And the belief that because the product is more than the poster wants to pay, why then it MUST be overpriced
Unless I'm mistaken, isn't that precisely the definition of 'overpriced'?
An item is overpriced if the sticker price is higher than the market will bear - meaning, you are losing money by keeping the price higher.
Do Fry's or Best Buy ask themselves "perhaps the way to lower shrinkage is to lower our prices?".
Shoplifting (especially at those two stores) seldom has anything to do with demand for the product and more to do with the shoplifter's emotional state. Obviously I recognize that that kind of blanket generality has its exceptions, but it seems that there are often other motives.
But on Slashdot, pricing strategy is the alpha and the omega of the piracy industry.
I have to agree with you because I haven't really seen many posts to the contrary.
There have been a few notable ones though, but my favorite, and the one that really helped me understand alot of what is going on (and what is at stake) was this post yesterday by mrchaotica. Be sure to read the links to Jefferson's writings on copyright at the end of his post.
This has nothing to do with people freeloading music, and the RIAA/MPAA being the "bad guy" in that situation is still not ample justification for not paying Tool today.
It has everything to do with it. Even more than that, the RIAA/MPAA really are not the 'bad guys' in this situation - they are acting as the law allows them to. The problem is with the law, and with those who sponsored it, wrote it, and voted for it.
I would discuss this myself, but I think another poster has elucidated the issue very well:
The problem is, the RIAA/MPAA and those who supported such copyright legislation are the ones who have broken their part of the social contract - the public is still attempting to exercise THEIR part of that contract by pirating. I am not attempting to make an argument for piracy - I am attempting to point out that the issue is far more complicated than "Stealing isn't right even if the owner is evil."
I make no claim that the US has never made a mistep or wronged certain people. However, the line of thinking you're walking down makes Muslims the perpetual victims, unable to do anything but react to the west.
Hmmm. I see where you're coming from.
I keep telling myself I'm going to stop posting on Slashdot, for precisely this reason. I don't know what it is about this site in particular, but I have a hard time here fulfilling the responsibility of my moniker, whereas elsewhere I have no such trouble (that is, stating my position and giving equal time to what I would consider pertinent parts of the opposing position).
I've actually experienced this before, and it's sort of something that tells me it's time to walk away from a particular board; which is, when almost all posts are reactive in any measure, discussion of any sort becomes difficult (if not impossible). I see that alot here and it's very frustrating.
I say all that simply to say, what you state was not my intention. I did not mean to create a group of reactors by implication; I meant only that insofar as the situation there IS the fault of Western nations, they should take responsibility for that fault and not resort to playing stupid when asked why these people are behaving this way. And insofar as the responsibility is on the shoulders of Muslim culture and the extremists themselves, that responsibility is theirs and not something we can control.
You can either find a way to get along with the others, or you can go off and live by yourself.
It's funny you should say that...
For many thousands of years of our history, people did exactly that - go off and live somewhere else.
We're no longer able to do that.. and we see the results. The worst wars our civilization has ever witnessed, more death and destruction than we'd ever have imagined ourselves capable of, poverty and suffering on a scale never seen to the world..
Our culture never tried to find a way to get along with others.. it has always either assimilated or destroyed. There is no enlightenment.
I'm really not responding to you specifically though, just using the thought as a jumping off point. If something I said offended you don't take it personally. (I think I'm going to start adding that standard disclaimer in my sig:P Slashdot commenters like to fight alot nowadays... maybe i'm new here.)
It's amazing how much even moderate dissent frightens some people.
Well.. I've found it to be a pretty common occurance on Slashdot. Most times, if you say something that is a little controversial, you'll get 'Insightful' or 'Informative'.
REALLY offend someone's sensibilities, and you'll get 'Troll', even if you're being completely intellectually honest.
I love it when people entirely miss the point and pick some tiny detail they think is going to change the argument (and this goes to everyone else who felt the need to argue this point, too).
