The problem with civil disobedience is that there is an assumption that people's perceptions, judgement, and sense of perspective aren't compromised, which often they are. It assumes they can make a rational assessment about the state of the system and the will of the people. While it can be a fine tool for safeguarding democracy, it often helps individuals subvert it. Basically, it gives individuals far too much power over the people. It leads to basically ineffectual laws, and an unstable society. If people were to take more care to collaborate with their fellow man, we would get more Dr. Kings and less John Wilkes Booths. Thankfully, people are too contented to start abusing their power.
All that applies tenfold to policemen. We don't need to combine the policeman's power with the legislative branch. It gives policemen to define their own law and enforce it immediately, which would be a disaster to people trying to live an honest, legal life. I much prefer the police to be a tool of society, not a loose collection of individual think-tanks.
Oh, absolutely. Politicians' power thrives on which bills they got passed, not which ones they get rescinded. Of course, it's no secret who keeps electing them.
Politicians' power could also hinge on which laws they have rescinded if people demanded it. While they don't, it basically allows special interest groups to do whatever they want with the slack.
No, Criminal != Wrong is also a common misconception. It assumes that there is some definite, universal measurement of morality, which there is: the law. Not everyone has to agree with every part of it, but by the same token, you may have people who do. It's supposed to be a one-size-fits-all template for morality. If there is a crime that you believe isn't immoral, you are obliged to justify your belief. Similarly, if there is a legal activity you believe is immoral (like my opinion of TPB's activities), then you are obliged to justify that belief as well.
Are you talking legal justification or ethical justification?
Both. It's law, and enforcement branches have a duty to uphold it. We, on the other hand, have a duty to make sure the law stays moral.
Again, in an ideal world, that's true. Empirical evidence shows that we live in a different one (a simple count of new vs. struck laws per congress should suffice). Word count is a reasonable approximation, and the US Code keeps growing year upon year.
Sorry to get picky, but technically, it's not empirical evidence. It's all circumstantial. Those two statistics could be a result of the lack of drive to redact any one of those laws. People approve laws by their lack of action before or after the laws are passed. If they truly didn't approve, the laws could and would easily be redacted.
Food and rent is taken care of by concert tickets and selling t-shirts and albums at the shows.
That tells artists three things:
"Don't bother doing the recordings. They're too much hassle for not enough profit. Just stick with playing live." "Don't bother trying to be too successful. If you do a relatively mediocre job, you'll still be sold out from the inevitable flocks of fans who are starved for music" "Don't bother writing music that can't (or shouldn't) be performed live. If it's got anything more innovative than the drummer, guitar, vocals combo, we don't want to know about it"
Wait, you say you want to work only once in your life and then keep sitting on the copyright? Don't we all.
Yeah, they could work once in their life. If their creation really is that valuable, then sure, why wouldn't they? Most people, however, would be inspired to create more from their earlier successes. Keeping people impoverished doesn't exactly inspire them to keep going.
Imagine if you were to work at your job as it is, except you work unpaid for many months at a time with the promise that if your work is up to scratch, you'll turn over a tidy profit at the end. OK, that's fair enough. Now imagine that that tidy profit at the end was cut into a quarter on pay-day, and you were blamed for essentially being a sucker for working under such conditions. Not only that, you were told that you have it too easy, and that the money you were receiving would just make you lazy and complacent. Suddenly, you're the bad guy: a person who is selfishly demanding money for your previous work. What would you do? Would you feel inspired and motivated to continue to work at the same job? Or would you find something else to do, something with a bit more job security, a bit more respectability, and a bit more cash in the pocket?
No, it's just that pesky food and that pesky apartment rent (or house maintenance) that makes them penniless. Perhaps we should make them illegal instead of sharing.
It's like victimizing royalty by taking away land they aren't using so that commoners can hunt for food.
Yeah, except entertainment is a luxury, and one that the "commoners" are not at all starved of.
I don't believe that being rich makes them more productive so from my point of view it's better if they have to continue struggling for their wealth by doing useful things like producing more music, movies, and other cultural resources.
No, it's the promise of riches that makes people more productive. The system rewards hard work, or the footing of risks, with money. If you don't allow people to be entitled to their riches, you end up discouraging the extra work. In this case, allowing people to override copyright-holder's copyrights tells them that even though they do the extra work, they aren't entitled to the rewards of such work.
Isn't it worse to deprive your friend of something you have, than deprive multinational companies of money they are ripping off authors and are based on twisted laws of copyrights and patents anyway?
Let's face it, your friends probably aren't deprived of entertainment. Even if they are, there are plenty of lawful avenues to get cheap or free entertainment without resorting to piracy.
