Anthropology is in fact the branch of science most interested in religion; it is also the branch which depends upon and in a sense gave us natural selection.
Sorry for not replying sooner. I've been busy and wanted to give this a proper response.
Before copyright, the idea wasn't that an author would be paid for every person who consumed their work, but rather for the act of creating it. Once it was created, everyone was free to copy it, from nobility to beggars, and often they all did (at least in the case of music). The system had some issues; copyright was created because artists (Romanticists) felt that having noble patrons was restricting the kinds of art that could be created. Copyright, where an author would be paid for consumption of their work, was seen as progressive.
Fast-forward to today, and we have essentially the same model as the patron system, except now with copyright enshrining it in law. The advent of marketing (and payola) made it impossible to gain any kind of serious recognition without putting yourself under the RIAA, the modern version of the nobility. Just like before, the kinds of art made are restricted by the institution, but this time it is done on the much more arbitrary justification of profitability, rather than if a noble liked it enough to pay you.
As such, I see copyright as having solved nothing, and in fact made the problem worse. There always have been alternative business models to copyright and up until the 18th century, they worked just fine for everyone involved. Musicians could perform; it wasn't the act of writing music, but the act of performing it that was paid. Painters painted on commission, which is still the case, and photographers could learn from them. Architects designed specific buildings, and so there was always more demand.
All of these models still work today, but the internet has enabled even more. Now the idea of a donation-based model actually does work. Sometimes it is presented as "paying" for something that is in fact free (magnatune is a good example), sometimes just as pure donations. I do not understand the opposition to this model as it is perhaps the most effective we have to replace copyright. It has already been proven to work within the copyright system. The fact that anyone buys software when pirating is easy and largely safe shows that this model can work if adopted: people do want to reward those who make their art.
For situations where it works, there is also the open source model, which does not need copyright to function because the internal mechanisms of it encourage the sharing of source. Getting rid of copyright would only limit the incentives to not share it. In fact, I would say that a copyright-free world would be much easier to develop open source software in. As it is, developers are often forced to accept patches only from specific people who have signed copyright wavers, so that there is a single "owner" of the software for legal purposes. Copyright cannot handle the concept of free software.
At this point, if we abolish copyright, what we are really abolishing is the copyright industry. I can see why many Americans refuse to even consider the idea: it is largely all we have. However, as I have said here before, we cannot rely on copyright as a national export. It is only valuable so far as other countries respect it. Every day, that respect deteriorates more, and with every law like SOPA, we have more active opposition around the world and at home. We need to derive our GDP from something tangible, not from a legal fiction.
Of course corporations are above respecting personal rights. Otherwise people might get suspicious about the loss of their rights. If a corporation does it, you can just say it is their right as property owners to strip the rights of others.
Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.
I am proving his point by supplying well-written and historically accurate arguments against it? That's a new one. Ever consider you might just be in an echo chamber?
Quite a big difference between proper nutrition (defined generally, at least) and mandatory immunization with whatever the pharmaceutical company is saying is required this year. I would think the analogy would be more along the lines of requiring children to follow a specific fad diet.
Your inability to differentiate the real issues in those analogies is what I am taking issues with. Just because you think something is good does not mean you are allowed to go to any means to make it so.
People wonder why there is such fear about socialized medicine... it's exactly this, people. Stop the nanny state shit or else it is just going to get more impossible to make actually sane changes in other areas of policy.
Completely agreed. Anyone who gives money to the MPAA, RIAA, BSA, ESA... are directly funding an ongoing assault on the freedom of speech in the western world. Pirate if you want, but do not give in to the false moralizing that these organizations and those who work for them deserve money.
"If a cheap ass REALLY wanted something, and there was no other way to obtain it, they would pay for it. At least the ones I know would."
I also suspect you'd see far less playing of games in general, because it would mean they would only be played if people "REALLY" wanted to. Basically, I doubt it would have all that much effect on the gaming industry, yet it would hurt the pirates.
I get that a lot of copyright supporters want to hurt pirates, but what I am failing to see is why that is an acceptable goal when it only nets a social negative.
"You cannot compare creations of the past to creations of the present. Before computers and electronics, the only way to create a 1:1 replica of art was to labor over it again. There was some work involved in copying other people's work which may end up being no less difficult."
I think you need to pick up a history book. Or maybe just actually think about what you're saying before pressing submit. Music was viral long before the internet; it spread by learning from others. Books were widely copied by hand. Even the printing press predated copyright.
