guns at people go to prison, but the guns remain. This is something legislation can actually DO SOMETHING about, specifically, don't let violent criminals buy guns. Any pragmatist (that is, someone who does not fanatically follow some ideology), right wing or left wing, can see and appreciate the value of gun control.
4. Ah, the judicial system. Yes, the lax bankrupcy laws and the ease of launching civil suits are direct contributors to the moral decay of our society. Oh, wait, thats not a liberal position either! In fact, I don't know *any time* that liberals have placed the 'blame' on the justice system. Usually, the government in power is acting in such a conservative manner that the courts are our only redress (as people, left or right). Like, oh, segregation, and abortion...
5. Anybody but the bad guy... who would already have been blamed and thrown in jail. If that were enough, however, would we not live in a perfect utopian, peaceful society? Is there no value in looking past the offender at the real causes? Is it Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold's fault that they shot up their school? Yes, it sure is, but we can sit on our asses and pretend they were evil and close our eyes to all the peers, family members and law enforcement who failed them repeatedly over so many years that led up to it.
Hillary is on the wrong side of this issue, but I can't blame her completely. Thats the political climate in Washington. Oh I'm doing it again, aren't I? How stupid of me to see that there are deeper issues than a single politician with presidential ambition.
But how did Lance Armstrong behave when he was sick? Did he become despondent in fear for his life and give up on everything that was important to him? I'm sure his physical fitness wasn't so great under chemo, but having such a traumatic experience like developing cancer, surviving, then coming back to win the Tour de France a couple more times says a heck of a lot more about who he is as a person than if he'd never been sick to begin with.
The relative measures of freedom you mention are actually pretty simple (but indeed very subjective to analyze): the state of a nation before, during, then after a crisis. You can compare different nations, if you want, but it isn't as important than a self-referential analysis because different countries have different cultures (what is and is not generally acceptable), different histories and experiences to draw upon, and different legal and political standards that apply.
How many modern businesses, from the small mom&pops and self-employed all the way to mega-multinationals, can survive and be competitive WITHOUT the internet? I don't mean just having an internet "presence" like a store or informational site, but actually operating their business partially through the internet. Banking, shipping, communications, ordering from wholesalers, research... the list goes on.
This isn't about home users surfing the 'net for porn and getting email. This is about an important kind of economic infrastructure that is only getting more important by the day. The internet is quickly becoming a necessity for economic development.
Actually, sociopathy (an outdated term, psychopath is currently preferred) is a pretty valid phenomenon, but much too widely used and misunderstood. A psychopath is a person without a conscience. Thats it, really. They know the difference between right and wrong, but are emotionally divorced from those concepts. I believe approximately 1% of the population are psychopathic. Very few actually become violent criminals, and very few violent criminals are actually psychopathic.
The public and the media falsely overuse psychopathy to explain acts of violence they do not understand. In the case of columbine, there is some evidence that one of the boys may have been psychopathic (I don't remember which), and manipulated the other into going through with their plans. It's very difficult to know after the fact, with the subjects being deceased. I don't believe it, personally.
I highly doubt the GP is actually socio/psychopathic. A true psychopath would not have thought twice about exacting revenge. True psychopaths are also incredibly skilled at social camoflage and manipulation, and would (if they chose to) be able to fit right into the High School social structure.
Anyway, the point is psychopathy is most probably a real condition, but is generally misunderstood and misused. It is not an attempt by psychologists to label these people as mentally ill, as psychopaty is considered untreatable. It is not a catch-all label for people who kill inexplicably. That it is used as such is a shame.
Justice Breyer's argument is operating from the premise that the purpose of copyright laws is to protect the content itself. If you believe that creative works are property, then surely this must be correct.
However, try to consider it from another perspective: The purpose of copyright is to provide an incentive to publish creative work. The means to provide that incentive is protecting that work from being copied for a limited time. From this perspective, the argument falls apart.
When publishing costs are high, creators need a strong economic incentive to overcome the costs risks to publish their work. The protections also need to be strong as the negative impact of each copy is greater. When publishing costs are low, the incentive necessary to convince a creator to publish is less. There is less risk involved in publishing, and less protections are necessary to ensure the creator profits from publishing.
It all comes down to these two incompatible perspectives on the purpose of copyright. Are creative works to be considered individual property, or are creative works to be considered a public good?