My point was, experience begets ideology - terrorists do not become so for no reason at all, and you would be hard pressed to argue 'insanity' as the root cause (all of them? at the same time? For the same reasons?).
So you're forced to look elsewhere for a cause. Whether you take freedom or you take food, you still TAKE - and it is THAT which people fight.
So please, go on. All you're doing is refusing to listen.
Wow. Very well stated.. thanks. People simply seem to refuse to understand that experience makes the monster.. nobody is born that way.
But recognizing that experience is the culprit puts the responsibility for the problem squarely back on the shoulders of the US and other nations, and that's just something we can't abide... it would mean we'd have to do something about it instead of shreaking "militant muslim!!!" at the top of our lungs in order to drown out all possible counter-arguments.
Have you ever even played chess? It annoys the hell out of me when people use chess as an example when they want to sound deep or clever.
Have you ever actually read anything besides your own posts? You strike me as one of those people who gets all hot and bothered at others for no other purpose than hearing the sound of your own voice (or reading your own posts, in this case).
Apparently you're incapable of recognizing a literary device when you see one. Oh sorry, that would make it pretty hard for you to make love to your own opinions.
Seriously, I will not reply to you again because I am sick and tired of people like you refusing to actually have a normal discussion about topics that really do not warrant the kind of response you gave me. I initially signed up for a username because I thought it would be nice to participate in the discussions a little - and I still do.
Posts like yours, however, are not intended for 'discussion' - they are intended for flame wars.
And yet they have in no way improved their own lot. You would think there would be some "try to improve the situation for ourselves" angle but they seem perfectly happy to kill themselves, draw their enemies into conflicts where their homes are destroyed, and alienate those who would have otherwise supported their cause. Just exerting the effort to try and target only military targets would gain them widespread support in the world, and even quite a bit in the US. If it is a war of attrition, they are in a very bad position to last that out. Even if their goal was to turn public world opinion against the US and have us pull out on peer (and local US) pressure alone, continuing the terrorist attacks on innocent people (like this last attempt) is short circuiting that.
The first rule of chess is this:
Learn to think like your opponent, or you will be defeated every time.
You're still thinking like a Westerner - you still look at behavior and expect to see behind it, the attempt to gain something or improve one's position.
Let's try thinking about it another way.
Imagine for a moment that you live in a country filled with impoverished people, a country whose only natural resource is owned by foreign corporations and protected by foreign militaries. Recall that your region of the world has been sliced, colonized, re-sliced, and re-colonized by those same foreigners more times than you can count.
Now imagine that every attempt your government has made to carve itself out a small piece of the world's ever-shrinking pie of resources and wealth, has failed miserably, that you are surrounded by poverty and misery everywhere and have absolutely no confidence that your life, or the life of anyone you know and care about, will ever be any better.
Anyone's worst enemy is a person who has nothing left to lose.
There's such a thing as a point of no return, where one's lot is concerned - where you no longer care about your life, or the lives of those you care about, being better - you want only to take mete out justice [or vengeance] to those who made it this way. The saying, "I don't care if I die, so long as I take you with me" applies.
And now examine the actions and behaviors of so many thousands of people and groups in the Middle East. So many have given up hope of life there ever being better, that their only resort is to destruction.
The terrorists are NOT trying to make their lives better, nor get anything in return for their efforts (claims to the contrary notwithstanding) - from their position, it makes sense simply to inflict as much damage as possible, because there's little else left for them to do.
I am neither advocating nor decrying that belief, state of mind, or behavior. I am only saying that that is what happens to humans who have been oppressed and who have suffered for too long and have no confidence that life will ever be different.
Now, you seem to know more about legal stuff than I, but are there many lawyers who would have had experience in John Doe suits with no evidence which are being filed in a state the person isn't even a resident of?
Maybe not but at the very least the lawyer will be very familiar with things like filing dates and court proceedings so you at least can make sure the administrivia are taken care of properly (some judges look very unkindly on people who don't get their paperwork right and at least the lawyer can do that part for you).
