Your argument is bullshytt. If the ISP sells me a 'Unlimited Internet access' it cannot be unethical of me to make unlimited use of it when any externalities result from the ISP's fraud (oversubscribing). The ISP isn't offering my neighborhood a fixed amount of bandwidth (that is what they are delivering, but it is NOT what they are trying to sell).
Your cake analogy would be more accurate if the host said "Eat all the cake you want, I've got tons of it in the freezer." Then, when the first cake is gone, the host just shrugs and says "No more, there isn't any in the freezer." The fault lies not with the cake-eater, but with the host.
Of course autopilot is safer than a pilot. Has been since they were introduced, and that will only be more and more true as time goes on.
However, computers are really good at certain things, and really bad at others. In particular, they're good at what you program them to (assuming the programming is low on bugs, but I'm going to assume that for argument). They are very bad at dealing with situations their programmers did not anticipate.
Humans, compared to computers at least, are very good at taking old experience and applying it to completely new situations that have never been encountered before. They certainly don't always make the right choice in that situation, but they are at least capable of making a choice.
Are those scenarios going to be rare? Bet your ass. Take the rarity of plane crashes, and go that rare once more (I'm purely handwaving, but I just want to express how rare I think those situations actually are--astronomically rare). But they do happen.
Why do we give medals to Soldiers who get wounded? After all, that's their job, right?
When a few hundred people would have died had he been less competent, I think the least he deserves is a pat on the back. As for the media storm, what better way to sell Proctor & Gamble soap and for scuzzy politicians to get their pictures taken?
Oh I'm certainly NOT in favor of such a strategy (exactly because of the obvious problems you point out), but I wasn't being ironic. I think that really is the logic (faux-logic rather) behind the moral panic.
The term for the fallacy you describe is not false dichotomy, but assuming facts not in evidence, namely that child porn simulations decrease child rape.
A false dichotomy is when two choices are presented, and others are ignored. In this scenarios, there really are only two choice: ban or not ban. Those are both mutually exclusive and exhaustive.
I do NOT believe that copyright is wrong, at least not inherently.
I DO believe the DMCA is wrong, I DO believe copyright after the death of the originator is wrong, I DO believe that massive statuatory penalties intended to keep corporate infringers in line should NOT be applied to private citizens (I would accept that there should be some statuatory damages, not THOUSANDS of dollars per downloaded song though). I DO believe that treating the people who want to pay you like criminals with DRM is brain dead AND wrong.
In addition to all of that, I have one other major quibble with copyright law, and that is the status of distributors in the system. Distributors, such as the MAFIAA, should have ZERO copyrights. Originators, producers, should have the only copyrights.
Companies like the collective MAFIAA produce little of value--they are greedy middle men with no moral right to the money they skim off the top, middle, and most of the bottom.
Moreover, I DO think that piracy is advantageous for most artists. The reality is, thanks to the nature of the MAFIAA business model, that the majority of artists are obscure with minimal audiences, and make little to no money. All of those people (depending on the study, 90-95% of musicians, similar for authors) BENEFIT from piracy, purely by having an expanded audience. It is only the Metallicas, or Madonnas that are hurt by it because they do not benefit from free marketing the way most artists would.
What's to stop me from writing a program that makes use of the copy of the codec installed by Chrome? I'm only using what the patent license said I could...
While you might be right, it would be unenforceable, and therefore irrelevant and meaningless. Kinda like the injunctions against DeCSS.
Re:40 and still relevant
on
Unix Turns 40
·
· Score: 0
Why would i provide a link to explain my own opinion? I'm typing this from my macbook.
Re:40 and still relevant
on
Unix Turns 40
·
· Score: -1, Flamebait
Yeah, but it is a terrible Unix system. How the hell it got certified is beyond me. I'd rather slit my wrists than ever use headless Darwin again.
I mean, it's fine as a desktop OS (grand actually, I'd recommend it to anyone). But Darwin is evil.
Re:Did they invent C too?
on
Unix Turns 40
·
· Score: 1
Delicious strawberry flavored crack.
OH NO! My mod points!
Re:This makes Unix 15 years older than Tetris
on
Unix Turns 40
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Actually SCO argued that UNIX-clones weren't clones at all, but were using the same C code. Sure, they were full of shit, but what they were claiming IBM had done actually would have been a violation of copyright law.
While I agree with you, I'd MDMA to the list of bad ones. Not as bad as ice, smack, and crack, obviously, but long-term memory and cognitive deficits aren't good. Of course, that applies to chronic alcohol use as well, I suppose.
People are killed in head-on collision with sober people who cross the center line too. You have no evidence that the pot was a contributing factor (converseley, I have no evidence that it wasn't, but that's not how science works--so unless you believe blind faith is a valid epistemology, you have no basis for concluding that pot was a contributing factor).
Slashdot Mirror
Don't you mean Legen---wait for it.... ... ... ... ... ..
.
Break for Next Season
. .. ...dary! Legendary!
Bullshit, the internet says nothing about this.
You want to die so that a clone of you can go off and pretend to be you?
Reading comprehension fail!