Unfortunately, even this distinction becomes muddled when you consider potential economic impact. Public good can be interpreted from an entirely economic perspective. This may, depending on the medium, argue for treating creative work as property. I would personally argue that the public good for creative work should consider only creative work itself, where future creators are free to build upon the work of previous generations. I also happen to believe it is incorrect to assume that guaranteeing greater and longer-term profit to our corporate masters through copyright is actually an economic improvement. Concentration of wealth is not in the public interest.
Ugh! This is the danger of amateur psychology. Whether its "neutralization" or not doesn't matter in the slightest, because definitions of right, wrong, moral and ethical are based on societal norms. It is normal, per TFA, for people to pirate, it is thus acceptable behavior, and no one has a need to neutralize for themselves because there is no guilt attached to the act. It is indeed quite natural that when a friend expresses interest in some information you have, you will share it freely with them. In fact, it is unacceptable (socially) to withhold such things from your friends. That would be called greed.
Don't sweat it. Gotta start (learning) somewhere, and there's nothing wrong with diving in head first.
Thanks for your review. It actually helped me decide to go ahead and buy the book/pdf.
I kind of like it, like on Inside Politics, the show's editors have a segment where they read some excerpts from politically-oriented blogs on the hot topics of the day. Its instant feedback, giving the editors what they might not otherwise have: opinions and reactions from Real People (tm). Its better than listening to the paid-for opinions of pundits, the one-sided opinions of politicians, and the oft-shallow analyses of the editors themselves.
Ah, in my opinion, its worse than all that. I consider it a human rights issue when people are subjected to show trials, without the benefit of innocence until proven guilty, and when a person is prevented from mounting an affirmative defense. Show trials like this one are the kind of stuff you normally think about when a spy plane pilot is shot down over soviet territory, not when a rather normal (as far as Aussies are normal) civilian is caught with some naughty plants in her luggage.
Innocent or not, she wasn't even given the chance to defend herself. It seems obvious to me that the judges in this case had decided guilt from the beginning, and were expecting her defense to be a plea for leniency. This is not justice. This is the opposite of justice, and its an outrage. However, the fact that no western nation is actually DOING anything about this is indicidive of world politics today. Indonesia is important economically. Thats all that matters. Let Miss Corby rot in prison the rest of her life, as long as Indonesia's markets remain open.
Such little, unimportant things like Human Rights are never going to get the attention they deserve from the west, not as long as our politicians, and the people they represent, refuse to grow some balls and make some (economic) sacrifices for what should rightly be percieved as the greater good.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, I could see an argument where it does. I absolutely abhor it, but Washington has in the last few decades set this country on a path where a large portion of the wealth we create as a society is intellectual wealth (I refuse to call it intellectual property). That means these things' value to society is primarily how much wealth it can generate in the global economy.
Whether this situation is good or bad is another question entirely. I would say it is bad. The point is, however, that you will encounter this argument: that the balance is struck not by adding to our cultural value, but our economic value.
"Even if you hate Bush you shouldn't stand for the power grab the Congress is going for lately. There is a reason we have a separation of powers. If you keep heading down this road the president becomes a figurehead, and soon the people that write the laws will be enforcing them as well. More likely not enforcing them and building bridges to nowhere."
Both yourself and GWB have a very strange idea of what the separation of powers and checks and balances are supposed to mean in this government. When did separation of powers be redefined to mean the executive can act unilaterally regardless of the law and without oversight? It is the DUTY of congress to reign in the rampant abuses of power, ethical lapses and flagrant disregard for the law that this administration has not only promoted within its agencies, but participated in first hand.
The executive has been acting for the past 7 years without balance. Both the legislature and the judiciary have been effectively neutered by this president and the republican majority. It is high time for the other two branches of government to get some balls and stand up to this pig, with whatever powers the traitorous republicans in congress failed to cede to Bush before Nov. 2006.
The power of a senator is constrained by 99 other senators, every member of the house, the rules of the senate, the judicial branch and constitution, executive veto power and executive discretion on enforcement issues, and ultimately the people of his state. Never mind that some of that is only symbolic due to the two dominant party system.
The president has vastly more power than any individual senator or congressman as he or she has executive control of dozens of agencies including the military, the power to appoint federal and supreme court justices, de facto leadership of his or her party (including those in congress), and virtually unlimited power of the press to appeal to popular sentiment. A simple term limit barely counts as a constraint on executive power.
