This is only for criminal piracy - i.e. piracy to make a profit, and the maximum sentence is only for the most serious cases, so for example if someone is selling pirated software online as legitimate software and then using that money to fund al-Qaeda or whatever then they might get 10 years.
People downloading the latest movies, TV series, or music aren't affected by this as they're not engaging in criminal piracy, it's still a civil issue and there is no prison sentence for civil offences.
Even if you want to ignore a large segment of your population for absolutely no reason whatsoever there are still higher standards of living in the countries I mentioned, for starters no one goes without healthcare, no matter how poor they may be.
The idea that those nations are almost entirely white is rather odd, and again I don't really understand why skin colour is a factor here, population of a country is population of a country, you can't segregate based on something entirely arbitrary. As you apparently haven't paid any attention to the news over the last two years though, Europe has had a massive influx of migrants, and countries like Sweden and Norway have been prime target destinations, the idea that the US somehow has it hard or has it unique in terms of migrants is rather odd - relative to their per head of population these nations have received far more.
You're absolutely right that the US is sought after, it's far better than most 3rd world situations many people in the Central and South America regions live in (even if the countries in those areas themselves aren't 3rd world in their entirety). Crossing to the US is far easier for them as it's a large land border. I suspect if Canada shared a border with Mexico (or in fact the countries I mentioned) then you'd actually see many choose those nations instead. People cross into the US because it's there, and it's easier than the alternatives, not because they have a love for more extreme brands of capitalism.
Actually I think it's merely that no system is inherently perfect, and any attempts to tend towards one extreme, be it capitalism, communism, or something else results in problems.
I think the reality is you have to put aside preconceived notions of this system is bad, or this system is good and consider that each system has it's merits.
The real solution is to try and balance the best parts of all the systems as far as possible. From what I've seen over the years for example, a healthy blend of socialism and capitalism seems to result in a far healthier, happier, more educated society than tending too far towards just socialism or just capitalism - countries like Sweden, Norway, New Zealand and so forth are some of the most sought after places in the world to live as a result of this.
I think really all countries like the US need are more socialism to counter the corrupting influence of too much capitalism - just not so much that you replace capitalist corruption with socialist corruption.
It's a difficult balancing act for sure, but balance always seems far better than extremism.
This is such a nonsensical argument, it's entirely akin to arguing that once a burglar has committed a burglary it's too late to arrest them and seize the goods back because to do so would be a violation of ex post facto.
The reality is that many crimes are dealt with after they happen, some crimes require many years to investigate in deal with in part because of their complexity, and in part because of lack of availability of information or resources required.
However much Apple fanboys may wish to argue this is a retroactive change it's simply not, it was illegal as far back as 1979 for Ireland to offer preferential rates to certain companies that other companies had no access to - that's before Apple engaged in this form of tax evasion and so it's lawyers and accountants should've full well advised it that it was breaking the law, if they didn't then that's their problems, no one elses.
This is really the fundamental point - that long running mantra in defence of tax evaders of "They're legally avoiding tax!" has now been proven false, that doesn't mean you get to declare their tax evasion as mere avoidance, on the contrary, the reality is that what you previously declared mere legal avoidance has now been deemed illegal evasion, and that's the problem here - these companies have been engaging in illegal tax evasion with the assistance of the Irish state and now they've finally been caught and sentenced.
For a long time because no action was taken against these companies you could indeed simply shout "It's just avoidance, they're doing nothing wrong!". That's simply no longer true, we now know that it was evasion after all, that they were in fact doing wrong, and that they're being rightly punished for it. This doesn't just apply to this particular ruling but to the fines enforced against Google, Fiat, and all the others - the reality is that these corporations are tax evaders, no matter how hard they may have tried to push the PR view that they're merely engaging in avoidance, they weren't, their actions are criminal evasion and people like you will just have to accept now that you were wrong all along about it all merely being legal avoidance. You don't get to declare it any other way, because you're not the law, and the law isn't on your side, those you were defending broke it and have been busted. Get over it - you don't even owe them anything.
That's not really a problem, there's no real issue with that as that's perfectly legal. They just have to explain to the world and their citizens next time they go bankrupt why they couldn't fund public services, and when the public ask if maybe it's because they only have a corporation tax rate of 5% they'll have difficult questions to answer wont they?
The problem is that they're economically reliant on the rest of the companies in the country paying 12.5% - independent shops, smaller and medium businesses, those who can't afford to try and pay for global scale tax avoidance/evasion. If therefore they reduce the rate overall then that means smaller companies are now playing on a level playing field to Apple, but it also means they'll get less tax revenue overall. It may well be that they'll get more global companies using them as a haven, but it may also be that countries outside the EU then slap massive tarrifs on Irish origin products too. It's also possible that far wealthier, far more fundamentally economically sound countries like Norway could just destroy them at their own game because Ireland just isn't a financially solid enough country to ever win in a race to the bottom. They'd fail hard.
So yes, you're right, they could do that, but then they'd fail again, and then their people would be furious again, because this time external help wouldn't be forthcoming, so it probably wouldn't be the smartest of moves.
If Ireland really wants to carry on like this then it's welcome to leave the EU and do so, but it can't complain when it gets tarrifed through the roof and loses the financial cushion the EU provides. Alternatively, Ireland, could simply just stop trying and failing at being a tax haven and start actually trying to become a productive member of the global economy rather than a mere leech.
You know what they say, there aint no such thing as a free lunch, that remains true throughout all walks of life.
The EU as an orgnisation and the rest of the continent doesn't see a penny of the money, it all goes to Ireland who should've collected in the first place. In fact, maybe if Ireland had've collected it as it should've in the first place then it wouldn't have needed to borrow billions off the EU.
The EU gets nothing out of this, it's already lost money propping up a state that couldn't balance it's own books because it was busy failing at playing tax haven. Now that state is being told to start doing what it's legally agreed to do as an EU member in the first place, something that had it done, wouldn't have required EU money.
The only benefit the EU gets is that maybe it wont lose money bailing out Ireland again because it'll actually be collecting money it's owed in future.
I'm a full on Snowden supporter, but I don't think it's demonising him to point out that this isn't too big a deal.
I'm concerned that the debate about security servers has descended to the point where people are basically just arguing they shouldn't exist.
I profoundly disagree, I think they serve an important purpose, to me the problem is that they've completely overstepped those bounds in recent decades but that doesn't mean I believe everything they do is wrong.
I disagree with the bulk collection of data, but if they're performing targeted interception against legitimate threats to the state, or are performing counter-intelligence against foreign state threats or similar, then to me that's exactly what they should be doing, and I don't really see what exposing that achieves - no shit, we know they're doing it, they're supposed to be doing it, it's their fundamental purpose.
I think this view that everything the security services does is evil and bad is fundamentally flawed, I think it's an argument that can't (and shouldn't) ever be won, and I think it gets in the way of legitimate criticism of situations where security agencies have overstepped the mark, by carrying out widespread spying on their own populace.
I think it's important people start making a distinction between spy agencies spying on who they're supposed to be spying on, and when they spy on people who have done nothing wrong. I think the argument holds a lot more weight in that context.
We need to know what Snowden has to say about them spying on their home population, and innocent people in other populations, but frankly I don't care about them spying on legitimate terrorist targets in Yemeni cyber cafes, it's what they're supposed to be fucking doing.
As I understand it, statistically the boomers are Trump's primary demographic, and his whole campaign is built on "I'm an outsider, don't trust the establishment!".
Whilst I don't disagree with what you're saying I think that suggests it's far more nuanced than that no?
You're showing a fundamental misunderstanding of the situation, it's not about whether we are or aren't affected by or do or don't affect natural selection, it's that ecosystems are complex systems, ones that we simply cannot accurately predict the result of changes on.
The issue is that we don't know what the effect of wiping out that species is, it may mean that they or species dependent on them as a food source also die out and that chain continues until some fundmentally important species to the ecosystem die out and the local ecosystem collapses.