I'm not sure why you think lowered costs of copying fundamentally change the relationship of the author with the copiers. Pre-copyright, the author was either paid once on commission, or supported by a patron (usually a noble or religious order) to produce future works. They were not paid when a copy was made, no matter who made it. Hence, the difficulty of copying is entirely irrelevant, and the old business models are still operable, in addition to many more which have been enabled by technology.
"What if we operate on the assumption that there is a demo available before or at the time of release. Would this argument still hold?"
I was only seeking to argue against his idea that those "excuses" were poor. I don't think the existence of demos for computer games morally validates the concept of owning ideas.
"You're reading too much into this one just so you can say that it is a meaningless argument. Ignore the number, it's not important. The idea that developers only need enough money to fund their next game is the point here."
I am arguing against the statement made. You're saying I need to give those arguing for discredited positions extra leeway and actually make their arguments more reasonable for them? Perhaps, perhaps I should... they certainly could use it.
"No need to get violent."
I suppose I need to mark hyperbole.
"The people involved with the game want compensation for their work. I see nothing dishonorable about that."
And pirates might not agree with the legal system, or might have reasons their own, for pirating. Honor is a meaningless concept.
Then I would say there is obviously a conflict within the concept of "human rights" that needs sorted out. Perhaps, though, "public health" simply doesn't enable you to dictate that others be injected with something. That is certainly not something I would include. After all, no one can really agree on human rights. It seems that selectively choosing what is and isn't a right in order to support your own position has become common place.
Again, I don't think you really want to live with the wider implications of your argument.
The problem is that not voting for the incumbent isn't going to fix the fact media companies grease the palms of whoever is elected. The person you do vote for will almost certainly adopt the same position. You'll feel you did your good deed by voting out Casey, but won't have changed a single thing.
Look at the political support for SOPA, and then the mass outcry against it, and tell me democracy is working.
I am only replying to the ones of these I think are worth responding to. Some are quite non sequitur.
"2) My pirating is good for the software developer (more people playing, even without paying is good, it gives them lots of free publicity). Piracy increases sales! I am doing them a HUGE favor."
Strictly speaking, ignoring them entirely hurts them worse than piracy. From there it becomes a matter of if pirates are further encouraging piracy and/or if they can be made to pay.
"3) I am a cheap ass."
So you probably wouldn't buy it, anyway.
"4) There is no such thing as copyright (or shouldn't be)."
This is a perfectly reasonable position, which I take.
"Other people should create art, music, games, films, and entertainment for me as a favor and fund it out of their own pocket."
...this, however, is not the summary of that position.
"5) Piracy is a fact in the gaming world. Get used to it. It's the developer's own fault because they should have taken it into account in their business model (besides, they should have been working on this full time as an open source program for free anyway)."
Like it or not, this is a foregone conclusion.
"7) I do not want to try the demo because the only meaningful way to try out a game is to try out the ENTIRE game."
Games still have demos? Wow, must be, what, one or two such games a year? The only demos I have heard of in recent times were released AFTER the game. Not much help there...
"8) Who cares if there is 99.9% piracy, all the developers need is to make just enough money to fund developing another game"
Not me, because there is not 99.9% piracy. Nice straw man bashing, though.
"11) It is just normal human nature to take the product of others' labor without compensating them."
Actually, it is. Copyright is a new invention. Look up history. Funny thing is that we had music, paintings, books, architecture, and all that, long before copyright. I know, it's hard to believe!
"12) Pirating something NEVER results in a lost sale. Not even when spread over thousands of people."
Has one person ever actually argued this? Curious because I'd love to hit them with a large blunt object. If they haven't, I guess I'll hit you instead...
"14) Personal honor is such an outmoded concept anyway."
Call me when the megacorps whining are any more honorable.
"On a side note, becoming anti-vaccination simply to make a political point is an unthinking, knee-jerk reaction to someone telling you what to do."
Up until this point, in my mind, the argument was more about the effectiveness and "side effects" of vaccination. Now we're entering human rights areas and that is where my position needs re-evaluated. I cannot support vaccination if this sort of argument is the outcome. Public health is secondary to human rights, just like security, and if I need to oppose vaccination to oppose to support human rights, I will.
"But to take a view just to stick it to the man means that you're leaving your reasoning at the door and allowing emotion to make up your mind."
