That's fucking ridiculous. They couldn't do that because it is imprisoning those people in the middle. If I built a wall around your house and told you you couldn't trespass over it then I have imprisoned you, it is the same thing with a wall around a town.
This fictitious, fantasy guy who builds walls around towns isn't going to be any worse than government anyway.
Even if there is just one road to a town it would cost a lot to travel on it, which is a signal to other people: if they wanna make money open a competing road.
That is where the media and politicians go wrong, they seem to be under the impression science is democratic. Anything to get ratings I suppose.
I just wish those two groups would show both sides of the argument more often.
That's a politicians job running: running other peoples lives and messing with society, even if they don't have a fucking clue what they are doing. They are like those people who try to program, who instead of debugging logically, continually try to randomly change stuff in the hope that it will start working.
I guess the upside of them not doing an equivalent tax cut is that it is yet another example showing the system is not sustainable over the long term. When people can see quite plainly they are paying more and getting less in return they will (hopefully) notice what a leech government is.
You are pointing out what you can see and not thinking about what you can't. Every bit of money taken out of the private sector is money that could be invested in to somethings else, these things might be even more useful.
I won't touch on the moral argument that subsidising stuff is nothing more than theft.
On Milton Friedman's Free To Choose program he mentioned something about computers making governments job a lot easier enabling it to grow. This plan seems to be continuing that trend.
Where do these bureaucrats and politicians get the idea they are meant to provide services? If they want to provide services they should go and open a shop, or organise a private charity, not steal other peoples money just to provide an inefficient service which probably does the opposite to what it was intended.
This is another case where the government has done harm. It's top priority should be upholding private property rights. By allowing a company to dump waste it has failed at its most important task.
It was government 150 years ago who decided that economic progress was more important than certain property rights so there was no effort to use cleaner coal or to invent new filtering methods etc. Although, one of the things it did do was to make the chimney stacks higher---to move the pollution elsewhere, which, of course, doesn't really help the situation.
However, the land may have been the governments land. So, it is likely that is allowed the company to dump stuff there. It gets more tricky at this point because, would the land have been homesteaded or not? It is impossible to tell, however what is apparent is that the land looses value when polluted. There has to be some polluted land, and this may be a way of homesteading land (e.g. a waste dump,) as long as it didn't interrupt other peoples property rights. This would not matter if it was the government land (to the government or the factory owner) but it has more of a chance of mattering if it was privately owned because it would loose value.
Standard Oil: already loosing market share when anti-trust policies came in to force
Microsoft: government granted copyright and is better described as natural monopoly (that kind of contradicts my copyright (monopoly) bit but even if someone did believe that copyright was part of a free market then that would apply to them)
Bell: government granted monopoly
I would wager that there is a similar story that applies to the steel industry.
What you are suggesting is using the fox to guard the hen house. Government is the problem and you suggest to use the problem to fix the problem. Why not vote/write to stop government from creating the problem in the first place?
Looking at history from a clean perspective shows that the market has not failed but government has. A market failure is figment of peoples' imagination. The market is slow sometimes and it is never perfect. Usually government uses that opportunity as an opportunity to show up on a white horse (or to fix a problem them previously created.) The whole point of an entrepreneur is to find places where the market hasn't provided a solution, this is a place where they can make profit. It is a pity many of them get cosy with the government.
While I see how rights are ideas in peoples minds. Some can be more right than others, for example, minimising the arbitrariness of them. For example, a non-aggression principle of not initiating force. So negative rights like these are are less arbitrary than positive rights, for example, the right to listen to some music without DRM is more arbitrary than a universal law of not initiating for against someones property.
Perhaps if no one has a right to do anything at all and I jump up and down right now do not have a right to do it, but it doesn't harm anyone so it doesn't matter. However, if I go and punch someone and steal their car I have harmed them, so I didn't have a right to do that but I got in the way of something else. My logic is probably bad or even illogical but never mind hehe.
On to real life and the DRM thing. I admit I havn't used many DRM-riddled files so it has not affected me. Also, I'm usually a bit of an optimist (at least in the long term.) If the DRM situation gets too bad I really think non-tech people will notice and complain, but maybe that is too optimistic. Although, the DRM, the DMCA and the crazy RIAA lawsuits are kind of like the large records companies going down with a big fight, they are lashing out whereever they can.
Maybe I didn't read it correctly, but here goes anyway.
If you own your own body then as long as you don't interfere with anyone else's property (someones body or tangible goods and land acquired through homesteading and or trade) that is okay. So the DMCA thing is obviously bad, but the DRM is neutral. DMC uses force against private property, but DRM does not as it is voluntary. If government (like in that European country I forget which one) forces companies to stop using DRM then that is the threat of force against other peoples property. So that is contrary to natural rights too. No one forces me to buy some DRM music so I will not. So the best way to "fight" DRM would be to tell everyone what it is so they understand what DRM is.
It doesn't force you to do anything. If you don't want your song locked down to specific hardware don't buy from iTunes it is not difficult.
The only bad thing here is the victim culture encouraging the government using real force.
Slashdot Mirror
Me, me, me. What about the people who were enslaved to pay for your 9 months welfare?
