The question is why it hasn't been meaningfully addressed in Windows for such a long time.
This question has long been addressed as well. There are several reasons, but I'd say the primary one is that it breaks compatibility with too many applications. Since Windows has given administrative privileges by default for so long, programmers have assumed that the user will have them and do things that require those privileges, like write into the Program Files directory.
Vista took many steps to meaningfully address the issue. UAC has been part of an attempt to rectify the problem by not allowing the administrative privileges to be used without user intervention. It also acts as a form of "sudo" so that its possible to run as an unprivileged account. However, it is a giant pain because the aforementioned coding practices induce a million popups.
I completely agree. I currently run Vista (which isn't too bad now that the driver kinks have been worked out) and run Ubuntu and Arch Linux in VirtualBox. I get all the benefits of running Windows (i.e. games for me) as well as all the benefits of running linux. I used to dual boot, but rebooting every time I wanted to play a game was such a hassle I found myself using windows all the time anyway.
Personally, I can't wait for good 3D support for virtual machines. Then I can run a linux host and a windows VM and really be a happy camper.
I have lived in Santa Barbara for the last 6 years and have Cox and my P2P works just fine, I have never had such a problem. Then again, I would never download "Hotel For Dogs".
A movie doesn't need a completely original plot to be an original movie. I think Tarantino is much more famous for his unique style of directing than for his writing.
You made the same point as your other siblings plus one more so I will respond to you.
Unless they set up an organization to control who gets to be a doctor. You know, like the AMA.
Indeed, this is not a free market practice. It is an artificial barrier to entry.
Depends - if you absolutely need the surgery to survive, but can't get a top-notch surgeon due to cost, which would you rather have? A second rate surgeon, or certain death?
The second rate surgeon, no doubt. Which is why I agree that the pure free market for health care may not be the best idea. I don't think economics, at least the most basic economics that I am aware of, accounts for the wealth lost because people who can't afford health care die in their scenario. That is potentially an awful lot of lost production. If there are economic models that take this into account I would be interested to see them and what they say about the pure free market for health care.
Sure, the buyer doesn't need to know exactly how something was made to know whether or not it is harmful to them. But the seller can not lie about what it is they are selling. If the buyer asks, "are cigarettes addictive?" and the seller says "no" that is clearly unethical. If the buyer asks, "how exactly do you make your cigarettes?" and the seller says "none of your business" that is fine.
Now, who else would claim that such actions were "ethical"? Not a priest. Not a rabbi. Not a Buddhist. Not many people.
They are wrong. They fail to see the big picture, the hypocrisy, the injustice, and the destructive consequences of their placement of need before right.
I like that you picked all mystic men as your examples. People whose claim to authority on ethics doesn't stem from reason but from faith, from feeling.
You can mod this troll and him insightful but the parent post is such bullshit. Society hasn't benefited from Edison's inventions far more than he did from society? Bullshit.
I can't believe you don't understand the function of characterizations of the ideal men in making a point.
The Randites don't want to play fair? Bullshit. What is fair about taking something someone has earned and giving it to someone who hasn't earned it? How is it greedy to want what you have earned?
Oh it must be sophistry because I don't agree with it!
It's the people that don't want to earn their share that are destroying this country, businessmen and working men alike. You know the villains in Atlas Shrugged are all big businessmen, so stop trying to pretend that Rand is all for big business and screw the working man.
Thinking that the Bush administration is representative of libertarian or Randian thinking is horribly misguided. Bush and his crones would have been a villain in Rand's books, anyone who read them would know this is obvious. He was the polar opposite of true liberal ideals, to each man his freedom and with it his responsibilities.
How am I not facing the philosophy? Did you not read the rest of the post, or the other posts? Yes, the cases you stated are true, it is unethical to steal to feed a starving child because need is not the highest good. It is ethical to sell a gun to someone knowing that it will be used to kill an innocent child just like selling a kitchen knife to someone knowing that it will be used to kill an innocent child is ethical. It is a nonsense scenario anyway because it is impossible for the seller to know these things in advance. You talk about divorcing actions from consequences? What do you think the consequences are for a society that steals from those that produce to give to those that do not? You talk about divorcing objects from origins? Where did that starving child come from? Where are its parents? Why not ask for a loan to feed the starving child? Work for the money?