Then why is it that all the emotional arguments here are the ones advocating all sorts of absurd ways to force vaccination? "Protect my kids," "you have no right to do things that could indirectly hurt others," etc. All the same things we've heard flaunted as reasons to censor the internet and spy on people who have committed no crimes. When it comes down to it, the repercussions of a few people not being vaccinated are realistically tiny. However, the repercussions of "social good trumps personal rights" are much more wide-reaching. What I can't understand at all is why the argument suddenly becomes meaningful when applied to vaccination and not any other number of things it is applied to. You did not really answer that, other than to again point it out.
This law is perhaps sane and reasonable; those who are supporting it here are not. Dare I say, this shows all the same problems in the technically-minded progressives that exist in the regressive right. Give people some boogeyman they can hate and they will back any kind of irrational argument and violation of personal rights to fight it.
What are obviously needed are some sane people who, while not against vaccination per se, will stand up against this absurdity. That is the position I am now taking, because this kind of crap cannot go unquestioned.
That is fine, if the ends justify the means. However, forgive me if "be injected or face penalties" seems a bit too close to the eugenics movement of the early 20th century. That, too, was seen as a good thing at the time, until it was proven to have horrible repercussions.
"I happen to support these laws, as I do laws which mandate vaccinations for people who participate in a shared public space, such as a school; the people as a whole have a right to set whatever standards they want on use of these shared spaces subject to constitutional limits."
Are you for airport-style x-ray scanners at schools? How about mandatory strip-searches? Both can be justified by protecting the public from a threat, at the cost of only a small loss of personal freedom.
I don't buy "if you go into public you must give up your personal rights to serve the greater good," and I bet very few others, even those making that argument in this case of vaccinations, will accept the real repercussions of it. It stinks of a double-standard because it is.
Addendum: In this case, I don't think the "means" are necessarily a bad thing. However, the rhetoric being posted, and the reasons being given as to why this is a good idea, are unnerving. It is impossible to take this action at face value when there is obviously a bigger issue underlying it.
I'm inclined to say that, because it is so exception-ridden, that the Spock statement is then not justification for any IRL social policy. Once you apply it to one thing - be it vaccination, security, etc - it is just as easy to apply it to another. The use validates the argument, and the argument will stand alone.
Having read most of these comments, I am frankly appalled. The arguments being given for government-mandated vaccinations are as bad or worse than the ones being given for any number of things we can all agree are bad (surveillance, secret databases, security checks). Either people do not realize, or do not care, that they are in fact trampling on personal rights just as badly as those they criticize.
That leads me to wonder what the difference is. Is it because vaccination is "science"? Science that every once in a while comes under attack by the extreme right? If that's the only reason these "social good" arguments are now valid, when they are in truth just as valid now as in every other case (ie, valid arguments, but do not outweigh personal liberty), it's frightening.
I'm not anti-vaccination, but I am getting there, if only because of the lengths people seem willing to go to advocate further government control regarding them and silence anyone who even seems to disagree. The posts in this discussion make me feel we really do not have many "free thinkers" here and that on the whole, they're just as susceptible to the same scare tactics and small-mindedness as the right.
"that which puts me and my children in danger- not getting vaccinated, is not a natural freedom."
How about the freedom to not have the government mandate one put something in their body they do not want to? Because taken indiscriminately, your argument can be extended to terrifying ends.
Sorry to break it to you, but that IS censorship, no matter if you agree with it or not. Please stop trying to revise the English language to support your political positions.
I start to think it might be when these companies hold an extreme amount of sway over way is produced and what isn't.
There's a point where "it's a private business" doesn't hold water. Most major retailers are already there in the US. Time we start considering these on the same level as government - it's still censorship, and censorship just as bad as were the government to do it themselves. Those who value freedom do not allow such worthless excuses of ownership to trample on rights.
I only see a few signs actually from the OWS on that page that are anti-Semitic, all of which appear to be from the same one guy. Or are you one of those people that thinks being anti-Israel means you must be anti-Semitic?
You're right, OWS shouldn't be compared to the Tea Party. The Tea Party is an astroturf organization funded by the filthy rich to make it appear that people actually support furthering the policies that made them so, while OWS actually is something with some potential to change things. They should not be compared.
"Thanks to copyright we have industries that have generated Trillions of dollars of economic good, including software, music, books, art and much more."