"ANY AND ALL" is an idiomatic phrase in English which loosely means "EVERY"
"ANY AND ALL" \approx "EVERY"
Get it now?
Reading non-comprehension alert!
Your argument is bullshytt. If the ISP sells me a 'Unlimited Internet access' it cannot be unethical of me to make unlimited use of it when any externalities result from the ISP's fraud (oversubscribing). The ISP isn't offering my neighborhood a fixed amount of bandwidth (that is what they are delivering, but it is NOT what they are trying to sell).
Your cake analogy would be more accurate if the host said "Eat all the cake you want, I've got tons of it in the freezer." Then, when the first cake is gone, the host just shrugs and says "No more, there isn't any in the freezer." The fault lies not with the cake-eater, but with the host.
Thousands of years of plastic?
It isn't that simple.
Of course autopilot is safer than a pilot. Has been since they were introduced, and that will only be more and more true as time goes on.
However, computers are really good at certain things, and really bad at others. In particular, they're good at what you program them to (assuming the programming is low on bugs, but I'm going to assume that for argument). They are very bad at dealing with situations their programmers did not anticipate.
Humans, compared to computers at least, are very good at taking old experience and applying it to completely new situations that have never been encountered before. They certainly don't always make the right choice in that situation, but they are at least capable of making a choice.
Are those scenarios going to be rare? Bet your ass. Take the rarity of plane crashes, and go that rare once more (I'm purely handwaving, but I just want to express how rare I think those situations actually are--astronomically rare). But they do happen.
Why do we give medals to Soldiers who get wounded? After all, that's their job, right?
When a few hundred people would have died had he been less competent, I think the least he deserves is a pat on the back. As for the media storm, what better way to sell Proctor & Gamble soap and for scuzzy politicians to get their pictures taken?
God, I wish that were true. Just thinking about my student loan debt makes my bowels evacuate.
English Lit.
Oh I'm certainly NOT in favor of such a strategy (exactly because of the obvious problems you point out), but I wasn't being ironic. I think that really is the logic (faux-logic rather) behind the moral panic.
Simply to arrest the people who want to view it as a preventative to keep them from acting out those fantasies.
The term for the fallacy you describe is not false dichotomy, but assuming facts not in evidence, namely that child porn simulations decrease child rape.
A false dichotomy is when two choices are presented, and others are ignored. In this scenarios, there really are only two choice: ban or not ban. Those are both mutually exclusive and exhaustive.
I can't speak for anyone but myself.
I do NOT believe that copyright is wrong, at least not inherently.
I DO believe the DMCA is wrong, I DO believe copyright after the death of the originator is wrong, I DO believe that massive statuatory penalties intended to keep corporate infringers in line should NOT be applied to private citizens (I would accept that there should be some statuatory damages, not THOUSANDS of dollars per downloaded song though). I DO believe that treating the people who want to pay you like criminals with DRM is brain dead AND wrong.
In addition to all of that, I have one other major quibble with copyright law, and that is the status of distributors in the system. Distributors, such as the MAFIAA, should have ZERO copyrights. Originators, producers, should have the only copyrights.
Companies like the collective MAFIAA produce little of value--they are greedy middle men with no moral right to the money they skim off the top, middle, and most of the bottom.
Moreover, I DO think that piracy is advantageous for most artists. The reality is, thanks to the nature of the MAFIAA business model, that the majority of artists are obscure with minimal audiences, and make little to no money. All of those people (depending on the study, 90-95% of musicians, similar for authors) BENEFIT from piracy, purely by having an expanded audience. It is only the Metallicas, or Madonnas that are hurt by it because they do not benefit from free marketing the way most artists would.
How do you know isn't just a collective of Lisp Daemons at this point?
What's to stop me from writing a program that makes use of the copy of the codec installed by Chrome? I'm only using what the patent license said I could...
While you might be right, it would be unenforceable, and therefore irrelevant and meaningless. Kinda like the injunctions against DeCSS.
Why would i provide a link to explain my own opinion? I'm typing this from my macbook.
Yeah, but it is a terrible Unix system. How the hell it got certified is beyond me. I'd rather slit my wrists than ever use headless Darwin again.
I mean, it's fine as a desktop OS (grand actually, I'd recommend it to anyone). But Darwin is evil.
Delicious strawberry flavored crack.
OH NO! My mod points!
Actually SCO argued that UNIX-clones weren't clones at all, but were using the same C code. Sure, they were full of shit, but what they were claiming IBM had done actually would have been a violation of copyright law.
Teach me your ways.
But with dirt for lube.
But he's apparently fantastic in bed, without having to actually be there.
While I agree with you, I'd MDMA to the list of bad ones. Not as bad as ice, smack, and crack, obviously, but long-term memory and cognitive deficits aren't good. Of course, that applies to chronic alcohol use as well, I suppose.
Post hoc ergo propter hoc.
Logical fallacy.
People are killed in head-on collision with sober people who cross the center line too. You have no evidence that the pot was a contributing factor (converseley, I have no evidence that it wasn't, but that's not how science works--so unless you believe blind faith is a valid epistemology, you have no basis for concluding that pot was a contributing factor).