It's precisely the problem that we are part of the ecosystem and that we simply do not know what the consequences of wiping a species out are. It's perfectly possible that more people will die from ecosystem collapse resulting from mosquito elimination than die from mosquito born diseases currently. Even wiping out mosquito born diseases can be problematic in that it can make way for new diseases that are more deadly to take their place.
No one with any scientific authority believes for one second that we're outside the forces of nature, on the contrary, they know we're bound by the forces of nature such that meddling with them can be dangerous for us, as well as our target of eradication. Saying we can kill what we want because we're the fittest is astoundingly naive as it assumes that nature can always support us no matter how much of it we destroy, but there reaches a tipping point where that's simply not true, and if we're destroying it to try and save lives there's every possibility we're actually doing the opposite and losing lives as a result.
This isn't just theory, there are many cases where it's born through into reality. People used to kill beavers in England for food to the point they were wiped out here, a classic case of survival of the fittest such that humans were avoiding starvation by eating beavers and used their pelts for clothing, except, because beavers were no longer building upland dams, heavy rains were no longer held back, and villages were wiped out and people killed by resultant floods. The result being that the human population also decreased in turn. This effect is still being felt to this very day where land clearance has created far greater harm from floods where people still die in England.
The issue is that we can't wipe out a species as an isolated event whereby there are no negative consequences for us.
The thing that actually makes us different is precisely the fact that we can reason about these things, many past extinctions such as certain mammoth populations were down to the fact that they over-grazed during extended dry periods and starved, were they able to reason about things like stock piling they may be around to this day, but for them sending the species of plants on which they grazed extinct was their own undoing. We're fortunate that we're able to reason against that same fate. Well, the intelligent amongst us are at least - I just hope we don't get outvoted by the sort of naive ignorance on such issues that suggest we can just wipe out species at will with no consequences based on a half arsed belief that we're part of nature so we can wipe out species under the guise of natural selection coupled with the hypocritical belief that we magically stop being part of nature when it comes back to bite us. It doesn't work like that, once you recognise the reality of biology and fitness you have to understand that it's a two way street - nature can destroy us, just as we can destroy it.
"What I have difficulty with is understanding what software of any significance in my life is actually written in Java."
Well if you've never used Amazon, eBay, Google, most Android apps, Minecraft, or used just about any bank, made any transaction via Visa/Mastercard, been served in a shop at a till point, or made an appointment and had your records tracked at a hospital or doctors, then I can understand why you'd think Java is irrelevant. I suspect most people have used those things, and as such, have used Java, even if indirectly.
Java is everywhere running so many key systems, you just don't see it, and that's because it's great at doing what it's supposed to do on large back end systems.
If you use Windows and just use desktop software, then yes, you're probably unlikely to see much other than C, C++, and.NET stuff (i.e. usually C#).
TIOBEs index is fundamentally flawed, I've posted here analysing why on numerous occasions and in great detail, and whilst my posts on the topic have always been modded to +5 Slashdot still regularly posts drivel based upon it, and people still seem to debate those stories even though they have exactly no merit whatsoever due to the fact the data behind the story is fundamentally broken.
I still have literally no idea why Slashdot posts stories based on TIOBE, and why anyone bothers to debate those stories as if the premise they're dragging from the index has any merit whatsoever. I can only assume TIOBE pays Slashdot for Slashvertisments at this point.
I'll give TIOBE credit, it has in the last year or so updated it's methodology to be slightly less than worthless rather than just completely worthless, but it's still ultimately just a shade of worthless in it's methodology. It looks like they're now using someone who passed high school statistics, rather than someone that failed it. They really need at absolute minimum a statistics graduate though if their index is to be of any value.
I've long said that if they want to drastically increase the value and worth of their index, then rather than counting how many results they get for "C Language" on YouTube, Amazon, Baidu, and Wikipedia which tells us pretty much nothing about it's usage, that they at least switch to using results from Jobsites, and open source project sites. That way they can start to measure what's actually being used, rather than what a bunch of unrelated search engines are confusing their search for.
Consider this, C++ is a (relatively) old language, but one that has been updated, by searching Amazon for "C++ Language" you may therefore get more books on it than any other language, but that tells us absolutely nothing about how much it's being used, as many people who read the early books may have long retired and the books may be entirely irrelevant now, but Amazon still lists them whilst newer C++ developers are buying the newer books it's possible that usage has stayed relatively static for example - the increase in books does not necessarily correlate to an increase in developers. The same problem rings true in other ways for all their other search results.
By using job sites it may still not tell us anything about retirement, but it does at least tell us the trend. Using open source repositorites can be a good indicator of actual usage, though it misses out the entirety of the corporate closed source world which may or may not use a completely different set of technologies.
So whilst TIOBE currently tells us nothing of value, it could be changed to tell us what companies are hiring for and hence using or intending to use, which is helpful, or it could tell us what open source projects are using, which is useful information as it gives you an idea of what open source developers are choosnig to use even if it's not necessarily representative of the whole market.
Short version: TIOBE needs to change it's methology to be meaningful, or Slashdot needs to stop posting stories based on it that are almost certanily incorrect, or at least aren't verifiable by anything from TIOBE.
Someone else suggested that when I've mentioned this before, but the issue is that MSN used a Hotmail account that I had set up years ago specifically for MSN, whereas LinkedIn used one of my actual proper e-mail addresses.
If I had to guess it would be that MS was transferring IP address data of machines we connected with + real names.
Now I'm usually one to jump on bad stats given that I took a further degree in stats, but the first line of TFA answers your question:
"The study entitled State of Mobile Device Performance and Health focuses on the second quarter of 2016"
58% of all iOS devices sounds way too high for sure, until you recognise their broad definition of failure which can include failing to connect to WiFi, app crashes and so on.
So effectively the study is saying that in Q2 2016 58% of iOS devices suffered some sort of fault, but that fault might not actually be a big deal.
Beyond that I didn't read the report because I couldn't be bothered to sign up even with my junk details, so I can't really comment on how accurate their methodology might be, and hence how accurate their results might be, but if you're interested it's here:
I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility that 58% of iOS devices suffered some kind of glitch in that period - all it would take is one buggy release of a popular app such as Facebook and the number is bound to shoot right up without it ever really being Apple's fault (beyond arguably not better vetting the quality of updates of apps perhaps).
When I Googled the report though, the first result was actually the 2016 Q1 report, where the results are the exact opposite:
I suspect therefore one of two things, either it is as I say and one broken major software release on a device or set of devices can greatly sway the stats in a quarter due to their broad definition of "fault" or they're just making these numbers up as a clickbait to try and get you to sign up to build up their userbase for monetisation purposes through ad revenue or similar.
I'm swaying towards the second, not that I'm a cynic or anything:)
I had a friend on MSN messenger who I knew in real life, we'd never connected on the internet in any other way whatsoever so the only way to link us was via MSN.
I was on LinkedIn but only with 10 or so contacts, all of whom were recruiters and had no common links between me and my friend on MSN.
One day when I logged into LinkedIn it suggested my friend from MSN as a contact, given that the only way to link us was via MSN it was clear that long before MS bought LinkedIn it was engaging in illegal data sales/transfers with LinkedIn and LinkedIn was willing to buy/accept illegal data too, and use it to try and grow it's business.
It seems that pretty much all big tech companies violate data protection laws. The law just seems to not get enforced against them.
Facebook already does this, they're in flagrant violation of European data protection laws, but for some reason no one is touching them, it's frustrating.
For example, I installed the Facebook app on my phone and have never given Facebook my phone number. Next time I logged in on my PC it prompted me to add my phone number with a textbox and an add button, except the phone number was pre-populated with my phone number, they were effectively asking me to confirm it by asking me to add it, because they'd very clearly already taken it, illegaly, from my phone, to pre-populate their add textbox (I don't use any kind of auto-fill, it was Facebook's actual website populating it).