The most influential a single senator or congressman can become is speaker, whip, or a committee chair, and have some (but not as much) influence via the press as the president.
Remember the US government is three branches that are supposed to be essentially equal in power, such that any one branch cannot unilaterally impose its will upon the people. If any one branch grows in power disproportionately to the others, as has been occurring in recent years, the system begins to fail. A swing in power back to the legislative branch could be seen as a correction, making the entire system more equal. Of course, it will take many more years of this before the judiciary can recover from this administration's castration of it, leaving the country in a very tenuous position where the congress and executive branch together have a lot of power to make law and implement policy, but the justice system is in a weakened position to act as a check against those laws.
Only if you can also predict energy prices for the next 25 years, and calculate the value added to this home in future markets (real estate is an investment too).
Heard of the HPV vaccine yet?
Nothing (not even a cancer vaccination) is free from controversy, apparently.
Bridges also undergo major revisions and upgrades, such as the Golden Gate being retrofitted to be able to survive larger magnitude earthquakes. This is all beside the point, however. Bridge technology is not proprietary. Structural Engineering is a mature and very open field. Forgive me for saying so, and feel free to disagree, but the threat of liability may be a big reason the field is so open.
So, do you want your government to sit by and let a country whose conduct is, to our western tastes, morally repugnant become the economic and technology powerhouse of the world? Set aside the argument that it is the law there, that it is the cost of doing business. Consider instead whether it is in our interests to have American companies aiding and encouraging regimes like China's. The potential impact of this does not limit itself to the Chinese people. It affects ALL OF US in the long run.
You are probably correct, but in each instance, it still requires me to uncheck 2 checkboxes to continue. I know apple isnt the worst out there. Anyway, I was just pointing out why people may be demanding so much more privacy (and also, it was good to rant). :)
I got an iPod for christmas. I installed the software, which required my name and email address, and was forced to opt out for spam. Then I had to update the iPod software. I was forced to enter my name and email address and opt-out for spam. Then I had to update the iTunes software, where I was yet again forced to enter my email address and opt-out for spam. Thats 3 times in 15 minutes that a single company attempted to get my information and permission for spam. At this point, I was so pissed off that I entered a really long, expletive-laced fake email address to download iTunes.
It doesn't matter to me if a company has a reasonable privacy policy when they do everything in their power to get your permission for spam anyway. Like all advertising, it is invasive, persistent, underhanded, and extremely annoying. As far as I'm concerned, it has nothing to do with privacy. It is unreasonable marketing practices that piss me off. I think it pisses a lot of people off, and the backlash from that is a demand for more privacy.
It is my understanding that the majority of accessibility tools available are third party applications that only work with Microsoft Office. The limitations do not necessarily rest with the OpenDocument format or the available implementations of it.
One might conclude that the limitations are a symptom of Microsoft's stranglehold on office applications where accessibility tool developers have little incentive to develop their tools to interoperate. Given that OpenDocument is completely open and unencumbered, having the market-leader support ODF would create a huge incentive for those third party developers to build interoperable tools that work on any application that supports ODF. In other words, if Microsoft Office joins the rest of the industry in implementing ODF, all add-on tools and applications, including accessibility software, will have a single, standard avenue to co-operate with any office application. That would be the biggest win for accessibility issues.
Bollocks.
Connecticut residents pay income tax to New York if they work in NYC.
New Jersey residents pay income tax to New York if they work in NYC.
Neither Connecticut nor New Jersey residents are able to vote in New York or New York City elections. Allowing such a thing would be near anarchy and elections everywhere would become rife with voter fraud.
The only difference is that those people physically commute to work in a different state. Whether that should make a difference is the only issue, physical commute (gets taxed, always will) versus telecommute. It has nothing to do with taxation without representation. The guy is quite free to move to New York if he feels unrepresented by those who tax him.
States will undoubtedly see this as a fairness issue. If people are allowed to move to 'tax-shelter' states, those states without income tax, and telecommute to work for companies in other states, those states are losing out on taxes that they would otherwise get. This is a big loophole. This is similar to rich people moving their money off-shore, out of the reach of the IRS, to avoid paying their proper share of taxes.
This isnt as simple of an issue as people are making it out to be. As of this moment, the only fair and proper way to determine which state taxes a person's income is based upon where they work. Telecommuting confuses the 'where you work' part -- especially when, in this case, a person is only telecommuting part of the time, yet getting paid in one lump sum by their employer.
