[/temporarily playing along with your conflation between copyrights and patents] [/temporarily playing along with the conjecture that patents perform the opposite function as intended]
You said I "claimed" something that I didn't claim (i.e. that it was wrong in all cases). That's a strawman, and you burnt it pretty good.
As for your comment about fallacies, I'll say that I'm using the mathematical definition of fallacies. A mathematical argument is a fallacy if there exists a set of circumstances where the hypotheses are satisfied, but the conclusion is false. So, if you said "if the sun rises, then you are wrong", then that would be a fallacy, since the sun not rising, for whatever reason, would not stop ke from being wrong. If, however, you can prove that the sun will rise forever and ever, then it would not be a fallacy!
You said "it fails to hold for most situations in life" and from that you induce that this predicts a failure to hold up for other situations a priori.
For one, no I didn't. Show me my post where I say that, and then I might consider taking you seriously. Secondly, if I did say that, it would be out of experience. I'm sure that, if pressed, I could go through my day and find over a hundred everyday situations that fit the OP's argument template.
For example: I wasn't run over on the busy street all my life, so I shouldn't be worried about it happening (making no mention of what would happen if I literally ran into busy traffic)
Another example: My boss hasn't fired me since I got my job 5 years ago. I can probably start urinating in his office now.
This isn't inductive reasoning, this is solid evidence as to the fallaciousness of the slippery slope. All I need to do is show that there are significant counter-examples to such inductive reasoning, and then it's a fallacy. It doesn't mean it's always wrong, it just means that we can't use it as proof that a phenomenon, like slippery slope, applies to certain situations.
For example, I don't think slippery slope (generally) works for civil liberties. Rulers derive their power from the people, be it their support, or merely their inaction. If a ruler is supported by no-one, and only a handful of people oppose him, then he will be easily overthrown. The ruler must make some people happy, so that those people will defend him against unhappy people. In that way, I believe that the majority of civil liberties of most people in western countries are not significantly at risk, even in the UK. Sure, governments can infringe on civil liberties now, because they generally pick off outliers that the majority of their constituents don't use in the first place, but from there, it does not follow that they will not have the right to vote. However, if you are a convicted or suspected terrorist, I would be very concerned about your civil liberties, not just the outliers, but basic rights, like your right to vote, or right to live without harassment from the government. I would go further, but godwin wouldn't approve.
If you want an example of somewhere where I think the slippery slope does work, try unchecked piracy. The reason why I think it's a slippery slope, and not civil liberties, is because, unlike civil liberties, there's no normalising force (it's unchecked). People might argue conscience, or an intellectual appreciation that artists need money to produce, but I think that as people grow more and more addicted to their free media stream, their conscience or intellect will have less influence over their decision-making. They will also give way due to cognitive dissonance, i.e. "it feels so good it can't be bad", then from that, "it's the artists who are being bad for making something so good feel so bad". The act itself spreads to others, and erodes its own normalising force, and thus, leaving piracy unchecked is a slippery slope.
You've presented a single counter-example, and claim that the argument is always invalid? That's a fallacy!
And that's a strawman. A fallacy is an argument that is not universally true. I could say, if it's raining, then I'm under a roof. It might be true tomorrow, but then again, it will be false if ever I go walking in the rain. Just because it's true tomorrow doesn't mean it's true all the time. Just because it's false the day after, doesn't mean that it's false all the time. But the fact that it can be both is sufficient to say it's a fallacy. Understand?
To consider your "gulp of saltwater at the ocean" example, you are thinking only of an isolated incident. That doesn't make a pattern.
That... that's exactly what I've been saying! What's to say that your sun-rising theory isn't similar?
OK, so applying logic equivalently doesn't seem to convince you, nor does picking apart your use of the word "solid" referring to your reasoning. How about this:
The UK, for every day since some day during 1215. It is reasonable that tomorrow (and then the next day, and the next, etc, etc). We can claim similar things for voting, basic liberties, just about everything except surveillance. Does this mean we should not worry about the "slippery slope" leading anywhere?
I have no problem with inductive reasoning being used to fill the holes of lack of information. It's this kind of one-eyed inductive reasoning, developed from cherry picking evidence and logic, that I feel so averse to.
Every time A has happened, B has resulted. If we let A happen again, B will probably happen.
Pretty rock-solid, if you ask me.
Well, remind me not to in the future. This is certainly not rock solid. You assume (like all people who use the slippery slope argument in this context) that people will take any abuse from the government just because they take a little abuse from the government (assuming, of course, that this is abuse, and not people feeling insecure and running to the government for help), that means they'll take any abuse from the government. I might be able to swallow a mouthful of sea water when I'm at the beach, but that doesn't mean I'll be able to finish the rest of the ocean.
It's a fallacy, pure and simple. It's an argument based on very shaky intuition based on small, trivial cases (where relevant variables do not change as a result of A happening), but fails to hold for most situations in life.
Firstly, the effort required to communicate the data isn't important. Either you work for the company or you don't, if you don't then you are free to choose to do what you wish. I could request that you put "N1AK is awesome" in your signature, is it a crime for you not to perform this trivial act? Would it be different if I used to employ you?