Those things would have existed without copyright, as they existed before copyright, and will exist after it. As for "economic good," yes copyright has created a "market" for things which do not exist. That has had the effect of making a few people astoundingly rich off of things they did not create, while increasing costs for every other business and citizen in the country (/ world), and making market entry for people that might have competing business models (donation or volunteer based; Linux is a mix of both) that much more difficult.
The bigger issue, which we're seeing the first signs of, is that as much as we benefit from these fake markets, other countries benefit from ignoring them. When China no longer needs to sell us cheap plastic goods, do you believe China will honor our copyrights? They already do only for fear of sanctions and only so far as they have to within that. When they are of equal or greater economic influence, you'll see a complete collapse of our imaginary property-based economy.
It isn't a popular analogy, but I do think there is a comparison in copyright (ignoring the moral repercussions, which are much less, although still existent) to slavery. Slavery allowed a business model (slave-based cotton farming) to exist, but in doing so suppressed other businesses which depended upon a free working class. The north grew and the south remained stagnant. This is exactly the situation we're looking at with copyright. Indeed, I would say any time something is declared "property" that is not an object, you are propping up some outdated and often immoral entity and harming society at large. The idea of property ought to be seen as a necessary evil, not as a rule to be extended to anything humans can conceptualize, lest you run into such problems as slavery.
"That does not mean that it will maximize good to society at large. Nor does that fact make for a compelling argument against copyright."
If you were paying attention you might have noticed that that statement was made, not to claim that free software automatically equals social good, but that free software will keep existing if copyright is abolished. Please stop beating the straw man that my claim free software will still exist is in itself my only claim about copyright harming society. I made quite a few arguments to that effect which you ignored - likely because you had no actual response to them and would prefer to attack a weaker argument I did not make.
"And virtually no one uses BSD EXCEPT for cases like Apple where they have taken bits of it proprietary and made it de-facto no longer free."
People use Linux, though. There is mostly only minor technical differences between BSD and Linux. It has nothing to do with licensing and everything to do with momentum and support.
"Creative works that are later made truly useful to society by someone else with a profit motive."
BSD had no value by itself, because it is not often used except in proprietary products? I'm sure the developers of OpenBSD would beg to differ. What I find most interesting is that you're trying to insinuate that only things made for profit are "truly useful to society." Great argument, except it is provably false in so many ways, I don't even feel the need to state one of them. I think everyone with half of a brain can imagine one or two cases of something produced for reasons other than profit being worth something.
"Really? You've solved the free rider problem? We should alert the Nobel committee so you can collect your prize."
No. I'm saying it never existed as a justification for copyright. If you got beyond the mindset that you just stated, that only things done with a profit incentive can be good, you'd see why it is not relevant to the discussion. However, I can see you are unable to think beyond how you are told to by copyright holders, so I will forgive your inability to provide an actual argument against my points.
How about we leave the problem of making a business profitable to the businesses? It is not the duty nor place of the government to ensure the creation of Avatar. If there is a will, there is a way. The goal now is to end the system that has a stranglehold on every aspect of the internet. Copyright and freedom cannot coexist any longer, something SOPA proves.
Copyright is a force for the public good? Then why does every event since its inception seem to suggest that it only makes the original situation worse? Copyright has always been abused by those with money, and those without money are rarely able to make use of it. This goes back to my knowledge as far as Edison, but I'm sure if you looked at history you'd find many earlier and many worse cases alike.
Free software will keep existing without copyright. In fact, if the pro-copyright rhetoric of software companies is to be even partially believed, it will become the standard of software. Instead of a company producing a proprietary product and selling it to other companies, the business model will become companies funding development themselves and opening it in order to benefit from the funding of other similar companies; the exact model that led to the creation of nearly all open source today. Indeed, I would argue the current system only forces duplication of effort.
There might be some issues if copyright were abolished, but the good far outweighs the bad. Sure you can take the source and make a closed product - but how are you going to complete with the continued development of the open branch? After all, BSD is still around.
There is absolutely no justification for copyright in the modern world. There never was a justification - the whole thing is based on a fictitious romantic concept of authorship. However, we now see the error in it, in a way we could not before the creation of the internet. Copyright has outlived its welcome; it must and will end.
And yet you don't question all the deaths in coal/oil/"green" (hydro electric is one of the most dangerous forms of energy, fyi). Makes you look a bit like one of those Sky Is Falling Greenpeace people. I trust the nuclear industry ten times as much as I trust you and your Luddite kin.