Yet many keep igorning the "..that suggests presidential support or endorsement" part of that clause. You know, I see the presidential seal on CNN all the time. When the whitehouse correpsondent is on-air, sometimes they're set against the presidential seal in the background. CNN is a commercial venture. Does it mean they are in violation? No, because the presence of the seal in the background does not necessarily suggest the support or endorsement of the president. Whether or not The Onion's particular use of the seal suggests support or endorsement would be a question for a court of law, but most reasonable people would assume The Onion has nothing to fret over. More than likely, though, they will simply get permission from the whitehouse to use the seal with conditions to make it clear that they are not speaking for the president.
I wouldn't call this 'capitalist' at all. This article is telling me that somehow, completely independently of one another, every major record label suddenly decided to make apple change their pricing model to the exact same thing at the exact same time? I don't think so. These labels are not in competition at all.
I don't think this has much of anything to do with actual profit by the labels. They're making plenty right now, and growing plenty simply by virtue of increased volume. This is a power play. This is the industry telling Apple, "We own you, we don't need you. You do what WE say."
Basically, since they can't compete with Apple in digital distribution individually, they are colluding to strong-arm Apple and will likely run iTMS into the ground eventually. I think laws are being broken here, but I don't expect anything to be done about it.
Huh, ever think like this?
* Identify a problem
* Identify the causes of said problem
* Decide which of those causes it is possible to correct, and do something about it.
I'll take your little rant and break it down for you: <i>"Oh, we can't blame the criminal for doing that, we should blame society/the gun/the judicial system/anybody but the bad guy"</i>
1. We already blame the criminal. Its called criminal justice and the penal system. We've had that solution in place since, oh, the dawn of time. Violence keeps happening, though, doesn't it?
2. Blame society. Of course! This godless, amoral society that doesn't even allow the ten commandments to be posted in our courthouses! Oh, wait, thats not a liberal thing.
3. Yes, guns kill people. People who fire those guns at people go to prison, but the guns remain. This is something legislation can actually DO SOMETHING about, specifically, don't let violent criminals buy guns. Any pragmatist (that is, someone who does not fanatically follow some ideology), right wing or left wing, can see and appreciate the value of gun control.
4. Ah, the judicial system. Yes, the lax bankrupcy laws and the ease of launching civil suits are direct contributors to the moral decay of our society. Oh, wait, thats not a liberal position either! In fact, I don't know *any time* that liberals have placed the 'blame' on the justice system. Usually, the government in power is acting in such a conservative manner that the courts are our only redress (as people, left or right). Like, oh, segregation, and abortion...
5. Anybody but the bad guy... who would already have been blamed and thrown in jail. If that were enough, however, would we not live in a perfect utopian, peaceful society? Is there no value in looking past the offender at the real causes? Is it Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold's fault that they shot up their school? Yes, it sure is, but we can sit on our asses and pretend they were evil and close our eyes to all the peers, family members and law enforcement who failed them repeatedly over so many years that led up to it.
Hillary is on the wrong side of this issue, but I can't blame her completely. Thats the political climate in Washington. Oh I'm doing it again, aren't I? How stupid of me to see that there are deeper issues than a single politician with presidential ambition.
But how did Lance Armstrong behave when he was sick? Did he become despondent in fear for his life and give up on everything that was important to him? I'm sure his physical fitness wasn't so great under chemo, but having such a traumatic experience like developing cancer, surviving, then coming back to win the Tour de France a couple more times says a heck of a lot more about who he is as a person than if he'd never been sick to begin with.
The relative measures of freedom you mention are actually pretty simple (but indeed very subjective to analyze): the state of a nation before, during, then after a crisis. You can compare different nations, if you want, but it isn't as important than a self-referential analysis because different countries have different cultures (what is and is not generally acceptable), different histories and experiences to draw upon, and different legal and political standards that apply.
Thats how I look at it, anyway.
How many modern businesses, from the small mom&pops and self-employed all the way to mega-multinationals, can survive and be competitive WITHOUT the internet? I don't mean just having an internet "presence" like a store or informational site, but actually operating their business partially through the internet. Banking, shipping, communications, ordering from wholesalers, research... the list goes on.
This isn't about home users surfing the 'net for porn and getting email. This is about an important kind of economic infrastructure that is only getting more important by the day. The internet is quickly becoming a necessity for economic development.