Not personally, but Martin Korth from NO$GBA seems to be getting the raw deal from piracy. He does everything right, with a free version for casual gamers, a cheap version for non-commercial use (which I use, it's a fine piece of software), no DRM, no activation, no required CD-ROMs, only non-invasive watermarks. Yet, apparently, he suffers from large amounts of piracy, if you believe his site. He seems awfully bitter about the whole affair, and he's relying partially on donations to keep NO$GBA running.
But that's only the shallow, superficial definition of victim. It's still possible to be a victim if you're not impoverished.
No matter where the law came from, it can be justifiably enforced, and you could justifiably call people who clearly breach it criminals, or at least call specific activities criminal activities. Asymmetries and corporate influences in the legal system are different issues entirely.
As for your second point, I don't see why redacting laws is any more difficult than adding them.
All your percentages are out. These powers may not last long enough for them to be abused in any significant way. Also, keeping crime low does improve quality of life, with less chance of the average Australian being a victim, plus making for slightly more stable and efficient economies, which improves quality of life slowly but surely, etc, etc.
It seems like your calculations were all no-brainers as well.
America has significant influence over Australia, that's for sure. In this case, however, it's more of a response to conservative values within Australia. There's been a big growth in public awareness of the darker sides of the internet and communications in general. There was a big program whereby people could gain access to a variety of free client-side net filters, for example. Generally, Australia has grown more conservative (possibly indirectly from US influence), and this policy is the result.
You're right. Surveillance, DNA, RFID/GPS implants, etc, etc, they all seem like silver bullets until they're actually tried in the field. Make no mistake, they do help catch certain criminals, but others can and will defeat the system. It mostly creates a divide between honest citizens and organised criminals, with no petty crime in the middle. The theory is that petty crime should be relatively disorganised, so the necessary tools to defeat whatever system should not be on hand. Organised criminals will have to work harder to defeat the system, but one incompetent slip (it happens in high-pressure situations), and the plans fall to pieces. The harder you make it, the better chance people will be caught committing a crime.
OTOH, debating over whether or not the measures are effective enough to justify their invasiveness is different, and as you pointed out, these silver bullets tend to be in large part just good ol' fashioned snake oil.
The only reason why I chose that nick was to see how many people would resort to ad hominem attacks, rather than tackling the substance of my argument (and learn and grow, have their views and perceptions challenged, etc). I was pleasantly surprised by the number of people willing to engage in proper discussions, but, as expected, every now and again I get some idiot assuming my nick is the flaw in all my arguments, and if they ignore me, my reasoning will cease to exist.
This is a VERY dangerously naive position. Who are these "criminals?"
It's not a slippery slope. These "criminals" can be easily categorised as people who break the law. No more, no less. If you break the law, that's behaviour which society has a right to control, because you've acted contrary to the laws the rest of us mostly obey. If you're not being a criminal, then you're not being a criminal. It's a well-defined term.
Are all "criminals" alike?
No, of course not. What a silly proposition.
A person arrested for chaining him/her self to a poll during a protest, should they be "controlled?"
Wake up; (s)he is being controlled. They're being arrested. If they shouldn't be arrested, then it should be codified in law, thus definitively defining them as not a criminal. Debate the law, not the enforcement.
We are *all* every man, woman, and child in the U.S.A. in violation of some law and probably have no idea. We are all criminals. Are we all to be controlled?
Aspects of our behaviour could justifiably be controlled with threats of fines or jail time, yes. Perhaps just a stern warning would do the trick. It's called enforcement, and it's simply society's way of making sure we're all playing by the same rules. It's control, and it's not the evil that you guys are trying to make it out to be.
A serious crime like rape, murder, being a member of the Bush administration, should bring a penalty of DNA identification. Short of that its totalitarianism slowly creeping up on us.
OK, now we're talking about DNA ID! It's just identification. It's a ham-fisted form of surveillance that's incapable of tracking people in large numbers. It actually affords the government very little power (which of course you'll assume they'll try to abuse at the first possible opportunity).
And BOTH of them want to spy on me, tell me what I can and can't do on the internet, and use the government to impose their interest groups' agendas on me by force.
Wrong, wrong, and wrong again. They don't want to do anything except whatever will ensure them the most votes. The reason why you're being spied upon and being told what to do (if you insist on calling it that) is because your fellow man has decided that protection of children is more important than your privacy from the government on the internet.
You see, the way it works is that we come up with a set of rules that the majority agrees upon (more or less) and we expect everyone to adhere them. If you personally choose not to adhere to them, then we use force. If you wish not to have force used upon you, and still wish to not adhere to the rules as they are now, then you are responsible for trying to change those rules to something you prefer. If that doesn't work, tough cookies. Mostly false rants over strawmen like "big business", and Hollywood are no substitute unfortunately.
