More importantly, does it matter? Why should we care if some landlord (or business owner in general) is racist?
"Oh, but the poor Asians won't have anywhere to live!" Yeah, right. Even if the vast majority of landlords were biased against (say) Asians, all it takes is one unbiased landlord to make a killing by catering to a vastly under-served market. Then the biased landlords either lose out on much potential profit, or they throw away their biases in order to compete.
Interestingly, many people are convinced that businesses will do absolutely anything to make a buck, yet somehow have no problem believing that those same businesses would throw away absurd amounts of potential revenue due to racism or other prejudice. Even if a business were willing to shoot itself in the foot like that, other businesses would simply prosper more and eventually replace the prejudiced business.
All of this assumes, of course, that the prejudices in question are not justified. If one of them is, though, what business does the government have stepping in? In your example, if 99% of the landlord's Asian renters do, in fact, mess up his drains, isn't it completely reasonable for him to be wary of renting to other Asians?
Woah, you mean Microsoft charges the price that will bring in the most revenue, rather than basing the price on their fixed costs? Amazing. Next you'll tell us that their finance guys have a better grasp on economics than the average Slashdotter...
I used Thunderbird 1.x for a long time, and was pretty satisfied with it as an email client. But once I switched to GMail, the only thing I used Thunderbird for was RSS feeds, and it sucked royally at that. For example, trying to keep RSS feeds arranged in folders would have fun effects like not being able to delete the feeds, or the feeds failing to check for new items!
Eventually it drove me so insane that I switched to Google Reader, which I am still using despite several flaws. Does anyone know if Thunderbird 2 has improved its RSS support?
The cosntitutiomn was ment as a way to presever our rights as humand... But then any lawer and paid by the government judge will make swish chease of even the most simplest of rights.
Much like you're making "swish chease" out of the English language. I think I lose a few I.Q. points each time I read your post.
Do generics actually add any complexity in that case, though? Even without generics you still have to know the types of everything involved-- generics just make that explicit so the compiler can check it for you. If it's the syntax you're talking about, it seems to me no more and no less complex than necessary (though the angle-bracket notation was already familiar to me from C++ templates).
You're missing a major reason why HTML hasn't gotten the kind of drop-dead easy WYSIWYG editors that Postscript has: web pages typically have dynamic layouts and, more and more often nowadays, interactive elements. Postscript is designed to show static content in one way and one way only, which makes it MUCH easier for software to deal with. If that were all we needed from web pages, we'd all be using "index.pdf" now.
Actually that quote originally comes from the French poet Baudelaire in the 1864 short story "Le Joueur généreux." The Usual Suspects just popularized it.
The plural of the English word "metropolis" is, indeed, "metropolises." If you want to be pretentious, the Latin plural is "metropoles," and the ancient Greek plural is "metropoleis." "Metropoli" is only used by idiots who don't know Latin but like to pretend they do, and "metropolii" is right out.
Some 'harms' are illegal and some harms are not (as implied by your statement) precisely because we consider the nature and extent of the harm in order to determine its relevancy to the issue at hand.
No, I would say the reason some of them are and some of them aren't is that 'harm' is not (or again, should not be) a factor in deciding whether something is illegal in the first place. The amount of harm may, of course, factor into the amount of restitution, etc., but that is different.
For example, suppose I really, really enjoy looking at my neighbor's garden across the street. So much so that it has become my only reason for living, in fact. So if my neighbor decides to move or get rid of his garden, it would result in a very large amount of harm to me, much more than the posited harm to artists in our case. But that does not mean my neighbor wrongs me by doing so.
If it takes me 1,000 hours to write my novel is it fair that anyone else can come and copy it and sell it?
Yes, if you give that person access to it without conditions on it (a contract), or if he somehow gets access to it without going through you and without violating your other rights (e.g. if there's already a copy floating around on the net, or if he happens to create a very similar work independently).
Both taxes and eminent domain demonstrate that we do, in fact, strike a balance in this case as well.
Both of those examples also happen to be unjust. Admittedly, that does make my analogy less than perfect, but it does not affect the basic argument.
It's called the tragedy of the commons. If everyone can profit from an copying from an invention as much as from inventing the invention, then everyone has the incentive *not* to be the one that does the hard work of inventing.
I think you mean the free rider problem. In any case, how do you then explain the success of open source software? The free rider problem can be overcome in more ways than one, and copyright is not a particularly good method of doing so.
You take away the option to get paid, and only the people willing to make music for free will make it.
That's a false dilemma: live shows would still charge admission, for example. Sure, people could tape the performance and spread it over the net (again assuming they didn't sign any contracts when they entered the show), but clearly there would still be a demand for live performances.