This is a complete farce, because they're taking and storing data they have no right to have and then asking you to click a button to make it legal - the fact they even ask you to add it with this pre-populated box means they're completely aware they're breaking the law because it is simply asking you to click the button so that they're compliant. This isn't accidental violation, this is wilful violation, so they should be getting fined the maximum amount by all Data Protection agencies across Europe already.
Apparently you can opt-out of this new WhatsApp data transfer when it comes along, but what's the bet if you opt-out the data still gets sent regardless?
Actually I completely agree that there are some arguments for US single country stewardship and you're right, removing that risk scenario is absolutely one of them, my argument was simply that freedom of speech isn't an argument for US stewardship because it already enforces worse censorship on the net than any other country because US censorship is applied to all 7.4 billion people in the world, whereas even Chinese censorship only hits their 1.3 billion own citizens.
Though as I say I personally don't really think that argument wins over even though I agree it's not entirely unreasonable. The reason I think this is because if the US was willing to sacrifice it's veto in a multi-country stewardship environment, what's to stop it doing so now? Can we really guarantee the US wont agree to arrest, deport, and take down the domains of Chinese dissidents in return for, say, China agreeing to actually enforce copyright laws? If we can't trust them to do it in a multi-country stewardship environment, then why would we trust them to do it outside of that? The point being that in a multi-country environment where the whole world is involved you have to convince each and every single country in the world of each and every measure, that in my view, is far less risky than just having to convince one country.
To be clear I wasn't referring to the entire continents - only a handful of European countries engage in holocaust denial censorship for example (the UK doesn't, but it does engage in US style copyright censorship).
My point was simply that there is censorship coming from every corner of the globe, and the number of trustworthy stewards on any continent is small. You're absolutely right, Brasil wouldn't be a bad steward, I was thinking more of nations like Venezuela for what it's worth.
"Like I said, America isn't perfect, but on this issue I trust the US a hell of a lot more than I do any other country."
But this in itself is just nationalist patriotism, the US has a long history of censorship on the internet via things like ICE domain seizures, which unlike, say, China's censorship, enforce censorship globally to every country, not just the country engaging in censorship (the US).
If you believe in single country stewardship if that country would offer better protections than any other then it's nonsensical to favour the US over many others. If you're going for single country stewardship then why not go for a country that has a much better track record on political neutrality, political transparency, and freedom, such as Sweden, Switzerland, New Zealand or similar?
Personally I think single country stewardship is a bad idea though regardless, in Asia there is censorship over blasphemy, Europe it's holocaust denial, in South America it's criticising government, and in North America it's defying the copyright cartels. All-country stewardship where changes can only occur based on 100% consensus is the only way to really protect free speech on the internet because that way you get all the benefits of the US veto you have currently but with the added advantage of countries like Russia and China being willing to block US copyright censorship.
Long story short though, there is no rational reason to prefer US single country stewardship if you believe in freedom and openness of the internet, and if you do so then it's because you're letting nationalism take priority over the things you're professing to want to protect. That is, when you say you trust the US more, what you're saying is "I want our guys to retain control, even if that means a bit of censorship" - you're arguing in favour of US control and NOT freedom from censorship, because the US already engages in that in a manner that effects everyone across the globe, not just those inside it's borders.
Really, if the US were a good steward of internet freedom then rather than engaging in global censorship via domain seizures it would set up it's own Chinese style great firewall and just block it's own citizens from accessing those sites it finds offensive such that it's politics remains only a problem for it's own people, and not censorship for every single person on the planet, including the 7billion+ that live outside of it's borders.
I have answered it, and you're apparnetly incapable of understanding it. Repeating a questiond doesn't make the answer go away no matter how inconvenient for your lack of knowledge of the topic.
Oh god, I give up, I've answered all your questions and you still don't get it, it turns out you sadly really are just not intelligent enough for this discussion. I've explained the way international law works on issues like this and you still don't get it posing once again, a question already answered.
Argentina didn't become a 3rd world nation because it still adhered to international law in restructuring it's debts, and settling the others in court. What you're talking about is working outside the established precedent of using the UN's ICJ as arbitrater because you're arguing that Scotland should ignore precedent and rulings from the ICJ.
You really have no fucking clue, no matter what currency Scotland would take upon independence it gets saddled with it's population proportional share of national debt (and national assets), that's really all there is to it but that's reality, those are the facts, you can disagree all you want but you're still completely and utterly wrong at the end of the day. If you want to keep being a fuckwit about it then fine, that's entirely your choice, it will never make you right however, you'll still be wrong because you just have no idea what you're talking about as you keep proving, yet you harp on with incorrect drivel regardless.
FWIW, this is the industry I work in, I'm an actual professional on this issue, I understand all this, you clearly are not, and clearly do not. Get over yourself and stop pretending you have any clue about something you blatantly don't have a clue about.
"Do you even understand the basics of how government is structured in the UK? It's not at all based on the the "UK government" owning everything, it's based on powers granted by Acts to create and control institutions."
And which can be revoked, and return control to central government, which is the ultimate controlling authority.
Yes, congratulations, you're beginning to get it now.
"No, that's just an argument that was used in a specific case relating to other countries in differing situations. Please state precisely which law would require Scotland to accept this debt. Is it somewhere in the Acts enabling devolution, for example?"
It doesn't matter if it chooses to accept it or not, the fact is it'll be assigned to it, and if it doesn't pay it then it defaults. It doesn't matter what a difficult independent Scotland would choose to do, if it wants to become an international pariah and ignore international norms it can, but it'll still be held against the proportion of debt assigned to it and still be held in default if it doesn't pay. You seem to think it's all Scotland's choice, but it's not, there are two parties to an independence agreement which is precisely why Salmond's fantasy ideas about being able to unilaterally refuse debt were always complete nonsense. Scotland isn't about to just shun the world just so it can get away with it's debts, leaving itself entirely unable to trade and entirely unable to get credit ever again as a result. It wouldn't be that difficult because the cost would outweigh the cost of accepting it's apportioned share of debt by several orders of magnitude. No one leading an independent Scotland would ever do anything so stupid as you're suggesting as to become a isolation 3rd world international pariah just to dodge it's debt obligations.
"Courts don't just make decisions based on what they feel is fair, they interpret and apply the law. If there is no written law covering Scotland that says they get a proportion of the debt, they don't get it, simple as that."
Actually yes, some of them do, you're probably one of those people that think that criminal courts are the only type of court in existence and that all law mirrors and models that. It doesn't. The whole point in courts of arbitration for example are to determine fair outcomes without any written law. Your argument falls flat regardless, because there's similarly no law stating that the UK has to retain all the debt either, what the fuck do you think happens to it then? It doesn't just disappear just because there's no written law saying explicitly who gets what in the case of a split between the specific case between Scotland and rUK.
You're still in this mindset that Scotland is somehow special and unique, it isn't, it's just one part of the UK breaking away from another, just like when the Czech Republic and Slovakia stopped being Czechoslovakia, and when South Sudan and Sudan stopped being just Sudan. The fact Scotland has a distinct name simply does not matter, it's still just a part of the UK splitting away from another part of the UK and you can't pretend that only one part gets lumbered with the debt (but not the assets).
But it's clear you're determined not to get this and to keep playing stupid just because you like to stick it to rUK even though you're doing nothing but harming the cause of Scottish independence in the process by persisting discredited myth about what could happen post independence. If people like you keep spouting drivel then there's no hope for Scottish independence because the people of Scotland will continued to be put off by wishful thinking rather than pragmatic fact.
You're still talking completely fantastical drivel, and you're backing it up with outright fabrications and ignorance of the answers I've already given you.
The Isle of Man has a completely different relationship with the UK, it's a crown depedency, Scotland isn't, it's part of the UK proper and still is funded entirely from the UK treasury regardless of what agreements have been raised as to how much Scotland gets from the treasury.
"True but totally irrelevant. You can't pass debt to your dependants without their agreement. Scotland will simply start its own account at zero and rise its own revenue, rather than writing the rUK a cheque and beginning in the red."
