See that's the thing: bugger all criminals actually have guns here, but certainly more than we have apathetic policemen who don't feel obliged to protect someone from a perpetrator with a gun. Here in Australia, we actually have a sensitivity to guns. If people so much as get a glimpse of a gun on anyone but those obviously meant to use it, people actually freak out. People will call the police, and they respond promptly. Why? Because they are also sensitive to guns. They know the dangers of a gun and put gun crime on very high priority. They know they can't be apathetic, otherwise a politician hoping to be (re)elected will call for a police enquiry, and their actions and jobs will be called into question. If gun crime raises just a percent, voters also freak out.
This isn't just nanny-state-ism, this is a case of the government protecting my life. I do feel safer knowing that it is much harder for a person to get a gun.
Allow me to dismiss that as an exception. There are always going to be exceptions. What counts is the number of deaths prevented. It seems common sense that you try to prevent these kind of incidents by prevention, not vigilante damage control.
What I don't get is what the pro-gunners are so afraid of. All you have to do is maintain a licence to use a gun. What scares you so much?
The figure for online piracy seems like one of those bogus ones. It is only a loss if the person would otherwise have paid. I doubt that they have a good way of measuring that.
They don't need to factor that in. I had previously pirated several albums due to poor student status and I can honestly say that I probably wouldn't have bought any of them singularly. However, if I didn't pirate any of them, I would have bought some of them, due to the fact that I enjoy music. Consequently, instead of buying 3-5 albums, I pirated 20, thus depriving the recording industry of their profits.
Still not convinced? Piracy begets piracy. Rampant, unchecked piracy results in (and has resulted in) a disrespect for copyright and copyright holders, which in turn resulted in abusive behaviour from copyright holders, consumers, government, and peripheral companies such as AT&T. Remember kids, it's as much your fault as the RIAA's that the copyright war started and is still continuing.
Big movies = Millions of dollars in profit Loss of revenue from dead consumers due to illegal guns = easily less than one million dollars
Illegal guns are the kind of problem that democracy can't easily fix. The solution requires funding and effort for little immediate result, thus failing to impress the public.
This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race by Fall Out Boy.
Anyway, pop music is a style, people like it, the genre has elements that unite it as a genre. It's a gross simplification to say there is all the same, and unfair to say there is no talent involved.
Mac: Hello, I'm a Mac... PC:...and I'm a PC. Mac is looking through a small viewfinder, looking very absorbed PC: Hey Mac. Mac: Yeah? PC: What are you doing? Mac: I'm browsing the internet with Safari. PC: I do the same thing with IE. Mac: You should try Safari. It's fast, secure, and easy to use. Mac hands the viewfinder to PC PC: Oh, thanks. PC looks into the viewfinder and keels over, dead Mac shrugs
It was not in their best interest to put on a great show that would be Tivoed and passed around the internet.
I've got a better, more radical solution. Why not simply not air the show at all, and release on DVD? Then no-one would pirate it! Then they could somehow start actually trying to protect DVDs from copying (because obviously they weren't before), and thus avoid the problem of piracy by TiVo (as opposed to piracy via DRM crack). It's genius! That way they could avoid through the labours of broadcasting on TV (which of course no popular show ever wants to do due to piracy) and still make money.
Why, we could apply this to all kinds of businesses. The DVD shops could protect against theft by refusing to sell DVDs, insurance companies could protect against rampant fraud by refusing to offer insurance, taxi drivers could stop car theft by not owning a car! Wow, what a world we could live in!
There is a section of the American population who is not content with just living their own lives by their own morals. No, they work tirelessly to make everyone else live by their morals as well.
Are you talking about that group that seems to know how to run a good, moral life better than we know ourselves? The group that periodically declares something evil and collectively lobbies against it? You are talking about Slashdotters, right?