Furthermore, I think you underestimate the human drive to create. People were creating things long before there was copyright, and will continue to do so once it is gone. Being able to make a living by doing so in a certain way is not a prerequisite.
Copyright is supposed to strike a balance between the needs of the creator (income) and the needs of society (entertainment, culture)...
Why must we "strike a balance" in copyright law? Do physical property laws "strike a balance"? No, what's mine is mine, and what's your is yours, period. So why does physical property not have a limited term, as copyright does? That's because physical property is a far more natural and just construct than is so-called "intellectual property"; most people can see how ridiculous it would be to have unlimited terms on copyright and patents. But that just shows that the idea of intellectual property itself is fundamentally flawed: trying to restrict the flow of information artificially is not only unjust, but impossible in the long run ("like trying to make water not wet," as Bruce Schneier said).
...removing all copyrights will in the end hurt artists...
Even if that were true, it's irrelevant. Not everything that harms someone is (or should be) illegal.
...the variety, quality, and breadth of works currently available will definitely decrease.
I disagree. The total quantity of works produced might decrease, but I think the variety would actually increase. Think how much of the music sold today is unimaginative dreck from pop stars backed by the big record companies, and imagine that bands started making more of their money from live shows instead. That seems likely to increase the overall variety of the market, and certainly would give creative, non-mainstream bands more room to succeed.
...so there will be virtually no professional, full-time artists of any kind ever again. That, to me, is insane.
Why? Is the concept of a "professional artist" somehow sacred? Anyway, this is not true: think of musicians who make a living doing live shows. Maybe that wouldn't work for some types of artists, but again, why should they be guaranteed a certain way of making money?
It would take an inordinate amount of energy to collect space debris in that manner, according to two scientists from NASA's Orbital Debris Section (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetes#_note-11).
+5 insightful? What is this crap? Yeah, like the Hershey's cartel is really going to hire a bunch of goons to "take care of" a rogue chocolate maker...
This is the oldest criticism of anarchism. It is also wrong, but I will not bother to debate your point since you have not even made any arguments to support it.
if you don't understand why, you don't understand human nature.
Humans are indeed selfish and greedy. However, combined with our ingenuity, those are the same properties that make free markets work so well. If you don't understand why, you don't understand human nature. (See? I can make baseless, borderline-ad-hominem statements, too.)
i'm certain in your thought experiments anarchy really rocks, but in the real world, populated by real human beings, it is basically the definition of suckage
Oh? You have extensive personal experience with anarchy? No? Then your certainty about how the "real world" works is no less speculative than is mine.
please move to somalia where you can experience your glorious anarchy...
This argument presupposes that there is only one form of anarchy that could arise, and that Somalia is an example of it. In reality, many of the things that are (or were) wrong with Somalia are due to previous government interference-- the situation there is much better now than it was in 1991 when Siad Barré was overthrown (see this 2004 World Bank report, for example). Furthermore, my personal preferences are irrelevant to a general discussion of anarchism, so attacking the fact that I do not live in Somalia is a logical fallacy.
...and leave the rest of us with a better grasp on human nature with the pursuit of a sound government we deserve
Here, at least, I agree with you: you and your ilk do richly deserve the "sound government" you get.
to paraphrase winston churchill: democracy is the worst form of government devised, except for all of the other types of government
That may indeed be true, but of course there is another option: no government at all. That most people don't see anarchocapitalism as a realistic option is merely a result of the status quo-- we have government, ergo having a government is the way things should and must be. In fact, governments are neither necessary nor just; if you are interested in hearing the arguments on this, there are plenty of them available online (e.g. this recent article from the Mises Institute).
but if a democracy is populated by those who think helpessly, like slaves, like, you, then democracy does not work
No, democracy does not work, period. It's broken to begin with.
no, you're not helpless, your vote counts. you only think that way because you have been trained like a dog in a cage.
No, the reason some people think that way is that they understand some basic fucking mathematics. Probability and statistics, specifically. Kind of like how anyone who knows a little math doesn't play the lottery with an expectation of making money in the long run-- it's a loser's game.
You can keep deluding yourself into thinking that if only enough people cared, like you, then things would magically get better. Those of us who can see that the system is broken will be working on improving things in more productive ways, thank you.
Even if you believe that your vote doesn't matter what do you lose from voting besides time ?
Besides time? Time, the single most limited resource each of us has?
Psst, I hear that standing in your yard and yelling at the top of your lungs will affect the outcome of an election. Even if you believe it doesn't do anything, what do you lose by doing so besides time?
If that doesn't matter to you then, by all means, stay home and jerk off while others who actually care go out and try to change things for the better.