I would rather a world where each man is responsible for his own actions than one where he must be responsible for the unknowable future actions of the people around them. I would rather not live in a world where theft is sometimes ethical and other times not at the arbitrary whims of the mob and the men with the guns, or a world where crimes occur before any action has been committed. The world where good is self-destruction at the benefit of another and evil is earning what you take is not sustainable.
You can go ahead and try and pigeonhole me as just another Randian, and not actually think about the consequences of your as of yet undefined philosophy. My heart does not bleed for those who choose the path of self-destruction.
I implore anyone else who reads these posts to think hard and look at which claims are being justified by reason and which are justified by a "gut feeling" about right and wrong or not justified at all.
That is all I will say on the subject. If you want to see more clearly what the philosophy is then read the book. (What they say about the speech chapter is true though, it is painfully long.)
(yes, we could say the labor pool is now global, but then we'd be balancing around the global average living conditions, not US average living conditions)
Hence all the comments about misguided nationalism. Why is the life and labor of a person in this country inherently worth more than one of another country?
If it is publicly known to be addictive before the sale is made, then yes, it would be perfectly ethical. People may not be completely rational, but they are capable of making rational decisions and are responsible for those decisions. It is not my place or anyone's play to protect someone else from themselves (someone who is capable of making rational decisions at least, not a child or a disabled person).
If not then it is unethical, and that is where the practical reality comes in. People have to know what they are being sold or they obviously can't make a rational decision. The contract between the people has to specify what is being traded accurately, otherwise it is a bait and switch. However, it is the responsibility of the buyer to make a reasonable effort to discover what they are buying. They can't just go around buying blindly and then cry about how they were treated unfairly when something goes wrong.
Since it is easy to demonstrate that her philosophy results in unethical behavior being "defined" as "ethical" it doesn't matter what you say.
That is circular reasoning.
By your "logic" (and her philosophy) and you have admitted it, it is ETHICAL for person A to sell a gun to person B even if person B told person A that he intended to use the gun to kill an innocent child. Because both parties were "traders" who were not coerced in the exchange and mutually benefited.
Yes. No crime has been committed. You claim I am spinning, but you have provided no reason why this is unethical. You're just claiming it. You are saying person B has acted unethically even though they have only thought about it thus far. It makes more sense to say they have acted unethically when they have actually acted, i.e. when they make the attempt. Like I said, it's not even a practical scenario because you can't expect the seller to know if someone is or isn't a gang member.
Yet it would be UNETHICAL for person C to initiate aggressive action against person D to reclaim land that person D's father took from person C's father through aggression initiated by person D's father.
Would it be ethical then for Native Americans to take aggression action against you or me (assuming you're an American) because our forefathers took their land?
As I said before, that's an awfully convenient "philosophy" of "ethics" there.
As I said before, convenience is irrelevant, no matter how many quotation marks you use.
They are and have, they provide goods and services far in excess of what they take. The computers that Dell provides account for untold amounts of productivity. Every person that bought from them got something. Every person that Dell bought from got something. Everything that they made, they earned. They have already given back one-hundred fold, and now you wish to take more.
If you have to ask that then this discussion is already over.
You are accepting that her philosophy is "truth".
No, I am rejecting your argument that a definition of "ethical" is untrue by reason of her being the one who defined it.
So selling guns to gang members is ethical.
Yes if the gang member was a legitimate trader. This sale would be unlikely to happen if the seller realized that the guy was going to shoot his baker, it would not be to his benefit. The buying of the gun does not hurt anyone though. Besides, gang members can not be differentiated from anyone else, its not like they have horns and a pitchfork.
So growing, processing, shipping and distributing cocaine is ethical.
Definitely yes.
So a king taxing a serf almost all of his production for the privilege of living on a plot of land is ethical.
Definitely not. This is not a willing contract. The serf enters "at the point of a gun" so to speak. Saying "no" would cost his life. In addition, the "king" is not a legitimate trader that got the land by entering into legitimate contracts.