(Reminder: troll-modding opinions that you don't agree with is a most insidious form of censorship)
REAL ID and biometric IDs have only one purpose, control of the citizenry. period. anytime. in. history.
You're right, but you fail to mention that criminals are really the only element of citizenry that need to be controlled, and the only element of citizenry that could be feasibly controlled without unbelievable costs and/or risks. It's the system working as it's supposed to.
I could spend days figuring out several ways to defeat any system of ID presented, and if I can you can be absolutely certain that criminals will. In fact they have much better resources than I do and would probably do a much better job.
Certain criminals will. Others will be deterred. The harder you make it, the harder potential criminals will have to work to pass under the radar. Hard work generally equates to more time (in which to be suspected), more overt acts, and/or more people to conspire with (i.e. more weak links in the chain).
Perhaps it's not compatible with the constitution or your values, but let's not kid ourselves, they don't do "nothing".
If i had one dollar for every brain you dont have, i would have $1.
Let's see...
In a theoretically infinite universe, there are theoretically infinite objects that could be considered brains. If I only didn't have one brain, then that means I have all but one of the infinite brains out there, which would imply, at the very least, that I would be much, much smarter than you.
Where did you get that sig anyway? Some insult from some online forum?
(Mods, this is the entertainment section. There's no great need to be strictly on-topic, right?;)
Wikipedians do exactly the same things. For all the talk of NPOV on every discussion page, it's little more than talk. Almost every music related page is essentially fan site, and spam too -- music is a commercial product, from an evil industry. For some bizarre reason people don't equate music promotion with spam. And there's music spam on most other pages too - e.g. "xyz" wrote a song about "Cyprus" or whatever.
Ah, I see what you did there! You're pretty clever. You were providing commenting from such a blatantly non-NPOV in order to show everyone else just how wrong blind faith in information is, right?
What was formerly common sense would say that bending over backwards for people who aren't actually your customers (they're more like your leeches) and encouraging your actual customers to join them is not a sustainable business strategy. I've always been highly suspicious of the "go ahead and share all you want, you don't have to buy a thing" business model, because it relies on the record companies giving away a lot for free, and simply hoping against hope that those people who were reluctant to give you a penny will suddenly turn around and make it all worth their while.
That said, I could be proved very, very wrong, and I think it's very good that we may see some choice in the market in the near future, rather than the simple dichotomy of locked-down big four media, or open indie media.
So you're telling me that it's going to be cheaper for everyone to buy a take-home copy of the song being played from iTunes than it will be to hear it once on a night out?
Slashdot Mirror
All that applies tenfold to policemen. We don't need to combine the policeman's power with the legislative branch. It gives policemen to define their own law and enforce it immediately, which would be a disaster to people trying to live an honest, legal life. I much prefer the police to be a tool of society, not a loose collection of individual think-tanks.Politicians' power could also hinge on which laws they have rescinded if people demanded it. While they don't, it basically allows special interest groups to do whatever they want with the slack.
Ha! Ahaha! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
Oh wait, you're serious?
No, Criminal != Wrong is also a common misconception. It assumes that there is some definite, universal measurement of morality, which there is: the law. Not everyone has to agree with every part of it, but by the same token, you may have people who do. It's supposed to be a one-size-fits-all template for morality. If there is a crime that you believe isn't immoral, you are obliged to justify your belief. Similarly, if there is a legal activity you believe is immoral (like my opinion of TPB's activities), then you are obliged to justify that belief as well.
"Don't bother doing the recordings. They're too much hassle for not enough profit. Just stick with playing live."
"Don't bother trying to be too successful. If you do a relatively mediocre job, you'll still be sold out from the inevitable flocks of fans who are starved for music"
"Don't bother writing music that can't (or shouldn't) be performed live. If it's got anything more innovative than the drummer, guitar, vocals combo, we don't want to know about it"Yeah, they could work once in their life. If their creation really is that valuable, then sure, why wouldn't they? Most people, however, would be inspired to create more from their earlier successes. Keeping people impoverished doesn't exactly inspire them to keep going.
Imagine if you were to work at your job as it is, except you work unpaid for many months at a time with the promise that if your work is up to scratch, you'll turn over a tidy profit at the end. OK, that's fair enough. Now imagine that that tidy profit at the end was cut into a quarter on pay-day, and you were blamed for essentially being a sucker for working under such conditions. Not only that, you were told that you have it too easy, and that the money you were receiving would just make you lazy and complacent. Suddenly, you're the bad guy: a person who is selfishly demanding money for your previous work. What would you do? Would you feel inspired and motivated to continue to work at the same job? Or would you find something else to do, something with a bit more job security, a bit more respectability, and a bit more cash in the pocket?
