Let me guess. These "facts" are statistical correlations of one city, located in the US. The US is, rather sadly, addicted to guns. Guns, in the city, are mostly just needed to protect against other guns. If you have guns already saturated throughout the nation, if a huge supply of guns are just suddenly relegated to the black market, gun control won't help a thing for a long, long time. Big cities in the US like NYC are living in a state of fear, and what they fear is really what they claim is also their saviour. Everybody loses except the big gun manufacturers.
Um, who are you talking to? I've never heard any opinion like this seriously expressed by any copyright holder, or organisation. You're not deliberately confusing copyright infringement (which devastatingly competes with the media creators, all the while relying on them) with competition (which provides a completely self-sustainable separate product), are you? I'm just asking 'cause no-one else seems to.
It's only copyright if it's copied, not if there are coincidental similarities between two works. If you can prove that the cease and desist letters were copied off one of your 40, then I guess this lays the precedent. Anyway, even if I'm mistaken, the sword would cut the first way back at you, because if the field of cease and desist letters is as narrow as you think, chances are that many of your 40 cease and desist letters would be infringing on other previous letters.
For accommodation. What, you don't think the owners/investors will just foot the extra bill?
I think you forgot a "not," but I think you also can't blame me for being opportunistic on that particular error. Haaa-ha!
Actually, no I didn't. The choice is almost always an easy one: the easiest one to get to every day is the winner. It's competition, it's choice, but it's not much of a choice, as opposed to the boarding schools and universities.
Similar, but lesser, competitive forces should be expected to operate if cross-town competition occurs among lower-income consumers than those who typically do send their young children to "boarding schools."
Lesser is certainly the operative word. One might even say significantly lesser. People will be suffering from the "lesser" nature of those competitive forces. It's a good investment to keep high standards of education, because it usually ends up paying out a more competitive work force.
I think you're exaggerating the average mobility of the post-secondary school population and the average immobility of the primary & secondary school population, and I think that when those exaggerations aren't accepted at face value, your argument hasn't got a prayer.
And I think you're exaggerating the degree of choice that lower income brackets have over schools. I don't think mine is exaggerated much at all. I remember at the end of my school days, about 30-40% of my year emigrated out of the city. That's a significant portion, but I accept that it may be an anomaly. But high school graduates aren't even the only potential students. Now they're reaching out to mature-aged students, and they also offer places to students from overseas. There's a lot of potential income for a university, but they have to be willing to work for it. All a school needs is basic facilities and a decent location.
Most parents, for one reason or another, don't seem to want to sever most of their contact with their children (especially their primary-aged children). They do have a choice, but the choice is an easy one. Plus, the added cost of accommodation means higher prices, which makes them less competitive to parents looking for the best value education. I'd like to also add that once a child chooses a school, no matter how badly run it is, they tend to stay at that school after they make friends, get to know teachers, buy textbooks, pay school fees, etc. There's little motivation for sampling different schools, you just pick one mostly on proximity, and sometimes on a bit of word-of-mouth, and that's it. Unless you move to new house, that's where your kids go.
Boarding schools are competitive though, I'll certainly give you that. So too with universities, students aren't tied down to any particular location. They can now be independent from their parents. They can move anywhere, and plenty do. School graduates also don't have to go to university, so there's more incentive there to offer and maintain interesting courses to lure them into studying.
United States colleges & universities have their "standards" set by regional, not federal authorities, and they all end up compatible enough for corporate work. Why shouldn't we expect that free market forces will be just as useful to primary & secondary education?
Free market tends not to work so well with primary/secondary education. With universities, the student can live separately to his/her parents, so there's a lot more competition for the students. With primary/secondary schools, the student is lucky to have a real choice between two or three schools. Schools don't tend to work very efficiently splitting local populations, so if there is any competition, the weaker is quickly eliminated. The parents don't want to move just to try out other schools further away, and neither they nor the student want longer travelling time between home and school. Schools essentially have a captive consumer base, so there isn't the same incentive to excel.
A nation-wide standard gives them a line to stay above, and can improve the image of US graduates in the rest of the world's eyes (as well as their own), since a US graduate will almost be guaranteed to know a certain knowledge and skill set. No standard set means that getting an American student is a bit of a pot-shot, and often not worth the risk.
"Cripple our country"? Who ever said anything about "cripple our country"?