Slashdot Mirror
Anthropology is in fact the branch of science most interested in religion; it is also the branch which depends upon and in a sense gave us natural selection.
Your belief is proven false. No need to thank me. Leading a productive life free of mythology will be enough.
Sorry for not replying sooner. I've been busy and wanted to give this a proper response.
Before copyright, the idea wasn't that an author would be paid for every person who consumed their work, but rather for the act of creating it. Once it was created, everyone was free to copy it, from nobility to beggars, and often they all did (at least in the case of music). The system had some issues; copyright was created because artists (Romanticists) felt that having noble patrons was restricting the kinds of art that could be created. Copyright, where an author would be paid for consumption of their work, was seen as progressive.
Fast-forward to today, and we have essentially the same model as the patron system, except now with copyright enshrining it in law. The advent of marketing (and payola) made it impossible to gain any kind of serious recognition without putting yourself under the RIAA, the modern version of the nobility. Just like before, the kinds of art made are restricted by the institution, but this time it is done on the much more arbitrary justification of profitability, rather than if a noble liked it enough to pay you.
As such, I see copyright as having solved nothing, and in fact made the problem worse. There always have been alternative business models to copyright and up until the 18th century, they worked just fine for everyone involved. Musicians could perform; it wasn't the act of writing music, but the act of performing it that was paid. Painters painted on commission, which is still the case, and photographers could learn from them. Architects designed specific buildings, and so there was always more demand.
All of these models still work today, but the internet has enabled even more. Now the idea of a donation-based model actually does work. Sometimes it is presented as "paying" for something that is in fact free (magnatune is a good example), sometimes just as pure donations. I do not understand the opposition to this model as it is perhaps the most effective we have to replace copyright. It has already been proven to work within the copyright system. The fact that anyone buys software when pirating is easy and largely safe shows that this model can work if adopted: people do want to reward those who make their art.
For situations where it works, there is also the open source model, which does not need copyright to function because the internal mechanisms of it encourage the sharing of source. Getting rid of copyright would only limit the incentives to not share it. In fact, I would say that a copyright-free world would be much easier to develop open source software in. As it is, developers are often forced to accept patches only from specific people who have signed copyright wavers, so that there is a single "owner" of the software for legal purposes. Copyright cannot handle the concept of free software.
At this point, if we abolish copyright, what we are really abolishing is the copyright industry. I can see why many Americans refuse to even consider the idea: it is largely all we have. However, as I have said here before, we cannot rely on copyright as a national export. It is only valuable so far as other countries respect it. Every day, that respect deteriorates more, and with every law like SOPA, we have more active opposition around the world and at home. We need to derive our GDP from something tangible, not from a legal fiction.
I hope this answers your questions.
I am proving his point by supplying well-written and historically accurate arguments against it? That's a new one. Ever consider you might just be in an echo chamber?
Quite a big difference between proper nutrition (defined generally, at least) and mandatory immunization with whatever the pharmaceutical company is saying is required this year. I would think the analogy would be more along the lines of requiring children to follow a specific fad diet.
Your inability to differentiate the real issues in those analogies is what I am taking issues with. Just because you think something is good does not mean you are allowed to go to any means to make it so.
People wonder why there is such fear about socialized medicine... it's exactly this, people. Stop the nanny state shit or else it is just going to get more impossible to make actually sane changes in other areas of policy.
Completely agreed. Anyone who gives money to the MPAA, RIAA, BSA, ESA... are directly funding an ongoing assault on the freedom of speech in the western world. Pirate if you want, but do not give in to the false moralizing that these organizations and those who work for them deserve money.
"If a cheap ass REALLY wanted something, and there was no other way to obtain it, they would pay for it. At least the ones I know would."
I also suspect you'd see far less playing of games in general, because it would mean they would only be played if people "REALLY" wanted to. Basically, I doubt it would have all that much effect on the gaming industry, yet it would hurt the pirates.
I get that a lot of copyright supporters want to hurt pirates, but what I am failing to see is why that is an acceptable goal when it only nets a social negative.
"You cannot compare creations of the past to creations of the present. Before computers and electronics, the only way to create a 1:1 replica of art was to labor over it again. There was some work involved in copying other people's work which may end up being no less difficult."
I think you need to pick up a history book. Or maybe just actually think about what you're saying before pressing submit. Music was viral long before the internet; it spread by learning from others. Books were widely copied by hand. Even the printing press predated copyright.