Scotland isn't a dependency, it's a part of sovereign UK territory. Your argument is still completely based on fantasy. You still don't even understand Scotland's relationship with the UK which means you're not even remotely in a position to be arguing this. You say there's no legal basis, except there is - every split of a sovereign state in two in modern history. It even works the opposite way - when East and West Germany unified they couldn't say "Hah, our debts no longer exist, because East and West Germany have gone and they've gone with it!", Germany just inherited both states assets and debts. Czechoslovakia, former Yugoslavian states, Sudan, it's always the same. You're just outright denying reality by pretending there is no precedent backed by the ICJ. Your arguments about French ex-dependencies is equally similarly ignorant in that they were depedencies and not part of France proper as Scotland is the UK. It's an inconvenient reality for you that Scotland is a proper part of the UK, not a mere crown depedency, not that that even realistically helps this particular argument anyway - even a crown depedency would have to pay back anything owed to the UK if it chose to no longer be a dependency, but crown dependency are already typically independent enough that they do not share the UK's treasury.
"Scotland, by the laws passed to enact devolution, has control over some spending. However, you are right, technically many assets in Scotland do belong to the UK. When independence happens some of them will be moved back to the UK, like the nuclear submarines stationed up there. You can't really move buildings though, so they will have to be abandoned by the rUK. Again, the rUK can't force Scotland to pay for them, there is no legal basis for that, but it can't remove them either."
This is again a completely nonsensical argument. Your view is effectively that Scotland can negotiate away it's debt share by giving up all the assets, but because some assets can't be moved out of Scotland then Scotland gets to keep them even though it's refusing the debts that paid for them - that will never fly, and never has flown at the ICJ. Scotland either lets rUK keep them and pays whatever rent the UK wants to impose on them, or it takes them and accepts a respective share of debt to pay for them.
"Look at how local government works in the UK. Councils are given money to spend my central government. The things they buy belong to them. It's similar to how if you give your girlfriend money to buy clothes you can't just demand them back when you break up. The law recognises that once you give money away in good faith, that's it. It doesn't become a debt or leverage."
Really? So explain how the UK government seized Rotherham council when it started to fail? What about the numerous council purchased schools over the years that were doing such a bad job that central government seized control of them to sort them out.
"The things they buy belong to them. It's similar to how if you give your girlfriend money to buy clothes you can't just demand them back when you break up."
This is also fundamentally wrong, you're getting your understanding of credit wrong not just at a sovereign debt level, but at an organisational and personal level too. You've really not thought this through, in the not uncommon scenario that a couple with
"You are going to have to cite the law that says this is the case. Please also explain how this "share" is calculated."
I suggest you look at the international standards for past splits - Czechoslovakia for example.
I don't understand why you're asking again how the share is calculated? I can't tell if you're really as dumb as you're sounding at this point as you've been told multiple times already. Population proportional share. Can you not read this or something? do you have some kind of browser plugin that filters inconvenient facts? you're asking a question three times that's been answered three times, I'm astounded that you're entirely incapable of taking this simple aspect in for some reason.
"Sorry, I wasn't clear enough for you. I meant that the assets belonging to the former masters were written off, they didn't try to put a monetary value on them and then use them to proportion debt to the former colonies."
Again, you're using the term written off, you have to explain why you think Scotland would be justified in achieving a debt write off from it's creditors if you think that's a wait it could evade paying it's proportion of UK national debt.
I don't think you really understand how international law, particularly pertaining to the ICJ works. There isn't a global law book that references these things, there are international treaties and national laws which the ICJ can rule on. The UK (and other countries that have split) have combined treasuries, that is, there is effectively one national bank account in simplistic terms. All revenue is collected by HMRC into that pot, even in Scotland, and Scotland then receives a share of that pot to spend how it sees fit based on national law (e.g. the Barnett formula), but that pot isn't big enough to cover all spending (i.e. the bailout of banks like RBS) based on income alone, and has been buffered up with credit (that obviously creates debt), thus a percentage of the income Scotland receives has been that credit (and hence that debt). There is no separation in that account such that the debt has only been added to rUK's pile because there is no separation of piles at the point debt is obtained. Scotland cannot say therefore that it has not benefited from the debt, because there's no way it can prove it (and besides, it has).
Your argument appears to be that because Scotland isn't in charge of this pool of money, that it shouldn't be saddled with the debt, but that inherently means that the converse is true, that it also cannot accept anything purchased from that fund either, which means every publicly purchased thing in Scotland from Holyrood to the roads, to the oil transport infrastructure are owned by rUK also. You cannot take the assets, but not take the debt, debt is merely a negative value asset and hence is treated exactly like any other asset.
If anything, as the Barnett formula disproportionately benefits Scotland any court might in fact rule that Scotland should in fact take a higher than population proportional share of debt if it went to court, because Scotland has historically taken a larger share of the pot than is population proportional (because under Barnett population proportion was miscalculated) and hence Scotland must also have taken a larger than population proportional share of debt based finance too. I suspect in practice the rUK government wouldn't feel it was worth the time pushing that and would stick to a population proportional share however.
If Scotland had been neglected by the rest of the country, for example say it had been left to rot with literally no national income then it might have a case, but it gains a slightly higher than proportional share, so it simply would have no leg to stand on in arguing it should take no debt upon independence.
You're really out of your depth here and you keep talking complete nonsense and asking questions that have been answered three times already. I think it's probably time you let it go and accept that you commented on something you simply don't
"Of course it does, that's just a bizarre statement... Do you also think that local councils can't have debts, "because they are not independent countries"? I'll try telling my bank I don't have any debts because I'm not an "independent country"."
I don't know why you're even engaging in a discussion like this if you don't know the difference between national debt, organisational debt, and personal debt. I don't believe you're really that stupid though are you? You're just arguing because you want to try and pretend Scotland could somehow lump rUK with all it's debt including the share accumulated on Scottish spending, even though that's completely nonsensical fantasy.
"If the UK government borrows money, that debt belongs to the UK government"
Yes, and Scotland is funded by... guess what, the UK government, because, well, it's part of the UK. Scotland doesn't have it's own version of HMRC so doesn't even collect income generated in Scotland - it's all still pulled from the UK central pot.
"When Soctland becomes independent, only the Scottish government's debt will have to go with it, everything else is a matter of negotiation."
No, automatically Scotland's population proportional share of the UK's national debt goes with it, along with Scotland's population proportional share of UK assets. THAT is the baseline, everything from there is the matter of negotiation. If Scotland wants independence with no debt, it has to figure out how the hell it's going to negotiate it. I suppose theoretically it could if for example it was willing to allow rUK to retain sovereignty over North Sea oil field territories or similar perhaps, but I doubt that's likely given that was the entire basis of Salmond's economic plan.
"but the UK government isn't going to just say "those debts are Scotland's now" and default on them."
It's not the UK that would say that, it's the ICJ whose ruling will be that adhered to by every single international creditor from whom Scotland may wish to borrow money.
"All those African ex-colonies that "benefited" from European military protection, infrastructure investment and the like. When they became independent most of it was just written off by their former masters, and the former colonists didn't take on a proportion of the debt."
Right, but you've explicitly pointed out you're talking about situations of written off debt. Why would anyone write off Scotland's population proportional percentage of debt? It's not the sympathy case that many African countries were when they obtained a write off. Furthermore, Scotland's share of debt wouldn't be owed to rUK, it would be owed to the creditors of the debt themselves, so it wouldn't even be rUK's decision anyway. Argentina couldn't even get certain US creditors to write off it's debt after actual bankruptcy and more than a decade later.
"Think about what you are saying for a moment. How would the percentage of debt given to Scotland be calculated? By the rUK government? What if they calculated 99%?"
Erm, I've said this already a few times - it's done based on population proportional percentage. That is the baseline for independence negotiations, it works the exact same way for assets.