All I'm saying is that it's not simply a matter of minimising the risk of a dictatorship at any cost. We could practically eliminate that risk by eliminating any position of authority, but then society would just run off the rails. That really would be crippling our country. It's a risk vs. benefits problem. You end up passing the sweet spot if you give away too much benefit just for that little bit extra security. That's all I meant.
Do you remember "the federal government shutdown of 1995"?
That's a good point. I realise there is, of course, going to be a sweet spot, and it's not going to be a case of bigger is better. What I'm referring to is not shying away from administering national affairs on a national level. Having centralised national agencies for certain affairs can provide very positive effects for a minuscule loss of security (from becoming a dictatorship).
Actually, you just demonstrated my other point. That's a good example of a big government being difficult to orchestrate. When two major parts of it clash, they clash spectacularly.
On the basis of the information available to me, I don't like the amount of power a clown like GWB has at his fingertips.
Another good point. Damage control is harder with power so centralised. GWB was elected democratically, but if that was a mistake by the people of the US, and we indeed have an idiot behind the reigns of the largest country, then that mistake has much greater consequences than if his jurisdiction were a state or city.
My worry is that if the national government gets too small, the kind of clashes of power seen in 1995 will become more frequent and even worse. Fifty states, each with their own population, their own values, and their own agendas, trying to wrangle agreements between each other, trying to decide on compatibility of their standards (e.g. education). It would be a nightmare. So obviously we need a unifying force between states, and certain things need to be taken out of the state's hands. OTOH, getting rid of some of the bloat wouldn't exactly hurt.
How would you like for me -- "some crack-pot on the Internet" to you, I'm guessing
No such luck. I (probably foolishly) treat everybody here like a human being and an equal. If I didn't, I wouldn't feel such irritation when someone loudly expounds what I consider a one-sided, or half-baked opinion.
I admit, in the sense of your statistical argument about general totalitarianism and the loss of all rights, it's far-fetched -- in any particular case -- but I don't feel like taking on faith that everybody in the Bureau is an Angel. If they are angels, why should they resist accountability to the Judicial Branch?
The system is designed so that not everyone needs to be an angel, they just need to not be inhuman devils. Even if 90% of government employees would be prepared to abandon the security of a life on the clean side of the law and participate in a conspiracy, we would still be pretty safe. In order to organise such a conspiracy, one would have to know exactly who in their department would be up for it, and make sure those who aren't don't find out. Anyway, that's just a hypothetical. I'd guess that the real figure of people prepared to risk everything over a long term goal with unclear benefits would be far below 10%.
If they are not, why should you & I excuse them from accountability?
We still have to hold them accountable, it's just that we don't have to be paranoid about accountability failing to the point where we cripple our country.
You're blowing out of proportion everything I'm saying.
I think you're using the word "damaging" as I would use "totally autocratic."
Damaging as in curtailing essential liberties, not "totally autocratic". But at least we both consider it negative.
Yes, I think I'm beginning to know what you mean. As long as it's only a few "flapping lips" to shut up at a time, you're not calling it "damaging."
No, what I'm saying is that any plan to do any "damage" requires a large scope, with a large number of people to orchestrate, not least the general population who are so well connected, and so well armed, that they could trivially overthrow any government they truly don't like. The only way would be a conspiracy, but it would have to be very large in order to get around all the checks and balances, as well as all the people with consciences who need to be in on it without blowing the whistle. It's really, really hard to overthrow hundreds of years of fierce (and at times, militant) democracy in one political term.
I'm reminded of the saying, from Mussolini's Italy, "at least the trains are on time," or something to that effect.
That's complete bullshit. I'm not at all saying we should accept dictatorship for something as trivial as the trains, I'm saying we shouldn't be so paranoid about the astronomically low odds that a large government may pose a threat to our freedoms. Large governments allow smoother operation of public services (yes, including trains), and they don't automatically become totalitarian as soon as they reach a certain size.
This created an incredible amount of wealth for his employees...
Which was taken from other parts of the economy and, in the case of anticompetetive practices, from other peoples employees.
OK, now I think you're just nit-picking. You hold it against Bill Gates that he made his employees rich off the success of their labour? Would you have any higher opinion if the employees of such a rich corporation were poor? I mean, you're also assuming they'd hoard their earnings, which would indeed adversely affect the economy, but I'm pretty sure most of them would spend some of that money.
Your answer assumes that copyright is in any way natural. It's not. It's a government granted monopoly.