Seriously though, I think you'll find that most of the people are not so much interested in your soul (most people aren't that compassionate), rather the souls of their children. The case is more "that means adults have to give up their freedoms, but that's nothing compared to protecting our children" rather than the quote above. I don't actually see a nefarious purpose. All I see are people trying to protect their children, which isn't the slightest bit reprehensible. Like anything though, you can take it too far.
Besides, I think it's China's choice whether or not it censors Flickr. Who knows, maybe their children expect a higher level of protection than in the US, or any other western country. I'm not one to work tirelessly to make everyone else live by my morals as well.
Hopefully somebody will speak up when they come for you.
By the time they come for me, society will have fundamentally changed, and I'll probably be backed by terrorists and communists. Until then, I'll watch as western society toys with and discards their latest "threats".
Every couple of years there's something new that they want to ban from adults due to "for the children" arguments.
Please enlighten me: why was this not for the children? How do you know it's some form of nefarious purpose, hidden under "for the children" arguments, aimed at silencing adults? Apart from the fact that it is part of American heritage to distrust authority figures.
Y'know, I'd hate being a politician, or a policeman, or any other authority figure in America. All that hate and pressure not to f%@k up lest you look corrupt, all that criticism and resentment. I reckon I'd give up pretty bloody quickly and start accepting generous "donations" towards my retirement fund.
This isn't the RIAA we're talking about here, they actually charge a decent rate for their products, and they're not getting rich off ages-old business models.
Let me get this straight:
Profit == evil Money == evil Old business model == evil Anything that/. collectively, arbitrarily declares evil == evil
And in other news, millions of people book for an appointment at their nearest psychologist, because someone anonymously posted the parent post, and someone else modded it informative.
Nobody can "sign away" their statutory rights. You can't make a contract whereby you agree to be someones slave, because freedom is a statutory right - one granted by statute.
Not quite. Legality is meant to be a subset of our morality. It's meant to enforce the core moral values, usually to help society work efficiently and effectively. Morality is all the codes we live by, some of which differ between us.
people should care less about the former and more about the latter
I disagree. People can do stupid things when they believe that they have the moral higher ground. People use civil disobedience, thinking they know better than everyone else, often without the mitigating perspective of people opposed to the change. It produces a chaotic system, where everyone does what they want, without regard for the rules. While it does grant a lot of freedom, this system has the unfortunate side effect of creating unnecessary rifts in society. DRM is a perfect example. People disregard copyright law, the media companies develop DRM. Developing the DRM costs money and turns people away from buying the product, thus adding to the price of the product. Piracy also causes lawsuits, which wreck the media companies' collective images. Now we have the situation falling apart with the media companies desperately trying to uphold the law, making several blunders in the process. We also have people believing that copyright law is to blame for these court abuses. Society could really do without that kind of civil disobedience.
If you're an American
I'm not.
to assume something is bad because "it's illegal" is shortsighted.
That's true. However, people underestimate the negative effect that disobeying the law actually has, therefore they don't actually factor it into their decision nearly enough. The way I see it, breaking the law is a final resort, after the legal avenues are exhausted. The legal avenues at least allow you to learn more about other people's perspective on the matter, so at least you will be informed. Then you need to consider why the legal avenues didn't take, and decide whether it is worth pursuing it further, not just for you, but for the rest of society. Then, and only then, do I consider it justified to break the law. Before you start preaching the dangers of the legal system in totalitarian states, I'll say that it's only a guide, but it holds true for most western countries.
Slashdot Mirror
See that's the thing: bugger all criminals actually have guns here, but certainly more than we have apathetic policemen who don't feel obliged to protect someone from a perpetrator with a gun. Here in Australia, we actually have a sensitivity to guns. If people so much as get a glimpse of a gun on anyone but those obviously meant to use it, people actually freak out. People will call the police, and they respond promptly. Why? Because they are also sensitive to guns. They know the dangers of a gun and put gun crime on very high priority. They know they can't be apathetic, otherwise a politician hoping to be (re)elected will call for a police enquiry, and their actions and jobs will be called into question. If gun crime raises just a percent, voters also freak out.