No, it's just that pesky food and that pesky apartment rent (or house maintenance) that makes them penniless. Perhaps we should make them illegal instead of sharing.
Not personally, but Martin Korth from NO$GBA seems to be getting the raw deal from piracy. He does everything right, with a free version for casual gamers, a cheap version for non-commercial use (which I use, it's a fine piece of software), no DRM, no activation, no required CD-ROMs, only non-invasive watermarks. Yet, apparently, he suffers from large amounts of piracy, if you believe his site. He seems awfully bitter about the whole affair, and he's relying partially on donations to keep NO$GBA running.
But that's only the shallow, superficial definition of victim. It's still possible to be a victim if you're not impoverished.
No matter where the law came from, it can be justifiably enforced, and you could justifiably call people who clearly breach it criminals, or at least call specific activities criminal activities. Asymmetries and corporate influences in the legal system are different issues entirely.
As for your second point, I don't see why redacting laws is any more difficult than adding them.
All your percentages are out. These powers may not last long enough for them to be abused in any significant way. Also, keeping crime low does improve quality of life, with less chance of the average Australian being a victim, plus making for slightly more stable and efficient economies, which improves quality of life slowly but surely, etc, etc.
It seems like your calculations were all no-brainers as well.
America has significant influence over Australia, that's for sure. In this case, however, it's more of a response to conservative values within Australia. There's been a big growth in public awareness of the darker sides of the internet and communications in general. There was a big program whereby people could gain access to a variety of free client-side net filters, for example. Generally, Australia has grown more conservative (possibly indirectly from US influence), and this policy is the result.
Um, voters? People? Police?
Licensing guns is precisely to stop people like you who think violence is the only way to get what you want.
You're right. Surveillance, DNA, RFID/GPS implants, etc, etc, they all seem like silver bullets until they're actually tried in the field. Make no mistake, they do help catch certain criminals, but others can and will defeat the system. It mostly creates a divide between honest citizens and organised criminals, with no petty crime in the middle. The theory is that petty crime should be relatively disorganised, so the necessary tools to defeat whatever system should not be on hand. Organised criminals will have to work harder to defeat the system, but one incompetent slip (it happens in high-pressure situations), and the plans fall to pieces. The harder you make it, the better chance people will be caught committing a crime.
OTOH, debating over whether or not the measures are effective enough to justify their invasiveness is different, and as you pointed out, these silver bullets tend to be in large part just good ol' fashioned snake oil.
The only reason why I chose that nick was to see how many people would resort to ad hominem attacks, rather than tackling the substance of my argument (and learn and grow, have their views and perceptions challenged, etc). I was pleasantly surprised by the number of people willing to engage in proper discussions, but, as expected, every now and again I get some idiot assuming my nick is the flaw in all my arguments, and if they ignore me, my reasoning will cease to exist.
You see, the way it works is that we come up with a set of rules that the majority agrees upon (more or less) and we expect everyone to adhere them. If you personally choose not to adhere to them, then we use force. If you wish not to have force used upon you, and still wish to not adhere to the rules as they are now, then you are responsible for trying to change those rules to something you prefer. If that doesn't work, tough cookies. Mostly false rants over strawmen like "big business", and Hollywood are no substitute unfortunately.
(Reminder: troll-modding opinions that you don't agree with is a most insidious form of censorship)
Perhaps it's not compatible with the constitution or your values, but let's not kid ourselves, they don't do "nothing".
Naruto? Even better, Yu-Gi-Oh, the abridged series!
In a theoretically infinite universe, there are theoretically infinite objects that could be considered brains. If I only didn't have one brain, then that means I have all but one of the infinite brains out there, which would imply, at the very least, that I would be much, much smarter than you.
Where did you get that sig anyway? Some insult from some online forum?
(Mods, this is the entertainment section. There's no great need to be strictly on-topic, right?
... if they're not paying.
Just saying.
What was formerly common sense would say that bending over backwards for people who aren't actually your customers (they're more like your leeches) and encouraging your actual customers to join them is not a sustainable business strategy. I've always been highly suspicious of the "go ahead and share all you want, you don't have to buy a thing" business model, because it relies on the record companies giving away a lot for free, and simply hoping against hope that those people who were reluctant to give you a penny will suddenly turn around and make it all worth their while.
That said, I could be proved very, very wrong, and I think it's very good that we may see some choice in the market in the near future, rather than the simple dichotomy of locked-down big four media, or open indie media.
So you're telling me that it's going to be cheaper for everyone to buy a take-home copy of the song being played from iTunes than it will be to hear it once on a night out?