Government granted monopoly or no, the GP feels that he is entitled to benefit from the creativity, the investment of tools, and time of others without actually paying them for it. That doesn't exactly seem natural either in a society designed to reward people's investments and efforts. People feel an outraged entitlement to their lives, for example, but the laws restricting the natural human behaviour of murdering, raping, and enslaving are all unnatural by definition. It makes far more sense, and is far more useful, to look at naturalism in terms of values in our society, rather than in anything-goes, natural chaos.
Sorry, but I just had to say thank you. I'm always open to positive feedback:)
Your description seems to me to be the pessimistic antithesis to mine.
Not really pessimistic, just cautious. I'm perfectly open to the suggestion of major copyright reforms, it's just that to date I've never seen any model that could successfully replace copyright demonstrated on a large scale. If it works better, then we can certainly start using it. It's just that we simply can't afford to dive head-first into an untested model.
What I'm saying is that you first need to ask those questions before pointing fingers
Agreed.
Good. That was the essence of my argument, you now know its context, you agree, great.
In short, whether you're "right-" or "left-" wing, whatever abuses of government power you abhor the most: other things being equal, a smaller government is less capable of committing them.
Sure, but I'm still not convinced that a big government is all that capable either. Sure, larger numbers help, but it also takes bigger, riskier, more audacious orchestration to do anything damaging. So many flapping lips to shut up, y'know? Sure, a smaller government makes it less likely that any such damaging abuse of power would ever occur, but the benefits probably don't match the benefits of having a larger government with decent oversight over national affairs.
It looks like you and I can agree that this is neither always true, nor always untrue.
Agreed, but I personally believe that there is a threshold for the amount power gained before any benefits are seen, and that the threshold is very large and difficult to reach.
Then if the artist put up a paypal link... Profit.
How much profit? How many people would actually donate? How many would say "Screw it, it's my money, he should've charged something"? How many would say "but, there are so many starving children out there"? How many would say "I would if I could be bothered"? How many would say "what's paypal?" And for those who can be bothered to hunt down their favourite artists and throw them some financial scraps, how many of those will be still so fresh-faced after 10 years of inconveniencing themselves just to give away their money? How many children growing up in a world where artists never ask outright with any authority for money would support the artists of their generation?
The music has to be better.
No, it has to be more popular (to rake in as many potential donors as possible), it needs to be cheaper (so no movies with any sort of decent budget, for example), and it needs to be distributed in a very limited, very cheap fashion. For example, people with slow (or even without) internet connections would be left completely behind.
It puts the control in the hands of the consumer rather than the producer
... which would come with the inevitable trade-off of less producers, when they get fed up of continually being walked over while they work their backs off for donations.
It could be absolutely disastrous for our culture, but we really don't know either way. How about a side-by-side study of the two models? We could have artists distributing by the "outdated" method and artists distributing straight to the public domain (if they want to), and compare who ends up more popular? Wait a sec, isn't that what's already happening? No, not really. The people out there who are illegally sharing copyrighted works are muddying up the results. If they stop, we could finally see what culture would be like without copyrighted media.
Oh, well, it's possible my attempted humor was not very funny.
Nope, too edgy, too soon.
Very likely. But, I also think the Jesus of the Bible would reply to that method of argument of yours, that a tree is known by its fruit, not by who planted it.
Touche. It's a difficult set of circumstances. We have an organisation that has spanned two millenia, and has understandably changed and adapted. Confusing the situation further is the Bible, which provides another authority and another set of teachings than the ones coming from those higher in the Christian hierarchy. I think that rather than just concentrate on the bible, the words of their leader, or the beginnings of the religion (that whole thread was just to respond to that one statement by the OP), we should be focussing on the actual people who consider themselves part of the religion now. If they, as a whole (not just as a representative) commit genocide, call the Galileo affair "rational and just", or invade science's territory, so be it, that's just what their religion is like.
I'm also familiar with the term 'Netiquette, though, and if I fouled, I apologize. I don't mean to "thread-jack" you.
Don't worry about it. I do it all the time;) I was a bit more concerned about the "liar" tag though.
To be honest, the whole argument was weak, but that wasn't the point. I just get sick and tired of people assuming the government is out to get them. (Actually, I get sick and tired of a lot of things on/.) What I'm saying is that you first need to ask those questions before pointing fingers, which the OP didn't do. He just assumed that the government wanted more power over him. It may well be true, but we don't know that, and the logical evaluation of the immediate facts suggests otherwise.