Slashdot Mirror
This is only for criminal piracy - i.e. piracy to make a profit, and the maximum sentence is only for the most serious cases, so for example if someone is selling pirated software online as legitimate software and then using that money to fund al-Qaeda or whatever then they might get 10 years.
People downloading the latest movies, TV series, or music aren't affected by this as they're not engaging in criminal piracy, it's still a civil issue and there is no prison sentence for civil offences.
Even if you want to ignore a large segment of your population for absolutely no reason whatsoever there are still higher standards of living in the countries I mentioned, for starters no one goes without healthcare, no matter how poor they may be.
The idea that those nations are almost entirely white is rather odd, and again I don't really understand why skin colour is a factor here, population of a country is population of a country, you can't segregate based on something entirely arbitrary. As you apparently haven't paid any attention to the news over the last two years though, Europe has had a massive influx of migrants, and countries like Sweden and Norway have been prime target destinations, the idea that the US somehow has it hard or has it unique in terms of migrants is rather odd - relative to their per head of population these nations have received far more.
You're absolutely right that the US is sought after, it's far better than most 3rd world situations many people in the Central and South America regions live in (even if the countries in those areas themselves aren't 3rd world in their entirety). Crossing to the US is far easier for them as it's a large land border. I suspect if Canada shared a border with Mexico (or in fact the countries I mentioned) then you'd actually see many choose those nations instead. People cross into the US because it's there, and it's easier than the alternatives, not because they have a love for more extreme brands of capitalism.
Actually I think it's merely that no system is inherently perfect, and any attempts to tend towards one extreme, be it capitalism, communism, or something else results in problems.
I think the reality is you have to put aside preconceived notions of this system is bad, or this system is good and consider that each system has it's merits.
The real solution is to try and balance the best parts of all the systems as far as possible. From what I've seen over the years for example, a healthy blend of socialism and capitalism seems to result in a far healthier, happier, more educated society than tending too far towards just socialism or just capitalism - countries like Sweden, Norway, New Zealand and so forth are some of the most sought after places in the world to live as a result of this.
I think really all countries like the US need are more socialism to counter the corrupting influence of too much capitalism - just not so much that you replace capitalist corruption with socialist corruption.
It's a difficult balancing act for sure, but balance always seems far better than extremism.
This is such a nonsensical argument, it's entirely akin to arguing that once a burglar has committed a burglary it's too late to arrest them and seize the goods back because to do so would be a violation of ex post facto.
The reality is that many crimes are dealt with after they happen, some crimes require many years to investigate in deal with in part because of their complexity, and in part because of lack of availability of information or resources required.
However much Apple fanboys may wish to argue this is a retroactive change it's simply not, it was illegal as far back as 1979 for Ireland to offer preferential rates to certain companies that other companies had no access to - that's before Apple engaged in this form of tax evasion and so it's lawyers and accountants should've full well advised it that it was breaking the law, if they didn't then that's their problems, no one elses.
This is really the fundamental point - that long running mantra in defence of tax evaders of "They're legally avoiding tax!" has now been proven false, that doesn't mean you get to declare their tax evasion as mere avoidance, on the contrary, the reality is that what you previously declared mere legal avoidance has now been deemed illegal evasion, and that's the problem here - these companies have been engaging in illegal tax evasion with the assistance of the Irish state and now they've finally been caught and sentenced.
For a long time because no action was taken against these companies you could indeed simply shout "It's just avoidance, they're doing nothing wrong!". That's simply no longer true, we now know that it was evasion after all, that they were in fact doing wrong, and that they're being rightly punished for it. This doesn't just apply to this particular ruling but to the fines enforced against Google, Fiat, and all the others - the reality is that these corporations are tax evaders, no matter how hard they may have tried to push the PR view that they're merely engaging in avoidance, they weren't, their actions are criminal evasion and people like you will just have to accept now that you were wrong all along about it all merely being legal avoidance. You don't get to declare it any other way, because you're not the law, and the law isn't on your side, those you were defending broke it and have been busted. Get over it - you don't even owe them anything.
That's not really a problem, there's no real issue with that as that's perfectly legal. They just have to explain to the world and their citizens next time they go bankrupt why they couldn't fund public services, and when the public ask if maybe it's because they only have a corporation tax rate of 5% they'll have difficult questions to answer wont they?
The problem is that they're economically reliant on the rest of the companies in the country paying 12.5% - independent shops, smaller and medium businesses, those who can't afford to try and pay for global scale tax avoidance/evasion. If therefore they reduce the rate overall then that means smaller companies are now playing on a level playing field to Apple, but it also means they'll get less tax revenue overall. It may well be that they'll get more global companies using them as a haven, but it may also be that countries outside the EU then slap massive tarrifs on Irish origin products too. It's also possible that far wealthier, far more fundamentally economically sound countries like Norway could just destroy them at their own game because Ireland just isn't a financially solid enough country to ever win in a race to the bottom. They'd fail hard.
So yes, you're right, they could do that, but then they'd fail again, and then their people would be furious again, because this time external help wouldn't be forthcoming, so it probably wouldn't be the smartest of moves.
If Ireland really wants to carry on like this then it's welcome to leave the EU and do so, but it can't complain when it gets tarrifed through the roof and loses the financial cushion the EU provides. Alternatively, Ireland, could simply just stop trying and failing at being a tax haven and start actually trying to become a productive member of the global economy rather than a mere leech.
You know what they say, there aint no such thing as a free lunch, that remains true throughout all walks of life.
The EU as an orgnisation and the rest of the continent doesn't see a penny of the money, it all goes to Ireland who should've collected in the first place. In fact, maybe if Ireland had've collected it as it should've in the first place then it wouldn't have needed to borrow billions off the EU.
The EU gets nothing out of this, it's already lost money propping up a state that couldn't balance it's own books because it was busy failing at playing tax haven. Now that state is being told to start doing what it's legally agreed to do as an EU member in the first place, something that had it done, wouldn't have required EU money.
The only benefit the EU gets is that maybe it wont lose money bailing out Ireland again because it'll actually be collecting money it's owed in future.
I shudder to think what the iPhone 8 will be like when they find out that the capacitor is nearly 275 years old.
I'm a full on Snowden supporter, but I don't think it's demonising him to point out that this isn't too big a deal.
I'm concerned that the debate about security servers has descended to the point where people are basically just arguing they shouldn't exist.
I profoundly disagree, I think they serve an important purpose, to me the problem is that they've completely overstepped those bounds in recent decades but that doesn't mean I believe everything they do is wrong.
I disagree with the bulk collection of data, but if they're performing targeted interception against legitimate threats to the state, or are performing counter-intelligence against foreign state threats or similar, then to me that's exactly what they should be doing, and I don't really see what exposing that achieves - no shit, we know they're doing it, they're supposed to be doing it, it's their fundamental purpose.
I think this view that everything the security services does is evil and bad is fundamentally flawed, I think it's an argument that can't (and shouldn't) ever be won, and I think it gets in the way of legitimate criticism of situations where security agencies have overstepped the mark, by carrying out widespread spying on their own populace.
I think it's important people start making a distinction between spy agencies spying on who they're supposed to be spying on, and when they spy on people who have done nothing wrong. I think the argument holds a lot more weight in that context.
We need to know what Snowden has to say about them spying on their home population, and innocent people in other populations, but frankly I don't care about them spying on legitimate terrorist targets in Yemeni cyber cafes, it's what they're supposed to be fucking doing.
As I understand it, statistically the boomers are Trump's primary demographic, and his whole campaign is built on "I'm an outsider, don't trust the establishment!".
Whilst I don't disagree with what you're saying I think that suggests it's far more nuanced than that no?
You're showing a fundamental misunderstanding of the situation, it's not about whether we are or aren't affected by or do or don't affect natural selection, it's that ecosystems are complex systems, ones that we simply cannot accurately predict the result of changes on.
The issue is that we don't know what the effect of wiping out that species is, it may mean that they or species dependent on them as a food source also die out and that chain continues until some fundmentally important species to the ecosystem die out and the local ecosystem collapses.