Which is a rather narrow and awfully convenient definition of "ethical".
I'd say it is your interpretation of it that is narrow and that convenience is irrelevant. It is a reasonable definition based on the idea that I am my own keeper with my own free will.
So selling knives (of any kind, including cooking) to supposed gang members is unethical?
So selling a soda to a fat man is unethical?
Who exactly in your system gets to decide which of these is ethical and which is not?
More so because it would be "unethical" for the less advantaged party to claim the more advantaged party's advantage through the same means that the more advantaged party's ancestors acquired those advantages. Example, the serf would be "unethical" for attempting to overthrow the king.
See above for an answer.
No, selling guns to people who you know are going to use them to kill innocent people is only "ethical" in YOUR philosophy.
The words that best describes that behaviour in the real world are "unethical" and "immoral". Not "ethical".
It is unreasonable to expect the seller to know the future actions of the buyer. If the man is already a criminal then he should be locked up and the point is moot. If not then you are asking that the man be treated like a criminal or second class citizen who has not actually committed a crime.
You are saying that it is unethical and immoral for men to take responsibility for their own actions. When the fat man eats it is because the food seller was unethical. When the drunk drinks its because the alcohol vendor was unethical.
Take your ethics to their logical conclusion and you get everything in the real world where the buck passing never ends.
How does the act of defining something negate its truth? We are just trying to get an agreement on a definition.
Mutual benefit occurs when both parties enter the contract willingly and exchange goods, money, or services at an agreed upon rate. Each party receives something of more value than what they lost. If they didn't then they obviously shouldn't have entered into the contract.
Selling alcohol is ethical if it is sold to a person who wants to buy the alcohol.
One may say, "but wait, the person who bought the alcohol might become a drunkard". By that logic, it would be unethical to sell food because it might make one fat, or cars because one might drive recklessly. The unethical behavior of the alcoholic or reckless driver is solely their responsibility, not the responsibility of the seller.
First off, the consumers and the workers are the same people. No one only works or only consumes.
Second, if there is a 5 to 1 ratio in salary and a less than 5 to 1 ratio in ability, i.e. 5 cheap workers combined have more ability than 1 expensive worker, then hiring the cheap workers increases productivity.
It amazes me to no end how some people people here on Slashdot consider themselves so smart and are so high and mighty when it comes to tech issues, but show a fundamental lack of understanding of other issues like economics. They condemn people that don't understand technology as though they are idiots, but are no better when it comes to other issues.
Note that this was not a personal attack on the parent, its just a general observation. I think everyone, including myself, falls victim to it from time to time.
Talk about a straw man. No one ever said anyone that calls themselves a trader gets a free pass. Traders that trade with other willing parties for the MUTUAL BENEFIT OF BOTH PARTIES are acting ethically.
You seem to think that medical doctors would be able to set arbitrarily high prices and people would have no choice but to pay them. That would not happen because people have a choice about which doctor to go to.
If doctors were making insane amounts of money then more people would become doctors, which means more competition and lower prices. So, medical doctors would not necessarily be the richest people in the world by any stretch of the imagination.
However, in a pure market system there would be people that could not get care (as there are now) because they are unable to pay the market price. Free markets maximize overall wealth (barring externalities), not the number of products sold or people served.
If this is unacceptable, which it may very well be in this case, then that is your argument for why health care should not be subject to the free market, NOT because doctors might get rich.
You'd better be damn careful that what you replace it with actually is better. Doctors must be paid enough to get the best people. I sure as hell don't want to be under the knife of some second rate surgeon kept on by some government bureaucracy.
On top of that, presumably the person was pulled over for doing something else illegal, e.g. speeding, and thus will already be receiving punishment for their actual crime.
Note that the shift of the supply curve is to the right and corresponds to a decrease in overall wages, but also an increase in overall amount of people employed. In turn, that increases production which shifts that supply curve to the right and lowers prices, thus the wage decrease is somewhat mitigated and more is produced.
Slashdot Mirror
The question is why it hasn't been meaningfully addressed in Windows for such a long time.