That buys both you and your lawyer time to figure out where to either a) get more information or b) find someone who does know what to do. Screwing up the early steps can be a fatal error though, which is what the GPP was getting at.
Umm, if we have a police state, total surveillance and people like me emigrating, who's going to start the revolution?
That too is an interesting question... I can't wait to find out. All I know is, it will start in a place nobody expected it to, under circumstances nobody anticipated leading to revolution, by people who never thought of themselves as revolutionaries.
And who says whether what we end up with will be any better?
Hehe. Interesting you mention that.
Our culture will never invent anything better than governments that swallow too much power, followed by revolutions to get it back. It is a built-in feature of our culture that revolutions merely change the name of those who rule.
There IS an alternative, namely tribalism, which is a social structure that worked very well for humans for 100,000 years before our culture came along - but I find that possibility even less likely than a revolution's success.
As it stands right now, here in the status quo ( well, not really status quo. Patriot act anybody? ), people aren't pay attention. People are sheep, so they won't actually start paying attention until these drracionian measure start effecting their daily lives. The sooner that happens, the happier I will be.
So let the disease cause a fever, because at least then the patient will be aware of it.
I've thought about that point to great extent..
And it forces me to ask: is the dark future inevitable? Is it better to simply let it come, sooner rather than later, so that the revolution killing it can occur earlier, and freedom can again be restored?
Or is that future avoidable?
That is a hard question. Avoiding that future requires alot of things I simply don't think will ever happen, the first and most important of which, the people caring that it's happening BEFORE it does.
Which is why I actually think that future IS inevitable: the general public will not care what is happening to them until they are no longer free enough to have an essentially easy life and to entertain themselves as they please. When living a normal life is harder than it should be, THEN people will pay attention.. and then things can change (not that they will.. but at least they CAN).
So I am grudgingly forced to agree with you: let the dark future come. Let freedom be destroyed, let totalitarianism rule the planet, let the millions die for the wealth and power of the few.
Let it come.
Let it come so that the revolution can finally begin.
In any case, If you're concerned about the incidents of citizens with arms, I humbly suggest that this is a signal of less tyranny, not more. Surely you realize that the British government has a goodly supply of deadly arms. To the extent that you and your fellow subjects shun a knowledge and familiarity of arms, you further tip the balance of power in the government's favor.
Damn right.
Thank you for pointing that out. I shudder everytime I hear a non-American talking about how 'enlightened' they are that their citizenry is completely disarmed.
Sorry, humanity has not evolved to such a state yet as to call that kind of disarament 'enlightened.' When we get there in 20,000 years or so, assuming we survive our suicidal state of mind, then maybe that perspective might hold weight. For now, humans are simply not - that - noble.
But so long as even one person or one government believes that control, through force or other means, is an effective way to run a civilization, firearms will be absolutely necessary.
Granted I've only worked with one branch of the government (military, specifically). Your mileage may vary.
Yes we don't want it to be our fault, do you want things that go wrong at ur work to be blamed on you?
Whether I WANT it to be blamed on me or not is irrelevant. When I screw up, I pay the piper. I take the blame. Sometimes, a manager will say "I should have been paying more attention; you screwed up, but so did I." But either way, take credit where credit is due.. and take blame where blame is due.
Patents allow the little guy, the startup, to compete with the 800-ton gorilla.
Not when it can cost $100,000+ to get a patent filed and approved.
Which rather shines some light on why patent trolls exist in the first place.
If it were absolutely 100% free to file a patent, with either a) the applications being so simple that they don't require a patent lawyer, or b) patent application help were free, then yeah, the little guy and compete with the 800-ton gorilla.
That is not the shape of the current system, however.
Why don't they have more generators? Simple, because it is a lot "sexier" to say you have a bunch of Cray supercomputers than one supercomputer and a few backup generators.
The sick part is you're exactly right... it's all about bragging rights and has little if anything to do with deserved praise.
In my experience, government workers only a) try to make sure nothing's their fault, and b) get as much praise as possible, deserved or otherwise.