Hello again! Once again, you thread-jack me, and call me a liar (I assume, since you, again, didn't say it outright). But fair enough, any post on/. is fair game.
There are other sources of income for corrupt ex-Senators.
I tentatively guess that you mean they can get lobbying jobs through senate connections? Right, well that's not good, but not particularly relevant either. The OP was talking about security measures and how the politicians want more and more control over us. The article you linked to provided no such insight into how their power can be expanded, or even how any expanded power would benefit them. The terms are limited, the payment is fixed, the person is chosen regularly by the people. Unless you pervert one of those three things, then petty abuses of power would be far more risky than beneficial. Senator Lott appears to have traded his position for money, not tried to expand it.
The best feature of the television and the personal computer is the off switch. Debate as little as you like.
Correct me if I'm wrong (or even if I'm right), but you seem to disagree with the spirit of my argument. Unfortunately, if I go ahead and guess at the argument behind your cryptic statement, I may be accused of creating strawmen. Therefore, I shall respond in the same cryptic manner:
I disagree. The best feature of anything is whatever made you keep it on in the first place.
He was later elected spokesperson. I find the "misrepresenting" angle obtuse here.
Even a representative can misrepresent his electorate. We have absolutely no evidence that his specific statement accurately represented the opinions of all the Christians out there. Then again, perhaps they do (I guess we're back to verifiable facts). Either way, the Jesus of the bible likely wouldn't approve of the Inquisition.
Not necessary; I've taken part in some good Christian deeds, and I can tell you that they don't turn down atheists, or in any way screen participants for religion.
I never said they did. You have to admit though, Christianity does encourage that sort of thing. Surely part of the credit belongs to Christianity, if not for shaping people's beliefs, then for organising like-minded people into doing good deeds.
The BS gets accepted, and those crying foul are regarded as conspiracy theorists...
Ever noticed how mainstream media has turned "conspiracy theorist" into a negative label?
No, but seriously, that's exactly what they are. It's just as easy to say, for example "If those statistics were wrong, then how many other similar statistics were also wrong?", than to say "they did it on purpose to infiltrate our legal system". One has a reasonable train of thought behind it and is very constructive, the other is finger-pointing practically devoid of solid evidence, or even a decent plan of action.
And to clarify that, I don't give credit presently, based on a story of a "dissident" 2000 years ago
No, but that was never the point. The OP claimed that religion's purpose is to control the masses by the people in power, which is exactly the opposite to what it started out as. As for now, well, I don't think I want to go there, lest there be a big debate about brainwashing vs. free will, and the power of authority, etc, etc.
to a powerful organization whose leader called the imprisonment of Galileo by the Inquisition "rational and just."
Sure, but perhaps that's an example of a person misrepresenting what the religion is about. You don't see international press coverage of Christians doing good deeds.
Slashdot Mirror
Let me guess. These "facts" are statistical correlations of one city, located in the US. The US is, rather sadly, addicted to guns. Guns, in the city, are mostly just needed to protect against other guns. If you have guns already saturated throughout the nation, if a huge supply of guns are just suddenly relegated to the black market, gun control won't help a thing for a long, long time. Big cities in the US like NYC are living in a state of fear, and what they fear is really what they claim is also their saviour. Everybody loses except the big gun manufacturers.
Because someone thought that the mp3s would be pirated more than the conventional DRMed WMA/AACs.
Um, who are you talking to? I've never heard any opinion like this seriously expressed by any copyright holder, or organisation. You're not deliberately confusing copyright infringement (which devastatingly competes with the media creators, all the while relying on them) with competition (which provides a completely self-sustainable separate product), are you? I'm just asking 'cause no-one else seems to.
It's only copyright if it's copied, not if there are coincidental similarities between two works. If you can prove that the cease and desist letters were copied off one of your 40, then I guess this lays the precedent. Anyway, even if I'm mistaken, the sword would cut the first way back at you, because if the field of cease and desist letters is as narrow as you think, chances are that many of your 40 cease and desist letters would be infringing on other previous letters.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but you said it, and I saw your UID, and I just couldn't help myself!