This question has long been addressed as well. There are several reasons, but I'd say the primary one is that it breaks compatibility with too many applications. Since Windows has given administrative privileges by default for so long, programmers have assumed that the user will have them and do things that require those privileges, like write into the Program Files directory.
Vista took many steps to meaningfully address the issue.
UAC has been part of an attempt to rectify the problem by not allowing the administrative privileges to be used without user intervention.
It also acts as a form of "sudo" so that its possible to run as an unprivileged account. However, it is a giant pain because the aforementioned coding practices induce a million popups.
"Is your toolbag secure?"
I guess it doesn't really work. :(
As a taxpayer, I want to hang the politicians that coughed up the money.
I completely agree. I currently run Vista (which isn't too bad now that the driver kinks have been worked out) and run Ubuntu and Arch Linux in VirtualBox. I get all the benefits of running Windows (i.e. games for me) as well as all the benefits of running linux. I used to dual boot, but rebooting every time I wanted to play a game was such a hassle I found myself using windows all the time anyway.
Personally, I can't wait for good 3D support for virtual machines. Then I can run a linux host and a windows VM and really be a happy camper.
I have lived in Santa Barbara for the last 6 years and have Cox and my P2P works just fine, I have never had such a problem. Then again, I would never download "Hotel For Dogs".
On the upside, there is a small chance that the studio will collapse while they're all inside and the world's average talent will raise by 10%.
A movie doesn't need a completely original plot to be an original movie. I think Tarantino is much more famous for his unique style of directing than for his writing.
You made the same point as your other siblings plus one more so I will respond to you.
Unless they set up an organization to control who gets to be a doctor. You know, like the AMA.
Indeed, this is not a free market practice. It is an artificial barrier to entry.
Depends - if you absolutely need the surgery to survive, but can't get a top-notch surgeon due to cost, which would you rather have? A second rate surgeon, or certain death?
The second rate surgeon, no doubt. Which is why I agree that the pure free market for health care may not be the best idea. I don't think economics, at least the most basic economics that I am aware of, accounts for the wealth lost because people who can't afford health care die in their scenario. That is potentially an awful lot of lost production. If there are economic models that take this into account I would be interested to see them and what they say about the pure free market for health care.
Sure, the buyer doesn't need to know exactly how something was made to know whether or not it is harmful to them. But the seller can not lie about what it is they are selling. If the buyer asks, "are cigarettes addictive?" and the seller says "no" that is clearly unethical. If the buyer asks, "how exactly do you make your cigarettes?" and the seller says "none of your business" that is fine.
Now, who else would claim that such actions were "ethical"? Not a priest. Not a rabbi. Not a Buddhist. Not many people.
They are wrong. They fail to see the big picture, the hypocrisy, the injustice, and the destructive consequences of their placement of need before right.
I like that you picked all mystic men as your examples. People whose claim to authority on ethics doesn't stem from reason but from faith, from feeling.
You can mod this troll and him insightful but the parent post is such bullshit. Society hasn't benefited from Edison's inventions far more than he did from society? Bullshit.
I can't believe you don't understand the function of characterizations of the ideal men in making a point.
The Randites don't want to play fair? Bullshit. What is fair about taking something someone has earned and giving it to someone who hasn't earned it? How is it greedy to want what you have earned?
Oh it must be sophistry because I don't agree with it!
It's the people that don't want to earn their share that are destroying this country, businessmen and working men alike. You know the villains in Atlas Shrugged are all big businessmen, so stop trying to pretend that Rand is all for big business and screw the working man.
Thinking that the Bush administration is representative of libertarian or Randian thinking is horribly misguided. Bush and his crones would have been a villain in Rand's books, anyone who read them would know this is obvious. He was the polar opposite of true liberal ideals, to each man his freedom and with it his responsibilities.
How am I not facing the philosophy? Did you not read the rest of the post, or the other posts? Yes, the cases you stated are true, it is unethical to steal to feed a starving child because need is not the highest good. It is ethical to sell a gun to someone knowing that it will be used to kill an innocent child just like selling a kitchen knife to someone knowing that it will be used to kill an innocent child is ethical. It is a nonsense scenario anyway because it is impossible for the seller to know these things in advance. You talk about divorcing actions from consequences? What do you think the consequences are for a society that steals from those that produce to give to those that do not? You talk about divorcing objects from origins? Where did that starving child come from? Where are its parents? Why not ask for a loan to feed the starving child? Work for the money?