How are they not the pinnacle? They are the most advanced creatures ever to walk/swim/crawl the earth.
How do you define 'most advanced' without an objective basis for comparison? And it has to be an objective basis - a subjective one is going to be biased in favor of the arguer.
It has to be a basis that compares, feature for feature, one species to another. And since we barely even understand the social interactions of other animals, much less their cognitive abilities, that seems to be a difficult task at best.
How can we compare ourselves with some species of sharks, for example, which are so perfectly adapted to their surroundings that they haven't evolved in 25 million years?
Just because we have particular features that make us successful, doesn't mean other animals don't also have their own adaptations that make them just as worthy a species as we are (indeed, if they weren't, they'd have been bred out of the food chain long ago).
And as far as complexity goes, we're fairly high up. It doesn't imply a value judgment.
Complex, yes. Unfortunately, all common uses of the phrase "we're a higher life form" I have ever encountered ARE intended to imply a value judgement, one designed to say we're a 'better' or more 'worthy' species to exist on the planet. Scientists/geeks aren't so loose with their language, but the average Joe is.
While I am relatively ambivelant to the content of your post (I agree, by the way) I wanted to comment on the *title* of your post..
"We are responsible, not nature"
Well.. it's that kind of thinking that got us into this mess, isn't it? By thinking we're actually smart enough, or powerful enough, or "in control" enough to be the "stewards of nature" we have pretty much created the whole problem.
I'm not entirely certain that thinking WE can solve it is an appropriate response, given our track record. While I am not advocating doing NOTHING, maybe we need to think about what we decide to do very, very carefully, while remembering that our tendency to meddle in the natural world almost always has disastrous consequences.
Why does everyone assume that evolution is a good thing?
The answer to your question is actually another question:
Why does everyone assume humans are some sort of end result of evolution - like we were destined to be here?
That's why everyone assumes evolution is a 'good thing.'
But, I don't think of evolution as 'good' or 'bad', it simply IS. It is simply a word to describe a process that exists and has always existed on our little world.
Slashdot Mirror
An item is overpriced if the sticker price is higher than the market will bear - meaning, you are losing money by keeping the price higher.
Shoplifting (especially at those two stores) seldom has anything to do with demand for the product and more to do with the shoplifter's emotional state. Obviously I recognize that that kind of blanket generality has its exceptions, but it seems that there are often other motives.
I have to agree with you because I haven't really seen many posts to the contrary.
There have been a few notable ones though, but my favorite, and the one that really helped me understand alot of what is going on (and what is at stake) was this post yesterday by mrchaotica. Be sure to read the links to Jefferson's writings on copyright at the end of his post.
I would discuss this myself, but I think another poster has elucidated the issue very well:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=193929&ci
The problem is, the RIAA/MPAA and those who supported such copyright legislation are the ones who have broken their part of the social contract - the public is still attempting to exercise THEIR part of that contract by pirating. I am not attempting to make an argument for piracy - I am attempting to point out that the issue is far more complicated than "Stealing isn't right even if the owner is evil."
I keep telling myself I'm going to stop posting on Slashdot, for precisely this reason. I don't know what it is about this site in particular, but I have a hard time here fulfilling the responsibility of my moniker, whereas elsewhere I have no such trouble (that is, stating my position and giving equal time to what I would consider pertinent parts of the opposing position).
I've actually experienced this before, and it's sort of something that tells me it's time to walk away from a particular board; which is, when almost all posts are reactive in any measure, discussion of any sort becomes difficult (if not impossible). I see that alot here and it's very frustrating.
I say all that simply to say, what you state was not my intention. I did not mean to create a group of reactors by implication; I meant only that insofar as the situation there IS the fault of Western nations, they should take responsibility for that fault and not resort to playing stupid when asked why these people are behaving this way. And insofar as the responsibility is on the shoulders of Muslim culture and the extremists themselves, that responsibility is theirs and not something we can control.
I hope that made sense.
For many thousands of years of our history, people did exactly that - go off and live somewhere else.