It's precisely the problem that we are part of the ecosystem and that we simply do not know what the consequences of wiping a species out are. It's perfectly possible that more people will die from ecosystem collapse resulting from mosquito elimination than die from mosquito born diseases currently. Even wiping out mosquito born diseases can be problematic in that it can make way for new diseases that are more deadly to take their place.
No one with any scientific authority believes for one second that we're outside the forces of nature, on the contrary, they know we're bound by the forces of nature such that meddling with them can be dangerous for us, as well as our target of eradication. Saying we can kill what we want because we're the fittest is astoundingly naive as it assumes that nature can always support us no matter how much of it we destroy, but there reaches a tipping point where that's simply not true, and if we're destroying it to try and save lives there's every possibility we're actually doing the opposite and losing lives as a result.
This isn't just theory, there are many cases where it's born through into reality. People used to kill beavers in England for food to the point they were wiped out here, a classic case of survival of the fittest such that humans were avoiding starvation by eating beavers and used their pelts for clothing, except, because beavers were no longer building upland dams, heavy rains were no longer held back, and villages were wiped out and people killed by resultant floods. The result being that the human population also decreased in turn. This effect is still being felt to this very day where land clearance has created far greater harm from floods where people still die in England.
The issue is that we can't wipe out a species as an isolated event whereby there are no negative consequences for us.
The thing that actually makes us different is precisely the fact that we can reason about these things, many past extinctions such as certain mammoth populations were down to the fact that they over-grazed during extended dry periods and starved, were they able to reason about things like stock piling they may be around to this day, but for them sending the species of plants on which they grazed extinct was their own undoing. We're fortunate that we're able to reason against that same fate. Well, the intelligent amongst us are at least - I just hope we don't get outvoted by the sort of naive ignorance on such issues that suggest we can just wipe out species at will with no consequences based on a half arsed belief that we're part of nature so we can wipe out species under the guise of natural selection coupled with the hypocritical belief that we magically stop being part of nature when it comes back to bite us. It doesn't work like that, once you recognise the reality of biology and fitness you have to understand that it's a two way street - nature can destroy us, just as we can destroy it.
"What I have difficulty with is understanding what software of any significance in my life is actually written in Java."
Well if you've never used Amazon, eBay, Google, most Android apps, Minecraft, or used just about any bank, made any transaction via Visa/Mastercard, been served in a shop at a till point, or made an appointment and had your records tracked at a hospital or doctors, then I can understand why you'd think Java is irrelevant. I suspect most people have used those things, and as such, have used Java, even if indirectly.
Java is everywhere running so many key systems, you just don't see it, and that's because it's great at doing what it's supposed to do on large back end systems.
If you use Windows and just use desktop software, then yes, you're probably unlikely to see much other than C, C++, and .NET stuff (i.e. usually C#).
TIOBEs index is fundamentally flawed, I've posted here analysing why on numerous occasions and in great detail, and whilst my posts on the topic have always been modded to +5 Slashdot still regularly posts drivel based upon it, and people still seem to debate those stories even though they have exactly no merit whatsoever due to the fact the data behind the story is fundamentally broken.
I still have literally no idea why Slashdot posts stories based on TIOBE, and why anyone bothers to debate those stories as if the premise they're dragging from the index has any merit whatsoever. I can only assume TIOBE pays Slashdot for Slashvertisments at this point.
I'll give TIOBE credit, it has in the last year or so updated it's methodology to be slightly less than worthless rather than just completely worthless, but it's still ultimately just a shade of worthless in it's methodology. It looks like they're now using someone who passed high school statistics, rather than someone that failed it. They really need at absolute minimum a statistics graduate though if their index is to be of any value.
I've long said that if they want to drastically increase the value and worth of their index, then rather than counting how many results they get for "C Language" on YouTube, Amazon, Baidu, and Wikipedia which tells us pretty much nothing about it's usage, that they at least switch to using results from Jobsites, and open source project sites. That way they can start to measure what's actually being used, rather than what a bunch of unrelated search engines are confusing their search for.
Consider this, C++ is a (relatively) old language, but one that has been updated, by searching Amazon for "C++ Language" you may therefore get more books on it than any other language, but that tells us absolutely nothing about how much it's being used, as many people who read the early books may have long retired and the books may be entirely irrelevant now, but Amazon still lists them whilst newer C++ developers are buying the newer books it's possible that usage has stayed relatively static for example - the increase in books does not necessarily correlate to an increase in developers. The same problem rings true in other ways for all their other search results.
By using job sites it may still not tell us anything about retirement, but it does at least tell us the trend. Using open source repositorites can be a good indicator of actual usage, though it misses out the entirety of the corporate closed source world which may or may not use a completely different set of technologies.
So whilst TIOBE currently tells us nothing of value, it could be changed to tell us what companies are hiring for and hence using or intending to use, which is helpful, or it could tell us what open source projects are using, which is useful information as it gives you an idea of what open source developers are choosnig to use even if it's not necessarily representative of the whole market.
Short version: TIOBE needs to change it's methology to be meaningful, or Slashdot needs to stop posting stories based on it that are almost certanily incorrect, or at least aren't verifiable by anything from TIOBE.
Someone else suggested that when I've mentioned this before, but the issue is that MSN used a Hotmail account that I had set up years ago specifically for MSN, whereas LinkedIn used one of my actual proper e-mail addresses.
If I had to guess it would be that MS was transferring IP address data of machines we connected with + real names.
Now I'm usually one to jump on bad stats given that I took a further degree in stats, but the first line of TFA answers your question:
"The study entitled State of Mobile Device Performance and Health focuses on the second quarter of 2016"
58% of all iOS devices sounds way too high for sure, until you recognise their broad definition of failure which can include failing to connect to WiFi, app crashes and so on.
So effectively the study is saying that in Q2 2016 58% of iOS devices suffered some sort of fault, but that fault might not actually be a big deal.
Beyond that I didn't read the report because I couldn't be bothered to sign up even with my junk details, so I can't really comment on how accurate their methodology might be, and hence how accurate their results might be, but if you're interested it's here:
http://info.blancco.com/state-...
I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility that 58% of iOS devices suffered some kind of glitch in that period - all it would take is one buggy release of a popular app such as Facebook and the number is bound to shoot right up without it ever really being Apple's fault (beyond arguably not better vetting the quality of updates of apps perhaps).
When I Googled the report though, the first result was actually the 2016 Q1 report, where the results are the exact opposite:
http://www2.blancco.com/en/res...
I suspect therefore one of two things, either it is as I say and one broken major software release on a device or set of devices can greatly sway the stats in a quarter due to their broad definition of "fault" or they're just making these numbers up as a clickbait to try and get you to sign up to build up their userbase for monetisation purposes through ad revenue or similar.
I'm swaying towards the second, not that I'm a cynic or anything :)
I had a friend on MSN messenger who I knew in real life, we'd never connected on the internet in any other way whatsoever so the only way to link us was via MSN.
I was on LinkedIn but only with 10 or so contacts, all of whom were recruiters and had no common links between me and my friend on MSN.
One day when I logged into LinkedIn it suggested my friend from MSN as a contact, given that the only way to link us was via MSN it was clear that long before MS bought LinkedIn it was engaging in illegal data sales/transfers with LinkedIn and LinkedIn was willing to buy/accept illegal data too, and use it to try and grow it's business.
It seems that pretty much all big tech companies violate data protection laws. The law just seems to not get enforced against them.
Facebook already does this, they're in flagrant violation of European data protection laws, but for some reason no one is touching them, it's frustrating.
For example, I installed the Facebook app on my phone and have never given Facebook my phone number. Next time I logged in on my PC it prompted me to add my phone number with a textbox and an add button, except the phone number was pre-populated with my phone number, they were effectively asking me to confirm it by asking me to add it, because they'd very clearly already taken it, illegaly, from my phone, to pre-populate their add textbox (I don't use any kind of auto-fill, it was Facebook's actual website populating it).