Actually, sociopathy (an outdated term, psychopath is currently preferred) is a pretty valid phenomenon, but much too widely used and misunderstood. A psychopath is a person without a conscience. Thats it, really. They know the difference between right and wrong, but are emotionally divorced from those concepts. I believe approximately 1% of the population are psychopathic. Very few actually become violent criminals, and very few violent criminals are actually psychopathic. The public and the media falsely overuse psychopathy to explain acts of violence they do not understand. In the case of columbine, there is some evidence that one of the boys may have been psychopathic (I don't remember which), and manipulated the other into going through with their plans. It's very difficult to know after the fact, with the subjects being deceased. I don't believe it, personally. I highly doubt the GP is actually socio/psychopathic. A true psychopath would not have thought twice about exacting revenge. True psychopaths are also incredibly skilled at social camoflage and manipulation, and would (if they chose to) be able to fit right into the High School social structure. Anyway, the point is psychopathy is most probably a real condition, but is generally misunderstood and misused. It is not an attempt by psychologists to label these people as mentally ill, as psychopaty is considered untreatable. It is not a catch-all label for people who kill inexplicably. That it is used as such is a shame.
Justice Breyer's argument is operating from the premise that the purpose of copyright laws is to protect the content itself. If you believe that creative works are property, then surely this must be correct.
However, try to consider it from another perspective: The purpose of copyright is to provide an incentive to publish creative work. The means to provide that incentive is protecting that work from being copied for a limited time. From this perspective, the argument falls apart.
When publishing costs are high, creators need a strong economic incentive to overcome the costs risks to publish their work. The protections also need to be strong as the negative impact of each copy is greater. When publishing costs are low, the incentive necessary to convince a creator to publish is less. There is less risk involved in publishing, and less protections are necessary to ensure the creator profits from publishing.
It all comes down to these two incompatible perspectives on the purpose of copyright. Are creative works to be considered individual property, or are creative works to be considered a public good?
Unfortunately, even this distinction becomes muddled when you consider potential economic impact. Public good can be interpreted from an entirely economic perspective. This may, depending on the medium, argue for treating creative work as property. I would personally argue that the public good for creative work should consider only creative work itself, where future creators are free to build upon the work of previous generations. I also happen to believe it is incorrect to assume that guaranteeing greater and longer-term profit to our corporate masters through copyright is actually an economic improvement. Concentration of wealth is not in the public interest.
Ugh! This is the danger of amateur psychology. Whether its "neutralization" or not doesn't matter in the slightest, because definitions of right, wrong, moral and ethical are based on societal norms. It is normal, per TFA, for people to pirate, it is thus acceptable behavior, and no one has a need to neutralize for themselves because there is no guilt attached to the act. It is indeed quite natural that when a friend expresses interest in some information you have, you will share it freely with them. In fact, it is unacceptable (socially) to withhold such things from your friends. That would be called greed.
Don't sweat it. Gotta start (learning) somewhere, and there's nothing wrong with diving in head first. Thanks for your review. It actually helped me decide to go ahead and buy the book/pdf.
I kind of like it, like on Inside Politics, the show's editors have a segment where they read some excerpts from politically-oriented blogs on the hot topics of the day. Its instant feedback, giving the editors what they might not otherwise have: opinions and reactions from Real People (tm). Its better than listening to the paid-for opinions of pundits, the one-sided opinions of politicians, and the oft-shallow analyses of the editors themselves.
Ah, in my opinion, its worse than all that. I consider it a human rights issue when people are subjected to show trials, without the benefit of innocence until proven guilty, and when a person is prevented from mounting an affirmative defense. Show trials like this one are the kind of stuff you normally think about when a spy plane pilot is shot down over soviet territory, not when a rather normal (as far as Aussies are normal) civilian is caught with some naughty plants in her luggage.
Innocent or not, she wasn't even given the chance to defend herself. It seems obvious to me that the judges in this case had decided guilt from the beginning, and were expecting her defense to be a plea for leniency. This is not justice. This is the opposite of justice, and its an outrage. However, the fact that no western nation is actually DOING anything about this is indicidive of world politics today. Indonesia is important economically. Thats all that matters. Let Miss Corby rot in prison the rest of her life, as long as Indonesia's markets remain open.
Such little, unimportant things like Human Rights are never going to get the attention they deserve from the west, not as long as our politicians, and the people they represent, refuse to grow some balls and make some (economic) sacrifices for what should rightly be percieved as the greater good.