That's fucking ridiculous. They couldn't do that because it is imprisoning those people in the middle. If I built a wall around your house and told you you couldn't trespass over it then I have imprisoned you, it is the same thing with a wall around a town. This fictitious, fantasy guy who builds walls around towns isn't going to be any worse than government anyway. Even if there is just one road to a town it would cost a lot to travel on it, which is a signal to other people: if they wanna make money open a competing road.
It already happens to a degree, it usually goes by the names of police, courts, law :) What he means is that the government shouldn't coerce either.
That is where the media and politicians go wrong, they seem to be under the impression science is democratic. Anything to get ratings I suppose. I just wish those two groups would show both sides of the argument more often.
The companies making the movies should have been doing this for years. Why have they not?
That's a politicians job running: running other peoples lives and messing with society, even if they don't have a fucking clue what they are doing. They are like those people who try to program, who instead of debugging logically, continually try to randomly change stuff in the hope that it will start working.
I guess the upside of them not doing an equivalent tax cut is that it is yet another example showing the system is not sustainable over the long term. When people can see quite plainly they are paying more and getting less in return they will (hopefully) notice what a leech government is.
You are pointing out what you can see and not thinking about what you can't. Every bit of money taken out of the private sector is money that could be invested in to somethings else, these things might be even more useful. I won't touch on the moral argument that subsidising stuff is nothing more than theft.
I learnt two things today :-)
Can a motorbike go in reverse? They work in the same way.
I dunno how you define "works". And, middle ground fallacy.
On Milton Friedman's Free To Choose program he mentioned something about computers making governments job a lot easier enabling it to grow. This plan seems to be continuing that trend.
Where do these bureaucrats and politicians get the idea they are meant to provide services? If they want to provide services they should go and open a shop, or organise a private charity, not steal other peoples money just to provide an inefficient service which probably does the opposite to what it was intended.
Wait a minute, aren't these the same people who are up in arms about global warming?
People with more than 60gb of music may want to put all their music on their mp3 player. Looks like they might have to wait longer.
Oh right. Gets complicated then :) I see your point.
If the telecoms own the cables then they own them, no one has the right to tell them what to do with them.
Better still, just don't do anything at all. The best politicians are the ones who don't do anything.
I must disagree :)
This is another case where the government has done harm. It's top priority should be upholding private property rights. By allowing a company to dump waste it has failed at its most important task.
It was government 150 years ago who decided that economic progress was more important than certain property rights so there was no effort to use cleaner coal or to invent new filtering methods etc. Although, one of the things it did do was to make the chimney stacks higher---to move the pollution elsewhere, which, of course, doesn't really help the situation.
However, the land may have been the governments land. So, it is likely that is allowed the company to dump stuff there. It gets more tricky at this point because, would the land have been homesteaded or not? It is impossible to tell, however what is apparent is that the land looses value when polluted. There has to be some polluted land, and this may be a way of homesteading land (e.g. a waste dump,) as long as it didn't interrupt other peoples property rights. This would not matter if it was the government land (to the government or the factory owner) but it has more of a chance of mattering if it was privately owned because it would loose value.
What you are suggesting is using the fox to guard the hen house. Government is the problem and you suggest to use the problem to fix the problem. Why not vote/write to stop government from creating the problem in the first place?
Looking at history from a clean perspective shows that the market has not failed but government has. A market failure is figment of peoples' imagination. The market is slow sometimes and it is never perfect. Usually government uses that opportunity as an opportunity to show up on a white horse (or to fix a problem them previously created.) The whole point of an entrepreneur is to find places where the market hasn't provided a solution, this is a place where they can make profit. It is a pity many of them get cosy with the government.
Funnily enough I trust liars and sell-outs (most politicians) more than the mob.
While I see how rights are ideas in peoples minds. Some can be more right than others, for example, minimising the arbitrariness of them. For example, a non-aggression principle of not initiating force. So negative rights like these are are less arbitrary than positive rights, for example, the right to listen to some music without DRM is more arbitrary than a universal law of not initiating for against someones property.
Perhaps if no one has a right to do anything at all and I jump up and down right now do not have a right to do it, but it doesn't harm anyone so it doesn't matter. However, if I go and punch someone and steal their car I have harmed them, so I didn't have a right to do that but I got in the way of something else. My logic is probably bad or even illogical but never mind hehe.
On to real life and the DRM thing. I admit I havn't used many DRM-riddled files so it has not affected me. Also, I'm usually a bit of an optimist (at least in the long term.) If the DRM situation gets too bad I really think non-tech people will notice and complain, but maybe that is too optimistic. Although, the DRM, the DMCA and the crazy RIAA lawsuits are kind of like the large records companies going down with a big fight, they are lashing out whereever they can.
Maybe I didn't read it correctly, but here goes anyway.
If you own your own body then as long as you don't interfere with anyone else's property (someones body or tangible goods and land acquired through homesteading and or trade) that is okay. So the DMCA thing is obviously bad, but the DRM is neutral. DMC uses force against private property, but DRM does not as it is voluntary. If government (like in that European country I forget which one) forces companies to stop using DRM then that is the threat of force against other peoples property. So that is contrary to natural rights too. No one forces me to buy some DRM music so I will not. So the best way to "fight" DRM would be to tell everyone what it is so they understand what DRM is.
...next you'll be saying there's no such thing as Father Christmas and the Tooth Fairy.
It doesn't force you to do anything. If you don't want your song locked down to specific hardware don't buy from iTunes it is not difficult. The only bad thing here is the victim culture encouraging the government using real force.