This is a complete farce, because they're taking and storing data they have no right to have and then asking you to click a button to make it legal - the fact they even ask you to add it with this pre-populated box means they're completely aware they're breaking the law because it is simply asking you to click the button so that they're compliant. This isn't accidental violation, this is wilful violation, so they should be getting fined the maximum amount by all Data Protection agencies across Europe already.
Apparently you can opt-out of this new WhatsApp data transfer when it comes along, but what's the bet if you opt-out the data still gets sent regardless?
Actually I completely agree that there are some arguments for US single country stewardship and you're right, removing that risk scenario is absolutely one of them, my argument was simply that freedom of speech isn't an argument for US stewardship because it already enforces worse censorship on the net than any other country because US censorship is applied to all 7.4 billion people in the world, whereas even Chinese censorship only hits their 1.3 billion own citizens.
Though as I say I personally don't really think that argument wins over even though I agree it's not entirely unreasonable. The reason I think this is because if the US was willing to sacrifice it's veto in a multi-country stewardship environment, what's to stop it doing so now? Can we really guarantee the US wont agree to arrest, deport, and take down the domains of Chinese dissidents in return for, say, China agreeing to actually enforce copyright laws? If we can't trust them to do it in a multi-country stewardship environment, then why would we trust them to do it outside of that? The point being that in a multi-country environment where the whole world is involved you have to convince each and every single country in the world of each and every measure, that in my view, is far less risky than just having to convince one country.
To be clear I wasn't referring to the entire continents - only a handful of European countries engage in holocaust denial censorship for example (the UK doesn't, but it does engage in US style copyright censorship).
My point was simply that there is censorship coming from every corner of the globe, and the number of trustworthy stewards on any continent is small. You're absolutely right, Brasil wouldn't be a bad steward, I was thinking more of nations like Venezuela for what it's worth.
"Like I said, America isn't perfect, but on this issue I trust the US a hell of a lot more than I do any other country."
But this in itself is just nationalist patriotism, the US has a long history of censorship on the internet via things like ICE domain seizures, which unlike, say, China's censorship, enforce censorship globally to every country, not just the country engaging in censorship (the US).
If you believe in single country stewardship if that country would offer better protections than any other then it's nonsensical to favour the US over many others. If you're going for single country stewardship then why not go for a country that has a much better track record on political neutrality, political transparency, and freedom, such as Sweden, Switzerland, New Zealand or similar?
Personally I think single country stewardship is a bad idea though regardless, in Asia there is censorship over blasphemy, Europe it's holocaust denial, in South America it's criticising government, and in North America it's defying the copyright cartels. All-country stewardship where changes can only occur based on 100% consensus is the only way to really protect free speech on the internet because that way you get all the benefits of the US veto you have currently but with the added advantage of countries like Russia and China being willing to block US copyright censorship.
Long story short though, there is no rational reason to prefer US single country stewardship if you believe in freedom and openness of the internet, and if you do so then it's because you're letting nationalism take priority over the things you're professing to want to protect. That is, when you say you trust the US more, what you're saying is "I want our guys to retain control, even if that means a bit of censorship" - you're arguing in favour of US control and NOT freedom from censorship, because the US already engages in that in a manner that effects everyone across the globe, not just those inside it's borders.
Really, if the US were a good steward of internet freedom then rather than engaging in global censorship via domain seizures it would set up it's own Chinese style great firewall and just block it's own citizens from accessing those sites it finds offensive such that it's politics remains only a problem for it's own people, and not censorship for every single person on the planet, including the 7billion+ that live outside of it's borders.
I have answered it, and you're apparnetly incapable of understanding it. Repeating a questiond doesn't make the answer go away no matter how inconvenient for your lack of knowledge of the topic.
Oh god, I give up, I've answered all your questions and you still don't get it, it turns out you sadly really are just not intelligent enough for this discussion. I've explained the way international law works on issues like this and you still don't get it posing once again, a question already answered.
Argentina didn't become a 3rd world nation because it still adhered to international law in restructuring it's debts, and settling the others in court. What you're talking about is working outside the established precedent of using the UN's ICJ as arbitrater because you're arguing that Scotland should ignore precedent and rulings from the ICJ.
You really have no fucking clue, no matter what currency Scotland would take upon independence it gets saddled with it's population proportional share of national debt (and national assets), that's really all there is to it but that's reality, those are the facts, you can disagree all you want but you're still completely and utterly wrong at the end of the day. If you want to keep being a fuckwit about it then fine, that's entirely your choice, it will never make you right however, you'll still be wrong because you just have no idea what you're talking about as you keep proving, yet you harp on with incorrect drivel regardless.
FWIW, this is the industry I work in, I'm an actual professional on this issue, I understand all this, you clearly are not, and clearly do not. Get over yourself and stop pretending you have any clue about something you blatantly don't have a clue about.
"Do you even understand the basics of how government is structured in the UK? It's not at all based on the the "UK government" owning everything, it's based on powers granted by Acts to create and control institutions."
And which can be revoked, and return control to central government, which is the ultimate controlling authority.
Yes, congratulations, you're beginning to get it now.
"No, that's just an argument that was used in a specific case relating to other countries in differing situations. Please state precisely which law would require Scotland to accept this debt. Is it somewhere in the Acts enabling devolution, for example?"
It doesn't matter if it chooses to accept it or not, the fact is it'll be assigned to it, and if it doesn't pay it then it defaults. It doesn't matter what a difficult independent Scotland would choose to do, if it wants to become an international pariah and ignore international norms it can, but it'll still be held against the proportion of debt assigned to it and still be held in default if it doesn't pay. You seem to think it's all Scotland's choice, but it's not, there are two parties to an independence agreement which is precisely why Salmond's fantasy ideas about being able to unilaterally refuse debt were always complete nonsense. Scotland isn't about to just shun the world just so it can get away with it's debts, leaving itself entirely unable to trade and entirely unable to get credit ever again as a result. It wouldn't be that difficult because the cost would outweigh the cost of accepting it's apportioned share of debt by several orders of magnitude. No one leading an independent Scotland would ever do anything so stupid as you're suggesting as to become a isolation 3rd world international pariah just to dodge it's debt obligations.
"Courts don't just make decisions based on what they feel is fair, they interpret and apply the law. If there is no written law covering Scotland that says they get a proportion of the debt, they don't get it, simple as that."
Actually yes, some of them do, you're probably one of those people that think that criminal courts are the only type of court in existence and that all law mirrors and models that. It doesn't. The whole point in courts of arbitration for example are to determine fair outcomes without any written law. Your argument falls flat regardless, because there's similarly no law stating that the UK has to retain all the debt either, what the fuck do you think happens to it then? It doesn't just disappear just because there's no written law saying explicitly who gets what in the case of a split between the specific case between Scotland and rUK.
You're still in this mindset that Scotland is somehow special and unique, it isn't, it's just one part of the UK breaking away from another, just like when the Czech Republic and Slovakia stopped being Czechoslovakia, and when South Sudan and Sudan stopped being just Sudan. The fact Scotland has a distinct name simply does not matter, it's still just a part of the UK splitting away from another part of the UK and you can't pretend that only one part gets lumbered with the debt (but not the assets).
But it's clear you're determined not to get this and to keep playing stupid just because you like to stick it to rUK even though you're doing nothing but harming the cause of Scottish independence in the process by persisting discredited myth about what could happen post independence. If people like you keep spouting drivel then there's no hope for Scottish independence because the people of Scotland will continued to be put off by wishful thinking rather than pragmatic fact.
You're still talking completely fantastical drivel, and you're backing it up with outright fabrications and ignorance of the answers I've already given you.
The Isle of Man has a completely different relationship with the UK, it's a crown depedency, Scotland isn't, it's part of the UK proper and still is funded entirely from the UK treasury regardless of what agreements have been raised as to how much Scotland gets from the treasury.