We're no longer able to do that.. and we see the results. The worst wars our civilization has ever witnessed, more death and destruction than we'd ever have imagined ourselves capable of, poverty and suffering on a scale never seen to the world..
Our culture never tried to find a way to get along with others.. it has always either assimilated or destroyed. There is no enlightenment.
I'm really not responding to you specifically though, just using the thought as a jumping off point. If something I said offended you don't take it personally. (I think I'm going to start adding that standard disclaimer in my sig
REALLY offend someone's sensibilities, and you'll get 'Troll', even if you're being completely intellectually honest.
Sometimes I wonder why I continue to post here.
Heehee.
I love it when people entirely miss the point and pick some tiny detail they think is going to change the argument (and this goes to everyone else who felt the need to argue this point, too).
My point was, experience begets ideology - terrorists do not become so for no reason at all, and you would be hard pressed to argue 'insanity' as the root cause (all of them? at the same time? For the same reasons?).
So you're forced to look elsewhere for a cause. Whether you take freedom or you take food, you still TAKE - and it is THAT which people fight.
So please, go on. All you're doing is refusing to listen.
Wow. Very well stated.. thanks. People simply seem to refuse to understand that experience makes the monster.. nobody is born that way.
But recognizing that experience is the culprit puts the responsibility for the problem squarely back on the shoulders of the US and other nations, and that's just something we can't abide... it would mean we'd have to do something about it instead of shreaking "militant muslim!!!" at the top of our lungs in order to drown out all possible counter-arguments.
Apparently you're incapable of recognizing a literary device when you see one. Oh sorry, that would make it pretty hard for you to make love to your own opinions.
Seriously, I will not reply to you again because I am sick and tired of people like you refusing to actually have a normal discussion about topics that really do not warrant the kind of response you gave me. I initially signed up for a username because I thought it would be nice to participate in the discussions a little - and I still do.
Posts like yours, however, are not intended for 'discussion' - they are intended for flame wars.
The first rule of chess is this:
You're still thinking like a Westerner - you still look at behavior and expect to see behind it, the attempt to gain something or improve one's position.
Let's try thinking about it another way.
Imagine for a moment that you live in a country filled with impoverished people, a country whose only natural resource is owned by foreign corporations and protected by foreign militaries. Recall that your region of the world has been sliced, colonized, re-sliced, and re-colonized by those same foreigners more times than you can count.
Now imagine that every attempt your government has made to carve itself out a small piece of the world's ever-shrinking pie of resources and wealth, has failed miserably, that you are surrounded by poverty and misery everywhere and have absolutely no confidence that your life, or the life of anyone you know and care about, will ever be any better.
Anyone's worst enemy is a person who has nothing left to lose.
There's such a thing as a point of no return, where one's lot is concerned - where you no longer care about your life, or the lives of those you care about, being better - you want only to take mete out justice [or vengeance] to those who made it this way. The saying, "I don't care if I die, so long as I take you with me" applies.
And now examine the actions and behaviors of so many thousands of people and groups in the Middle East. So many have given up hope of life there ever being better, that their only resort is to destruction.
The terrorists are NOT trying to make their lives better, nor get anything in return for their efforts (claims to the contrary notwithstanding) - from their position, it makes sense simply to inflict as much damage as possible, because there's little else left for them to do.
I am neither advocating nor decrying that belief, state of mind, or behavior. I am only saying that that is what happens to humans who have been oppressed and who have suffered for too long and have no confidence that life will ever be different.
They should just do away with the whole States idea and call them Ministries (Truth, Love, Justice, etc.).
That buys both you and your lawyer time to figure out where to either a) get more information or b) find someone who does know what to do. Screwing up the early steps can be a fatal error though, which is what the GPP was getting at.
GPP is a lawyer by the way (his sig).
Hehe. Interesting you mention that.
Our culture will never invent anything better than governments that swallow too much power, followed by revolutions to get it back. It is a built-in feature of our culture that revolutions merely change the name of those who rule.