I'm not sure why you think lowered costs of copying fundamentally change the relationship of the author with the copiers. Pre-copyright, the author was either paid once on commission, or supported by a patron (usually a noble or religious order) to produce future works. They were not paid when a copy was made, no matter who made it. Hence, the difficulty of copying is entirely irrelevant, and the old business models are still operable, in addition to many more which have been enabled by technology.
"What if we operate on the assumption that there is a demo available before or at the time of release. Would this argument still hold?"
I was only seeking to argue against his idea that those "excuses" were poor. I don't think the existence of demos for computer games morally validates the concept of owning ideas.
"You're reading too much into this one just so you can say that it is a meaningless argument. Ignore the number, it's not important. The idea that developers only need enough money to fund their next game is the point here."
I am arguing against the statement made. You're saying I need to give those arguing for discredited positions extra leeway and actually make their arguments more reasonable for them? Perhaps, perhaps I should... they certainly could use it.
"No need to get violent."
I suppose I need to mark hyperbole.
"The people involved with the game want compensation for their work. I see nothing dishonorable about that."
And pirates might not agree with the legal system, or might have reasons their own, for pirating. Honor is a meaningless concept.
Then I would say there is obviously a conflict within the concept of "human rights" that needs sorted out. Perhaps, though, "public health" simply doesn't enable you to dictate that others be injected with something. That is certainly not something I would include. After all, no one can really agree on human rights. It seems that selectively choosing what is and isn't a right in order to support your own position has become common place.
Again, I don't think you really want to live with the wider implications of your argument.
The problem is that not voting for the incumbent isn't going to fix the fact media companies grease the palms of whoever is elected. The person you do vote for will almost certainly adopt the same position. You'll feel you did your good deed by voting out Casey, but won't have changed a single thing.
Look at the political support for SOPA, and then the mass outcry against it, and tell me democracy is working.
I am only replying to the ones of these I think are worth responding to. Some are quite non sequitur.
...this, however, is not the summary of that position.
"2) My pirating is good for the software developer (more people playing, even without paying is good, it gives them lots of free publicity). Piracy increases sales! I am doing them a HUGE favor."
Strictly speaking, ignoring them entirely hurts them worse than piracy. From there it becomes a matter of if pirates are further encouraging piracy and/or if they can be made to pay.
"3) I am a cheap ass."
So you probably wouldn't buy it, anyway.
"4) There is no such thing as copyright (or shouldn't be)."
This is a perfectly reasonable position, which I take.
"Other people should create art, music, games, films, and entertainment for me as a favor and fund it out of their own pocket."
"5) Piracy is a fact in the gaming world. Get used to it. It's the developer's own fault because they should have taken it into account in their business model (besides, they should have been working on this full time as an open source program for free anyway)."
Like it or not, this is a foregone conclusion.
"7) I do not want to try the demo because the only meaningful way to try out a game is to try out the ENTIRE game."
Games still have demos? Wow, must be, what, one or two such games a year? The only demos I have heard of in recent times were released AFTER the game. Not much help there...
"8) Who cares if there is 99.9% piracy, all the developers need is to make just enough money to fund developing another game"
Not me, because there is not 99.9% piracy. Nice straw man bashing, though.
"11) It is just normal human nature to take the product of others' labor without compensating them."
Actually, it is. Copyright is a new invention. Look up history. Funny thing is that we had music, paintings, books, architecture, and all that, long before copyright. I know, it's hard to believe!
"12) Pirating something NEVER results in a lost sale. Not even when spread over thousands of people."
Has one person ever actually argued this? Curious because I'd love to hit them with a large blunt object. If they haven't, I guess I'll hit you instead...
"14) Personal honor is such an outmoded concept anyway."
Call me when the megacorps whining are any more honorable.
"On a side note, becoming anti-vaccination simply to make a political point is an unthinking, knee-jerk reaction to someone telling you what to do."
Up until this point, in my mind, the argument was more about the effectiveness and "side effects" of vaccination. Now we're entering human rights areas and that is where my position needs re-evaluated. I cannot support vaccination if this sort of argument is the outcome. Public health is secondary to human rights, just like security, and if I need to oppose vaccination to oppose to support human rights, I will.
"But to take a view just to stick it to the man means that you're leaving your reasoning at the door and allowing emotion to make up your mind."