"True but totally irrelevant. You can't pass debt to your dependants without their agreement. Scotland will simply start its own account at zero and rise its own revenue, rather than writing the rUK a cheque and beginning in the red."
Scotland isn't a dependency, it's a part of sovereign UK territory. Your argument is still completely based on fantasy. You still don't even understand Scotland's relationship with the UK which means you're not even remotely in a position to be arguing this. You say there's no legal basis, except there is - every split of a sovereign state in two in modern history. It even works the opposite way - when East and West Germany unified they couldn't say "Hah, our debts no longer exist, because East and West Germany have gone and they've gone with it!", Germany just inherited both states assets and debts. Czechoslovakia, former Yugoslavian states, Sudan, it's always the same. You're just outright denying reality by pretending there is no precedent backed by the ICJ. Your arguments about French ex-dependencies is equally similarly ignorant in that they were depedencies and not part of France proper as Scotland is the UK. It's an inconvenient reality for you that Scotland is a proper part of the UK, not a mere crown depedency, not that that even realistically helps this particular argument anyway - even a crown depedency would have to pay back anything owed to the UK if it chose to no longer be a dependency, but crown dependency are already typically independent enough that they do not share the UK's treasury.
"Scotland, by the laws passed to enact devolution, has control over some spending. However, you are right, technically many assets in Scotland do belong to the UK. When independence happens some of them will be moved back to the UK, like the nuclear submarines stationed up there. You can't really move buildings though, so they will have to be abandoned by the rUK. Again, the rUK can't force Scotland to pay for them, there is no legal basis for that, but it can't remove them either."
This is again a completely nonsensical argument. Your view is effectively that Scotland can negotiate away it's debt share by giving up all the assets, but because some assets can't be moved out of Scotland then Scotland gets to keep them even though it's refusing the debts that paid for them - that will never fly, and never has flown at the ICJ. Scotland either lets rUK keep them and pays whatever rent the UK wants to impose on them, or it takes them and accepts a respective share of debt to pay for them.
"Look at how local government works in the UK. Councils are given money to spend my central government. The things they buy belong to them. It's similar to how if you give your girlfriend money to buy clothes you can't just demand them back when you break up. The law recognises that once you give money away in good faith, that's it. It doesn't become a debt or leverage."
Really? So explain how the UK government seized Rotherham council when it started to fail? What about the numerous council purchased schools over the years that were doing such a bad job that central government seized control of them to sort them out.
"The things they buy belong to them. It's similar to how if you give your girlfriend money to buy clothes you can't just demand them back when you break up."
This is also fundamentally wrong, you're getting your understanding of credit wrong not just at a sovereign debt level, but at an organisational and personal level too. You've really not thought this through, in the not uncommon scenario that a couple with
"You are going to have to cite the law that says this is the case. Please also explain how this "share" is calculated."
I suggest you look at the international standards for past splits - Czechoslovakia for example.
I don't understand why you're asking again how the share is calculated? I can't tell if you're really as dumb as you're sounding at this point as you've been told multiple times already. Population proportional share. Can you not read this or something? do you have some kind of browser plugin that filters inconvenient facts? you're asking a question three times that's been answered three times, I'm astounded that you're entirely incapable of taking this simple aspect in for some reason.
"Sorry, I wasn't clear enough for you. I meant that the assets belonging to the former masters were written off, they didn't try to put a monetary value on them and then use them to proportion debt to the former colonies."
Again, you're using the term written off, you have to explain why you think Scotland would be justified in achieving a debt write off from it's creditors if you think that's a wait it could evade paying it's proportion of UK national debt.
I don't think you really understand how international law, particularly pertaining to the ICJ works. There isn't a global law book that references these things, there are international treaties and national laws which the ICJ can rule on. The UK (and other countries that have split) have combined treasuries, that is, there is effectively one national bank account in simplistic terms. All revenue is collected by HMRC into that pot, even in Scotland, and Scotland then receives a share of that pot to spend how it sees fit based on national law (e.g. the Barnett formula), but that pot isn't big enough to cover all spending (i.e. the bailout of banks like RBS) based on income alone, and has been buffered up with credit (that obviously creates debt), thus a percentage of the income Scotland receives has been that credit (and hence that debt). There is no separation in that account such that the debt has only been added to rUK's pile because there is no separation of piles at the point debt is obtained. Scotland cannot say therefore that it has not benefited from the debt, because there's no way it can prove it (and besides, it has).
Your argument appears to be that because Scotland isn't in charge of this pool of money, that it shouldn't be saddled with the debt, but that inherently means that the converse is true, that it also cannot accept anything purchased from that fund either, which means every publicly purchased thing in Scotland from Holyrood to the roads, to the oil transport infrastructure are owned by rUK also. You cannot take the assets, but not take the debt, debt is merely a negative value asset and hence is treated exactly like any other asset.
If anything, as the Barnett formula disproportionately benefits Scotland any court might in fact rule that Scotland should in fact take a higher than population proportional share of debt if it went to court, because Scotland has historically taken a larger share of the pot than is population proportional (because under Barnett population proportion was miscalculated) and hence Scotland must also have taken a larger than population proportional share of debt based finance too. I suspect in practice the rUK government wouldn't feel it was worth the time pushing that and would stick to a population proportional share however.
If Scotland had been neglected by the rest of the country, for example say it had been left to rot with literally no national income then it might have a case, but it gains a slightly higher than proportional share, so it simply would have no leg to stand on in arguing it should take no debt upon independence.
You're really out of your depth here and you keep talking complete nonsense and asking questions that have been answered three times already. I think it's probably time you let it go and accept that you commented on something you simply don't
"Of course it does, that's just a bizarre statement... Do you also think that local councils can't have debts, "because they are not independent countries"? I'll try telling my bank I don't have any debts because I'm not an "independent country"."
I don't know why you're even engaging in a discussion like this if you don't know the difference between national debt, organisational debt, and personal debt. I don't believe you're really that stupid though are you? You're just arguing because you want to try and pretend Scotland could somehow lump rUK with all it's debt including the share accumulated on Scottish spending, even though that's completely nonsensical fantasy.
"If the UK government borrows money, that debt belongs to the UK government"
Yes, and Scotland is funded by... guess what, the UK government, because, well, it's part of the UK. Scotland doesn't have it's own version of HMRC so doesn't even collect income generated in Scotland - it's all still pulled from the UK central pot.
"When Soctland becomes independent, only the Scottish government's debt will have to go with it, everything else is a matter of negotiation."
No, automatically Scotland's population proportional share of the UK's national debt goes with it, along with Scotland's population proportional share of UK assets. THAT is the baseline, everything from there is the matter of negotiation. If Scotland wants independence with no debt, it has to figure out how the hell it's going to negotiate it. I suppose theoretically it could if for example it was willing to allow rUK to retain sovereignty over North Sea oil field territories or similar perhaps, but I doubt that's likely given that was the entire basis of Salmond's economic plan.
"but the UK government isn't going to just say "those debts are Scotland's now" and default on them."
It's not the UK that would say that, it's the ICJ whose ruling will be that adhered to by every single international creditor from whom Scotland may wish to borrow money.
"All those African ex-colonies that "benefited" from European military protection, infrastructure investment and the like. When they became independent most of it was just written off by their former masters, and the former colonists didn't take on a proportion of the debt."
Right, but you've explicitly pointed out you're talking about situations of written off debt. Why would anyone write off Scotland's population proportional percentage of debt? It's not the sympathy case that many African countries were when they obtained a write off. Furthermore, Scotland's share of debt wouldn't be owed to rUK, it would be owed to the creditors of the debt themselves, so it wouldn't even be rUK's decision anyway. Argentina couldn't even get certain US creditors to write off it's debt after actual bankruptcy and more than a decade later.
"Think about what you are saying for a moment. How would the percentage of debt given to Scotland be calculated? By the rUK government? What if they calculated 99%?"
Erm, I've said this already a few times - it's done based on population proportional percentage. That is the baseline for independence negotiations, it works the exact same way for assets.