Just to remind you, we are talking about passwords here, not trivial requests. Withholding the password can case serious damage to the company. The company owns the equipment, the former admin does not. The former admin owes the company its passwords, not so much in virtue of the company being his former employer, but in virtue of the fact that he is a person withholding their own vital information from them.
I might add that the trivial effort required to comply with such a request is important, because it means that the cost to the admin is far, far outweighed by the benefit to the company.
That information could arguably be far more important to the long term success of the company than a single password, why should it be treated differently?
Because the password is a secret that can be discovered from exactly one source. If a sales company wanted to find out what a former employee already found out, they can have another sales man repeat the work he already did. A password might only have a single source.
His boss should of ensured that the critical information wasn't lost with him.
Consider, for a moment, what you are advocating. No admin would have the obligation to share a password once terminated. What happens if an admin decides not to share a password at all? The employer can't fire him, because he knows that if he did that, not only would he not have his passwords, but he'd have no-one running his system. It gives admins far too much power to make themselves indispensable through unethical and harmful practices.
The point here is not whether Terry's actions were damaging to the company or not, regardless of how damaging they might be. He was obviously being as difficult as he could. The issue is whether someone can be punished for choosing not to do work for someone who no longer employs them?
I don't think the courts see it that way. They don't see this as a chance to set a precedent forcing people to work for their employers unpaid. That would be ridiculous, and the courts know this. They see it as a chance to minimise damages to a companies as a result of an admin abusing his power.
What's wrong with that? Are you worried because a lawyer issues advice based on the potential for harm (and he therefore, in your opinion, is stupid)? Or are you worried because he seems to think there are situations when withholding passwords might not be harmful (and he therefore, in your opinion, is stupid)? I can't decide from your post, and both options seem absurd.
I can't see why a password should be treated better than the job related knowledge required in most careers.
Passwords are different because:
a) they are small and trivial to communicate (unlike your examples), and b) they are (for all practical purposes) essential for the running and maintenance of an important and expensive part of many companies
When a sales company fires a salesman, they can try to recoup the salesman's loyal customers, or they can bear the losses. There will be plenty of others.
When an engineer leaves, if he's worth keeping, he'll have kept some reasonable schematics of his work. If he decides to steal or vandalise them before he goes, well, then he's liable.
Who won a bullshit popularity contest designed to keep the masses of asses interested in media which pisses on their minds is not repeat not worthy news for nerds.
But since nerds are a subset of human beings, and these awards are worthy discussion points for human beings (even if they don't have some grave consequence in life), I submit that they are worthy discussion points for nerds.
Seriously though, what's with the vitriol? It's entertainment. In moderate amounts, it can be, y'know, fun. Sometimes, even nerds like to have fun (sometimes).
However, this theory fails to explain why most people that play violent video games do not go out and act like that in the real world.
It doesn't have to. It shows (apparently) that video games cause some people to act violently. That's cause enough to consider a ban, regardless of what the other people do.
A little, yeah (except decidedly less dangerous). Not that I'm a fan of guns, but at least they have very common legal uses like protection (against more guns, of course).
The GP was saying that, all conversions be done, 84 hours is not as devastating as it can sound. That's not saying it couldn't, nor that it shouldn't, be improved.
Mind you, it's a freaking social networking site. How many lives will be seriously inconvenienced (much less endangered) by its downtime?
Bad example. It would work better if the phone book had, say, 80-90% of all numbers being drug dealers. Then we might have a case coming close to being analogous.
Heh. Reading "Smart people can behave in illogical ways", and reading "prisonexp" as "prisonxp", I figured whatever site you linked to needed to update its name to "prisonvista".
Slashdot Mirror
Doesn't "abolishing" mean "ending with zero"?
[/temporarily playing along with your conflation between copyrights and patents]
[/temporarily playing along with the conjecture that patents perform the opposite function as intended]
You said I "claimed" something that I didn't claim (i.e. that it was wrong in all cases). That's a strawman, and you burnt it pretty good.
As for your comment about fallacies, I'll say that I'm using the mathematical definition of fallacies. A mathematical argument is a fallacy if there exists a set of circumstances where the hypotheses are satisfied, but the conclusion is false. So, if you said "if the sun rises, then you are wrong", then that would be a fallacy, since the sun not rising, for whatever reason, would not stop ke from being wrong. If, however, you can prove that the sun will rise forever and ever, then it would not be a fallacy!
You're wrong. Showing internal contradiction is a very valid way of proving a fallacy.
For one, no I didn't. Show me my post where I say that, and then I might consider taking you seriously. Secondly, if I did say that, it would be out of experience. I'm sure that, if pressed, I could go through my day and find over a hundred everyday situations that fit the OP's argument template.
For example: I wasn't run over on the busy street all my life, so I shouldn't be worried about it happening (making no mention of what would happen if I literally ran into busy traffic)
Another example: My boss hasn't fired me since I got my job 5 years ago. I can probably start urinating in his office now.