Then why is it that all the emotional arguments here are the ones advocating all sorts of absurd ways to force vaccination? "Protect my kids," "you have no right to do things that could indirectly hurt others," etc. All the same things we've heard flaunted as reasons to censor the internet and spy on people who have committed no crimes. When it comes down to it, the repercussions of a few people not being vaccinated are realistically tiny. However, the repercussions of "social good trumps personal rights" are much more wide-reaching. What I can't understand at all is why the argument suddenly becomes meaningful when applied to vaccination and not any other number of things it is applied to. You did not really answer that, other than to again point it out.
This law is perhaps sane and reasonable; those who are supporting it here are not. Dare I say, this shows all the same problems in the technically-minded progressives that exist in the regressive right. Give people some boogeyman they can hate and they will back any kind of irrational argument and violation of personal rights to fight it.
What are obviously needed are some sane people who, while not against vaccination per se, will stand up against this absurdity. That is the position I am now taking, because this kind of crap cannot go unquestioned.
That is fine, if the ends justify the means. However, forgive me if "be injected or face penalties" seems a bit too close to the eugenics movement of the early 20th century. That, too, was seen as a good thing at the time, until it was proven to have horrible repercussions.
"I happen to support these laws, as I do laws which mandate vaccinations for people who participate in a shared public space, such as a school; the people as a whole have a right to set whatever standards they want on use of these shared spaces subject to constitutional limits."
Are you for airport-style x-ray scanners at schools? How about mandatory strip-searches? Both can be justified by protecting the public from a threat, at the cost of only a small loss of personal freedom.
I don't buy "if you go into public you must give up your personal rights to serve the greater good," and I bet very few others, even those making that argument in this case of vaccinations, will accept the real repercussions of it. It stinks of a double-standard because it is.
Addendum: In this case, I don't think the "means" are necessarily a bad thing. However, the rhetoric being posted, and the reasons being given as to why this is a good idea, are unnerving. It is impossible to take this action at face value when there is obviously a bigger issue underlying it.
I'm inclined to say that, because it is so exception-ridden, that the Spock statement is then not justification for any IRL social policy. Once you apply it to one thing - be it vaccination, security, etc - it is just as easy to apply it to another. The use validates the argument, and the argument will stand alone.
Ends do not justify means.
Having read most of these comments, I am frankly appalled. The arguments being given for government-mandated vaccinations are as bad or worse than the ones being given for any number of things we can all agree are bad (surveillance, secret databases, security checks). Either people do not realize, or do not care, that they are in fact trampling on personal rights just as badly as those they criticize.
That leads me to wonder what the difference is. Is it because vaccination is "science"? Science that every once in a while comes under attack by the extreme right? If that's the only reason these "social good" arguments are now valid, when they are in truth just as valid now as in every other case (ie, valid arguments, but do not outweigh personal liberty), it's frightening.
I'm not anti-vaccination, but I am getting there, if only because of the lengths people seem willing to go to advocate further government control regarding them and silence anyone who even seems to disagree. The posts in this discussion make me feel we really do not have many "free thinkers" here and that on the whole, they're just as susceptible to the same scare tactics and small-mindedness as the right.
I hope you realize that your sentiment is exactly the one behind every human-rights abuse in recent history, from genocides to police states.
"that which puts me and my children in danger- not getting vaccinated, is not a natural freedom."
How about the freedom to not have the government mandate one put something in their body they do not want to? Because taken indiscriminately, your argument can be extended to terrifying ends.
Sorry to break it to you, but that IS censorship, no matter if you agree with it or not. Please stop trying to revise the English language to support your political positions.
I start to think it might be when these companies hold an extreme amount of sway over way is produced and what isn't.
There's a point where "it's a private business" doesn't hold water. Most major retailers are already there in the US. Time we start considering these on the same level as government - it's still censorship, and censorship just as bad as were the government to do it themselves. Those who value freedom do not allow such worthless excuses of ownership to trample on rights.
I only see a few signs actually from the OWS on that page that are anti-Semitic, all of which appear to be from the same one guy. Or are you one of those people that thinks being anti-Israel means you must be anti-Semitic?
You're right, OWS shouldn't be compared to the Tea Party. The Tea Party is an astroturf organization funded by the filthy rich to make it appear that people actually support furthering the policies that made them so, while OWS actually is something with some potential to change things. They should not be compared.
"Thanks to copyright we have industries that have generated Trillions of dollars of economic good, including software, music, books, art and much more."