I would rather a world where each man is responsible for his own actions than one where he must be responsible for the unknowable future actions of the people around them. I would rather not live in a world where theft is sometimes ethical and other times not at the arbitrary whims of the mob and the men with the guns, or a world where crimes occur before any action has been committed. The world where good is self-destruction at the benefit of another and evil is earning what you take is not sustainable.
You can go ahead and try and pigeonhole me as just another Randian, and not actually think about the consequences of your as of yet undefined philosophy. My heart does not bleed for those who choose the path of self-destruction.
I implore anyone else who reads these posts to think hard and look at which claims are being justified by reason and which are justified by a "gut feeling" about right and wrong or not justified at all.
That is all I will say on the subject. If you want to see more clearly what the philosophy is then read the book. (What they say about the speech chapter is true though, it is painfully long.)
(yes, we could say the labor pool is now global, but then we'd be balancing around the global average living conditions, not US average living conditions)
Hence all the comments about misguided nationalism. Why is the life and labor of a person in this country inherently worth more than one of another country?
If it is publicly known to be addictive before the sale is made, then yes, it would be perfectly ethical. People may not be completely rational, but they are capable of making rational decisions and are responsible for those decisions. It is not my place or anyone's play to protect someone else from themselves (someone who is capable of making rational decisions at least, not a child or a disabled person).
If not then it is unethical, and that is where the practical reality comes in. People have to know what they are being sold or they obviously can't make a rational decision. The contract between the people has to specify what is being traded accurately, otherwise it is a bait and switch. However, it is the responsibility of the buyer to make a reasonable effort to discover what they are buying. They can't just go around buying blindly and then cry about how they were treated unfairly when something goes wrong.
Since it is easy to demonstrate that her philosophy results in unethical behavior being "defined" as "ethical" it doesn't matter what you say.
That is circular reasoning.
By your "logic" (and her philosophy) and you have admitted it, it is ETHICAL for person A to sell a gun to person B even if person B told person A that he intended to use the gun to kill an innocent child. Because both parties were "traders" who were not coerced in the exchange and mutually benefited.
Yes. No crime has been committed. You claim I am spinning, but you have provided no reason why this is unethical. You're just claiming it. You are saying person B has acted unethically even though they have only thought about it thus far. It makes more sense to say they have acted unethically when they have actually acted, i.e. when they make the attempt.
Like I said, it's not even a practical scenario because you can't expect the seller to know if someone is or isn't a gang member.
Yet it would be UNETHICAL for person C to initiate aggressive action against person D to reclaim land that person D's father took from person C's father through aggression initiated by person D's father.
Would it be ethical then for Native Americans to take aggression action against you or me (assuming you're an American) because our forefathers took their land?
As I said before, that's an awfully convenient "philosophy" of "ethics" there.
As I said before, convenience is irrelevant, no matter how many quotation marks you use.
I will never, ever, in my entire life, even once mean "gibibytes".
Ack! What did you mean there?
*head explodes*
why aren't they giving back to the United States?
They are and have, they provide goods and services far in excess of what they take. The computers that Dell provides account for untold amounts of productivity. Every person that bought from them got something. Every person that Dell bought from got something. Everything that they made, they earned. They have already given back one-hundred fold, and now you wish to take more.
If you have to ask that then this discussion is already over.
You are accepting that her philosophy is "truth".
No, I am rejecting your argument that a definition of "ethical" is untrue by reason of her being the one who defined it.
So selling guns to gang members is ethical.
Yes if the gang member was a legitimate trader. This sale would be unlikely to happen if the seller realized that the guy was going to shoot his baker, it would not be to his benefit. The buying of the gun does not hurt anyone though. Besides, gang members can not be differentiated from anyone else, its not like they have horns and a pitchfork.
So growing, processing, shipping and distributing cocaine is ethical.
Definitely yes.
So a king taxing a serf almost all of his
production for the privilege of living on a plot of land is ethical.