This isn't just nanny-state-ism, this is a case of the government protecting my life. I do feel safer knowing that it is much harder for a person to get a gun.
Allow me to dismiss that as an exception. There are always going to be exceptions. What counts is the number of deaths prevented. It seems common sense that you try to prevent these kind of incidents by prevention, not vigilante damage control.
What I don't get is what the pro-gunners are so afraid of. All you have to do is maintain a licence to use a gun. What scares you so much?
Still not convinced? Piracy begets piracy. Rampant, unchecked piracy results in (and has resulted in) a disrespect for copyright and copyright holders, which in turn resulted in abusive behaviour from copyright holders, consumers, government, and peripheral companies such as AT&T. Remember kids, it's as much your fault as the RIAA's that the copyright war started and is still continuing.
...I only got the joke when I read "to bad".
Big movies = Millions of dollars in profit
Loss of revenue from dead consumers due to illegal guns = easily less than one million dollars
Illegal guns are the kind of problem that democracy can't easily fix. The solution requires funding and effort for little immediate result, thus failing to impress the public.
Finally, a post on this topic that isn't biased against the Canadian film industry. Sticks to the facts and the most obvious of assumptions. Mod Up.
This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race by Fall Out Boy.
Anyway, pop music is a style, people like it, the genre has elements that unite it as a genre. It's a gross simplification to say there is all the same, and unfair to say there is no talent involved.
...for the small price of the US (and in turn global) economy.
Mac: Hello, I'm a Mac... ...and I'm a PC.
PC:
Mac is looking through a small viewfinder, looking very absorbed
PC: Hey Mac.
Mac: Yeah?
PC: What are you doing?
Mac: I'm browsing the internet with Safari.
PC: I do the same thing with IE.
Mac: You should try Safari. It's fast, secure, and easy to use.
Mac hands the viewfinder to PC
PC: Oh, thanks.
PC looks into the viewfinder and keels over, dead
Mac shrugs
Why, we could apply this to all kinds of businesses. The DVD shops could protect against theft by refusing to sell DVDs, insurance companies could protect against rampant fraud by refusing to offer insurance, taxi drivers could stop car theft by not owning a car! Wow, what a world we could live in!
I think the only thing treasured over tech on /. is the good old high horse. It's a fine beast, but it seems to get way too much exercise.
I for one welcome the return of our new-ish stupid tag overlords.
Seriously though, I think you'll find that most of the people are not so much interested in your soul (most people aren't that compassionate), rather the souls of their children. The case is more "that means adults have to give up their freedoms, but that's nothing compared to protecting our children" rather than the quote above. I don't actually see a nefarious purpose. All I see are people trying to protect their children, which isn't the slightest bit reprehensible. Like anything though, you can take it too far.
Besides, I think it's China's choice whether or not it censors Flickr. Who knows, maybe their children expect a higher level of protection than in the US, or any other western country. I'm not one to work tirelessly to make everyone else live by my morals as well.
Y'know, I'd hate being a politician, or a policeman, or any other authority figure in America. All that hate and pressure not to f%@k up lest you look corrupt, all that criticism and resentment. I reckon I'd give up pretty bloody quickly and start accepting generous "donations" towards my retirement fund.
Profit == evil
Money == evil
Old business model == evil
Anything that
Makes (a twisted, perverted form of) sense now.
You know, you can opt out of the moderation system. Just click on options up the top, and then homepage, scroll down to
[x] Willing to Moderate
and uncheck the box.
And in other news, millions of people book for an appointment at their nearest psychologist, because someone anonymously posted the parent post, and someone else modded it informative.
Why don't these guys do something truly good for humanity, and patent malware and spam? Should clear up those problems in an instant!
*ducks*
Touché.
If you don't like geeks discussing their experiences with technology, you could always, y'know, stop reading slashdot!