Those things would have existed without copyright, as they existed before copyright, and will exist after it. As for "economic good," yes copyright has created a "market" for things which do not exist. That has had the effect of making a few people astoundingly rich off of things they did not create, while increasing costs for every other business and citizen in the country (/ world), and making market entry for people that might have competing business models (donation or volunteer based; Linux is a mix of both) that much more difficult.
The bigger issue, which we're seeing the first signs of, is that as much as we benefit from these fake markets, other countries benefit from ignoring them. When China no longer needs to sell us cheap plastic goods, do you believe China will honor our copyrights? They already do only for fear of sanctions and only so far as they have to within that. When they are of equal or greater economic influence, you'll see a complete collapse of our imaginary property-based economy.
It isn't a popular analogy, but I do think there is a comparison in copyright (ignoring the moral repercussions, which are much less, although still existent) to slavery. Slavery allowed a business model (slave-based cotton farming) to exist, but in doing so suppressed other businesses which depended upon a free working class. The north grew and the south remained stagnant. This is exactly the situation we're looking at with copyright. Indeed, I would say any time something is declared "property" that is not an object, you are propping up some outdated and often immoral entity and harming society at large. The idea of property ought to be seen as a necessary evil, not as a rule to be extended to anything humans can conceptualize, lest you run into such problems as slavery.
"That does not mean that it will maximize good to society at large. Nor does that fact make for a compelling argument against copyright."
If you were paying attention you might have noticed that that statement was made, not to claim that free software automatically equals social good, but that free software will keep existing if copyright is abolished. Please stop beating the straw man that my claim free software will still exist is in itself my only claim about copyright harming society. I made quite a few arguments to that effect which you ignored - likely because you had no actual response to them and would prefer to attack a weaker argument I did not make.
"And virtually no one uses BSD EXCEPT for cases like Apple where they have taken bits of it proprietary and made it de-facto no longer free."
People use Linux, though. There is mostly only minor technical differences between BSD and Linux. It has nothing to do with licensing and everything to do with momentum and support.
"Creative works that are later made truly useful to society by someone else with a profit motive."
BSD had no value by itself, because it is not often used except in proprietary products? I'm sure the developers of OpenBSD would beg to differ. What I find most interesting is that you're trying to insinuate that only things made for profit are "truly useful to society." Great argument, except it is provably false in so many ways, I don't even feel the need to state one of them. I think everyone with half of a brain can imagine one or two cases of something produced for reasons other than profit being worth something.
"Really? You've solved the free rider problem? We should alert the Nobel committee so you can collect your prize."
No. I'm saying it never existed as a justification for copyright. If you got beyond the mindset that you just stated, that only things done with a profit incentive can be good, you'd see why it is not relevant to the discussion. However, I can see you are unable to think beyond how you are told to by copyright holders, so I will forgive your inability to provide an actual argument against my points.
How about we leave the problem of making a business profitable to the businesses? It is not the duty nor place of the government to ensure the creation of Avatar. If there is a will, there is a way. The goal now is to end the system that has a stranglehold on every aspect of the internet. Copyright and freedom cannot coexist any longer, something SOPA proves.
Copyright is a force for the public good? Then why does every event since its inception seem to suggest that it only makes the original situation worse? Copyright has always been abused by those with money, and those without money are rarely able to make use of it. This goes back to my knowledge as far as Edison, but I'm sure if you looked at history you'd find many earlier and many worse cases alike.
Free software will keep existing without copyright. In fact, if the pro-copyright rhetoric of software companies is to be even partially believed, it will become the standard of software. Instead of a company producing a proprietary product and selling it to other companies, the business model will become companies funding development themselves and opening it in order to benefit from the funding of other similar companies; the exact model that led to the creation of nearly all open source today. Indeed, I would argue the current system only forces duplication of effort.
There might be some issues if copyright were abolished, but the good far outweighs the bad. Sure you can take the source and make a closed product - but how are you going to complete with the continued development of the open branch? After all, BSD is still around.
There is absolutely no justification for copyright in the modern world. There never was a justification - the whole thing is based on a fictitious romantic concept of authorship. However, we now see the error in it, in a way we could not before the creation of the internet. Copyright has outlived its welcome; it must and will end.
And yet you don't question all the deaths in coal/oil/"green" (hydro electric is one of the most dangerous forms of energy, fyi). Makes you look a bit like one of those Sky Is Falling Greenpeace people. I trust the nuclear industry ten times as much as I trust you and your Luddite kin.