Definitely not. This is not a willing contract. The serf enters "at the point of a gun" so to speak. Saying "no" would cost his life. In addition, the "king" is not a legitimate trader that got the land by entering into legitimate contracts.
Which is a rather narrow and awfully convenient definition of "ethical".
I'd say it is your interpretation of it that is narrow and that convenience is irrelevant. It is a reasonable definition based on the idea that I am my own keeper with my own free will.
So selling knives (of any kind, including cooking) to supposed gang members is unethical?
So selling a soda to a fat man is unethical?
Who exactly in your system gets to decide which of these is ethical and which is not?
More so because it would be "unethical" for the less advantaged party to claim the more advantaged party's advantage through the same means that the more advantaged party's ancestors acquired those advantages. Example, the serf would be "unethical" for attempting to overthrow the king.
See above for an answer.
No, selling guns to people who you know are going to use them to kill innocent people is only "ethical" in YOUR philosophy.
The words that best describes that behaviour in the real world are "unethical" and "immoral". Not "ethical".
It is unreasonable to expect the seller to know the future actions of the buyer. If the man is already a criminal then he should be locked up and the point is moot. If not then you are asking that the man be treated like a criminal or second class citizen who has not actually committed a crime.
You are saying that it is unethical and immoral for men to take responsibility for their own actions. When the fat man eats it is because the food seller was unethical. When the drunk drinks its because the alcohol vendor was unethical.
Take your ethics to their logical conclusion and you get everything in the real world where the buck passing never ends.
How does the act of defining something negate its truth? We are just trying to get an agreement on a definition.
Mutual benefit occurs when both parties enter the contract willingly and exchange goods, money, or services at an agreed upon rate. Each party receives something of more value than what they lost. If they didn't then they obviously shouldn't have entered into the contract.
Selling alcohol is ethical if it is sold to a person who wants to buy the alcohol.
One may say, "but wait, the person who bought the alcohol might become a drunkard". By that logic, it would be unethical to sell food because it might make one fat, or cars because one might drive recklessly. The unethical behavior of the alcoholic or reckless driver is solely their responsibility, not the responsibility of the seller.
First off, the consumers and the workers are the same people. No one only works or only consumes.
Second, if there is a 5 to 1 ratio in salary and a less than 5 to 1 ratio in ability, i.e. 5 cheap workers combined have more ability than 1 expensive worker, then hiring the cheap workers increases productivity.
It amazes me to no end how some people people here on Slashdot consider themselves so smart and are so high and mighty when it comes to tech issues, but show a fundamental lack of understanding of other issues like economics. They condemn people that don't understand technology as though they are idiots, but are no better when it comes to other issues.
Note that this was not a personal attack on the parent, its just a general observation. I think everyone, including myself, falls victim to it from time to time.
Talk about a straw man. No one ever said anyone that calls themselves a trader gets a free pass. Traders that trade with other willing parties for the MUTUAL BENEFIT OF BOTH PARTIES are acting ethically.
You seem to think that medical doctors would be able to set arbitrarily high prices and people would have no choice but to pay them. That would not happen because people have a choice about which doctor to go to.
If doctors were making insane amounts of money then more people would become doctors, which means more competition and lower prices. So, medical doctors would not necessarily be the richest people in the world by any stretch of the imagination.
However, in a pure market system there would be people that could not get care (as there are now) because they are unable to pay the market price. Free markets maximize overall wealth (barring externalities), not the number of products sold or people served.
If this is unacceptable, which it may very well be in this case, then that is your argument for why health care should not be subject to the free market, NOT because doctors might get rich.
You'd better be damn careful that what you replace it with actually is better. Doctors must be paid enough to get the best people. I sure as hell don't want to be under the knife of some second rate surgeon kept on by some government bureaucracy.
On top of that, presumably the person was pulled over for doing something else illegal, e.g. speeding, and thus will already be receiving punishment for their actual crime.
Note that the shift of the supply curve is to the right and corresponds to a decrease in overall wages, but also an increase in overall amount of people employed. In turn, that increases production which shifts that supply curve to the right and lowers prices, thus the wage decrease is somewhat mitigated and more is produced.
Economics rocks.