There IS an alternative, namely tribalism, which is a social structure that worked very well for humans for 100,000 years before our culture came along - but I find that possibility even less likely than a revolution's success.
That's the rub, really. The gun has to be the absolute last attempt to secure your freedom.
I don't think we're there yet. Unfortunately, I don't see us even dreaming of heading another direction.
And it forces me to ask: is the dark future inevitable? Is it better to simply let it come, sooner rather than later, so that the revolution killing it can occur earlier, and freedom can again be restored?
Or is that future avoidable?
That is a hard question. Avoiding that future requires alot of things I simply don't think will ever happen, the first and most important of which, the people caring that it's happening BEFORE it does.
Which is why I actually think that future IS inevitable: the general public will not care what is happening to them until they are no longer free enough to have an essentially easy life and to entertain themselves as they please. When living a normal life is harder than it should be, THEN people will pay attention.. and then things can change (not that they will.. but at least they CAN).
So I am grudgingly forced to agree with you: let the dark future come. Let freedom be destroyed, let totalitarianism rule the planet, let the millions die for the wealth and power of the few.
Let it come.
Let it come so that the revolution can finally begin.
Thank you for pointing that out. I shudder everytime I hear a non-American talking about how 'enlightened' they are that their citizenry is completely disarmed.
Sorry, humanity has not evolved to such a state yet as to call that kind of disarament 'enlightened.' When we get there in 20,000 years or so, assuming we survive our suicidal state of mind, then maybe that perspective might hold weight. For now, humans are simply not - that - noble.
But so long as even one person or one government believes that control, through force or other means, is an effective way to run a civilization, firearms will be absolutely necessary.
Oh the 'people' will hate the revolutionaries at first.. but drag it on long enough and they'll hate their government even more.
Ah the future will be grand..
Then I realized my speakers only go up to 16KHz.
Whether I WANT it to be blamed on me or not is irrelevant. When I screw up, I pay the piper. I take the blame. Sometimes, a manager will say "I should have been paying more attention; you screwed up, but so did I." But either way, take credit where credit is due.. and take blame where blame is due.
That's called integrity.
Which rather shines some light on why patent trolls exist in the first place.
If it were absolutely 100% free to file a patent, with either a) the applications being so simple that they don't require a patent lawyer, or b) patent application help were free, then yeah, the little guy and compete with the 800-ton gorilla.
That is not the shape of the current system, however.
In my experience, government workers only a) try to make sure nothing's their fault, and b) get as much praise as possible, deserved or otherwise.
It has to be a basis that compares, feature for feature, one species to another. And since we barely even understand the social interactions of other animals, much less their cognitive abilities, that seems to be a difficult task at best.
How can we compare ourselves with some species of sharks, for example, which are so perfectly adapted to their surroundings that they haven't evolved in 25 million years?
Just because we have particular features that make us successful, doesn't mean other animals don't also have their own adaptations that make them just as worthy a species as we are (indeed, if they weren't, they'd have been bred out of the food chain long ago).
And that is really the problem in a nutshell. Some mod apparently didn't like your wording, but I completely agree with the sentiment.
While I am relatively ambivelant to the content of your post (I agree, by the way) I wanted to comment on the *title* of your post..
"We are responsible, not nature"
Well.. it's that kind of thinking that got us into this mess, isn't it? By thinking we're actually smart enough, or powerful enough, or "in control" enough to be the "stewards of nature" we have pretty much created the whole problem.
I'm not entirely certain that thinking WE can solve it is an appropriate response, given our track record. While I am not advocating doing NOTHING, maybe we need to think about what we decide to do very, very carefully, while remembering that our tendency to meddle in the natural world almost always has disastrous consequences.
Why does everyone assume humans are some sort of end result of evolution - like we were destined to be here?
That's why everyone assumes evolution is a 'good thing.'
But, I don't think of evolution as 'good' or 'bad', it simply IS. It is simply a word to describe a process that exists and has always existed on our little world.