Most parents, for one reason or another, don't seem to want to sever most of their contact with their children (especially their primary-aged children). They do have a choice, but the choice is an easy one. Plus, the added cost of accommodation means higher prices, which makes them less competitive to parents looking for the best value education. I'd like to also add that once a child chooses a school, no matter how badly run it is, they tend to stay at that school after they make friends, get to know teachers, buy textbooks, pay school fees, etc. There's little motivation for sampling different schools, you just pick one mostly on proximity, and sometimes on a bit of word-of-mouth, and that's it. Unless you move to new house, that's where your kids go.
Boarding schools are competitive though, I'll certainly give you that. So too with universities, students aren't tied down to any particular location. They can now be independent from their parents. They can move anywhere, and plenty do. School graduates also don't have to go to university, so there's more incentive there to offer and maintain interesting courses to lure them into studying.
A nation-wide standard gives them a line to stay above, and can improve the image of US graduates in the rest of the world's eyes (as well as their own), since a US graduate will almost be guaranteed to know a certain knowledge and skill set. No standard set means that getting an American student is a bit of a pot-shot, and often not worth the risk.All I'm saying is that it's not simply a matter of minimising the risk of a dictatorship at any cost. We could practically eliminate that risk by eliminating any position of authority, but then society would just run off the rails. That really would be crippling our country. It's a risk vs. benefits problem. You end up passing the sweet spot if you give away too much benefit just for that little bit extra security. That's all I meant.
Actually, you just demonstrated my other point. That's a good example of a big government being difficult to orchestrate. When two major parts of it clash, they clash spectacularly.Another good point. Damage control is harder with power so centralised. GWB was elected democratically, but if that was a mistake by the people of the US, and we indeed have an idiot behind the reigns of the largest country, then that mistake has much greater consequences than if his jurisdiction were a state or city.
My worry is that if the national government gets too small, the kind of clashes of power seen in 1995 will become more frequent and even worse. Fifty states, each with their own population, their own values, and their own agendas, trying to wrangle agreements between each other, trying to decide on compatibility of their standards (e.g. education). It would be a nightmare. So obviously we need a unifying force between states, and certain things need to be taken out of the state's hands. OTOH, getting rid of some of the bloat wouldn't exactly hurt.No such luck. I (probably foolishly) treat everybody here like a human being and an equal. If I didn't, I wouldn't feel such irritation when someone loudly expounds what I consider a one-sided, or half-baked opinion.The system is designed so that not everyone needs to be an angel, they just need to not be inhuman devils. Even if 90% of government employees would be prepared to abandon the security of a life on the clean side of the law and participate in a conspiracy, we would still be pretty safe. In order to organise such a conspiracy, one would have to know exactly who in their department would be up for it, and make sure those who aren't don't find out. Anyway, that's just a hypothetical. I'd guess that the real figure of people prepared to risk everything over a long term goal with unclear benefits would be far below 10%.We still have to hold them accountable, it's just that we don't have to be paranoid about accountability failing to the point where we cripple our country.
It's just the nature of the free market. You can demand to have more as much as you want, but if the company doesn't want to pay more, they won't.
It could be absolutely disastrous for our culture, but we really don't know either way. How about a side-by-side study of the two models? We could have artists distributing by the "outdated" method and artists distributing straight to the public domain (if they want to), and compare who ends up more popular? Wait a sec, isn't that what's already happening? No, not really. The people out there who are illegally sharing copyrighted works are muddying up the results. If they stop, we could finally see what culture would be like without copyrighted media.
I have three words for you:
Direct Brain Feed
To be honest, the whole argument was weak, but that wasn't the point. I just get sick and tired of people assuming the government is out to get them. (Actually, I get sick and tired of a lot of things on
I disagree. The best feature of anything is whatever made you keep it on in the first place.Even a representative can misrepresent his electorate. We have absolutely no evidence that his specific statement accurately represented the opinions of all the Christians out there. Then again, perhaps they do (I guess we're back to verifiable facts). Either way, the Jesus of the bible likely wouldn't approve of the Inquisition.I never said they did. You have to admit though, Christianity does encourage that sort of thing. Surely part of the credit belongs to Christianity, if not for shaping people's beliefs, then for organising like-minded people into doing good deeds.
No, but seriously, that's exactly what they are. It's just as easy to say, for example "If those statistics were wrong, then how many other similar statistics were also wrong?", than to say "they did it on purpose to infiltrate our legal system". One has a reasonable train of thought behind it and is very constructive, the other is finger-pointing practically devoid of solid evidence, or even a decent plan of action.