Ah, the classic ad hominem attack. Kind of comforting, really-- some things never change, like the fact that people who have no real arguments will resort to insulting their opponents.
Even if they're just wasting their time at least they're actually doing something.
You actually have the gall to berate people for not "wasting their time"? Fantastic.
Slashdot Mirror
Again, why should we care if that happens? If Italians want to associate only with other Italians, isn't that their right?
Furthermore, do you actually believe that laws could stop them from doing so?
"Oh, but the poor Asians won't have anywhere to live!" Yeah, right. Even if the vast majority of landlords were biased against (say) Asians, all it takes is one unbiased landlord to make a killing by catering to a vastly under-served market. Then the biased landlords either lose out on much potential profit, or they throw away their biases in order to compete.
Interestingly, many people are convinced that businesses will do absolutely anything to make a buck, yet somehow have no problem believing that those same businesses would throw away absurd amounts of potential revenue due to racism or other prejudice. Even if a business were willing to shoot itself in the foot like that, other businesses would simply prosper more and eventually replace the prejudiced business.
All of this assumes, of course, that the prejudices in question are not justified. If one of them is, though, what business does the government have stepping in? In your example, if 99% of the landlord's Asian renters do, in fact, mess up his drains, isn't it completely reasonable for him to be wary of renting to other Asians?
The saying is "the proof of the pudding is in the eating." The OP's (commonly mistaken) version makes no sense.
I know this is a poor substitute, but you can edit your userChrome.css file to change the size of Firefox's search bar.
Come now, he's simply trying to embiggen the language. "GravityZood" is a perfectly cromulent word.
Woah, you mean Microsoft charges the price that will bring in the most revenue, rather than basing the price on their fixed costs? Amazing. Next you'll tell us that their finance guys have a better grasp on economics than the average Slashdotter...
I used Thunderbird 1.x for a long time, and was pretty satisfied with it as an email client. But once I switched to GMail, the only thing I used Thunderbird for was RSS feeds, and it sucked royally at that. For example, trying to keep RSS feeds arranged in folders would have fun effects like not being able to delete the feeds, or the feeds failing to check for new items!
Eventually it drove me so insane that I switched to Google Reader, which I am still using despite several flaws. Does anyone know if Thunderbird 2 has improved its RSS support?
QED = Quod erat demonstrandum.
QUED = ?
I think the apathy in this case is due more to the fact that pretty much everyone expected this result.
Do generics actually add any complexity in that case, though? Even without generics you still have to know the types of everything involved-- generics just make that explicit so the compiler can check it for you. If it's the syntax you're talking about, it seems to me no more and no less complex than necessary (though the angle-bracket notation was already familiar to me from C++ templates).
You're missing a major reason why HTML hasn't gotten the kind of drop-dead easy WYSIWYG editors that Postscript has: web pages typically have dynamic layouts and, more and more often nowadays, interactive elements. Postscript is designed to show static content in one way and one way only, which makes it MUCH easier for software to deal with. If that were all we needed from web pages, we'd all be using "index.pdf" now.
Actually that quote originally comes from the French poet Baudelaire in the 1864 short story "Le Joueur généreux." The Usual Suspects just popularized it.
The plural of the English word "metropolis" is, indeed, "metropolises." If you want to be pretentious, the Latin plural is "metropoles," and the ancient Greek plural is "metropoleis." "Metropoli" is only used by idiots who don't know Latin but like to pretend they do, and "metropolii" is right out.
For example, suppose I really, really enjoy looking at my neighbor's garden across the street. So much so that it has become my only reason for living, in fact. So if my neighbor decides to move or get rid of his garden, it would result in a very large amount of harm to me, much more than the posited harm to artists in our case. But that does not mean my neighbor wrongs me by doing so.
Furthermore, I think you underestimate the human drive to create. People were creating things long before there was copyright, and will continue to do so once it is gone. Being able to make a living by doing so in a certain way is not a prerequisite.
It would take an inordinate amount of energy to collect space debris in that manner, according to two scientists from NASA's Orbital Debris Section (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetes#_note-11).
+5 insightful? What is this crap? Yeah, like the Hershey's cartel is really going to hire a bunch of goons to "take care of" a rogue chocolate maker...
You can keep deluding yourself into thinking that if only enough people cared, like you, then things would magically get better. Those of us who can see that the system is broken will be working on improving things in more productive ways, thank you.
Psst, I hear that standing in your yard and yelling at the top of your lungs will affect the outcome of an election. Even if you believe it doesn't do anything, what do you lose by doing so besides time? Ah, the classic ad hominem attack. Kind of comforting, really-- some things never change, like the fact that people who have no real arguments will resort to insulting their opponents. You actually have the gall to berate people for not "wasting their time"? Fantastic.