This isn't inductive reasoning, this is solid evidence as to the fallaciousness of the slippery slope. All I need to do is show that there are significant counter-examples to such inductive reasoning, and then it's a fallacy. It doesn't mean it's always wrong, it just means that we can't use it as proof that a phenomenon, like slippery slope, applies to certain situations.
For example, I don't think slippery slope (generally) works for civil liberties. Rulers derive their power from the people, be it their support, or merely their inaction. If a ruler is supported by no-one, and only a handful of people oppose him, then he will be easily overthrown. The ruler must make some people happy, so that those people will defend him against unhappy people. In that way, I believe that the majority of civil liberties of most people in western countries are not significantly at risk, even in the UK. Sure, governments can infringe on civil liberties now, because they generally pick off outliers that the majority of their constituents don't use in the first place, but from there, it does not follow that they will not have the right to vote. However, if you are a convicted or suspected terrorist, I would be very concerned about your civil liberties, not just the outliers, but basic rights, like your right to vote, or right to live without harassment from the government. I would go further, but godwin wouldn't approve.
If you want an example of somewhere where I think the slippery slope does work, try unchecked piracy. The reason why I think it's a slippery slope, and not civil liberties, is because, unlike civil liberties, there's no normalising force (it's unchecked). People might argue conscience, or an intellectual appreciation that artists need money to produce, but I think that as people grow more and more addicted to their free media stream, their conscience or intellect will have less influence over their decision-making. They will also give way due to cognitive dissonance, i.e. "it feels so good it can't be bad", then from that, "it's the artists who are being bad for making something so good feel so bad". The act itself spreads to others, and erodes its own normalising force, and thus, leaving piracy unchecked is a slippery slope.
And that's a strawman. A fallacy is an argument that is not universally true. I could say, if it's raining, then I'm under a roof. It might be true tomorrow, but then again, it will be false if ever I go walking in the rain. Just because it's true tomorrow doesn't mean it's true all the time. Just because it's false the day after, doesn't mean that it's false all the time. But the fact that it can be both is sufficient to say it's a fallacy. Understand?
The words "magna carta" should have been in there somewhere.
That... that's exactly what I've been saying! What's to say that your sun-rising theory isn't similar?
OK, so applying logic equivalently doesn't seem to convince you, nor does picking apart your use of the word "solid" referring to your reasoning. How about this:
The UK, for every day since some day during 1215. It is reasonable that tomorrow (and then the next day, and the next, etc, etc). We can claim similar things for voting, basic liberties, just about everything except surveillance. Does this mean we should not worry about the "slippery slope" leading anywhere?
I have no problem with inductive reasoning being used to fill the holes of lack of information. It's this kind of one-eyed inductive reasoning, developed from cherry picking evidence and logic, that I feel so averse to.
Well, remind me not to in the future. This is certainly not rock solid. You assume (like all people who use the slippery slope argument in this context) that people will take any abuse from the government just because they take a little abuse from the government (assuming, of course, that this is abuse, and not people feeling insecure and running to the government for help), that means they'll take any abuse from the government. I might be able to swallow a mouthful of sea water when I'm at the beach, but that doesn't mean I'll be able to finish the rest of the ocean.
It's a fallacy, pure and simple. It's an argument based on very shaky intuition based on small, trivial cases (where relevant variables do not change as a result of A happening), but fails to hold for most situations in life.
He's Score:5 Informative, so he must be correct! ;)
That's gotta breed a lot of self loathing...
Just to remind you, we are talking about passwords here, not trivial requests. Withholding the password can case serious damage to the company. The company owns the equipment, the former admin does not. The former admin owes the company its passwords, not so much in virtue of the company being his former employer, but in virtue of the fact that he is a person withholding their own vital information from them.
I might add that the trivial effort required to comply with such a request is important, because it means that the cost to the admin is far, far outweighed by the benefit to the company.
Because the password is a secret that can be discovered from exactly one source. If a sales company wanted to find out what a former employee already found out, they can have another sales man repeat the work he already did. A password might only have a single source.
Consider, for a moment, what you are advocating. No admin would have the obligation to share a password once terminated. What happens if an admin decides not to share a password at all? The employer can't fire him, because he knows that if he did that, not only would he not have his passwords, but he'd have no-one running his system. It gives admins far too much power to make themselves indispensable through unethical and harmful practices.
I don't think the courts see it that way. They don't see this as a chance to set a precedent forcing people to work for their employers unpaid. That would be ridiculous, and the courts know this. They see it as a chance to minimise damages to a companies as a result of an admin abusing his power.
OK, let's break this down.
A password is not company property. Why? Because a password is information (not physical).
A piece of information is not property. Why? Because you can't deprive someone of information like you can property.
BUT Childs did deprive the "owners" of the information. It is possible! Does this then make passwords property?
What's wrong with that? Are you worried because a lawyer issues advice based on the potential for harm (and he therefore, in your opinion, is stupid)? Or are you worried because he seems to think there are situations when withholding passwords might not be harmful (and he therefore, in your opinion, is stupid)? I can't decide from your post, and both options seem absurd.
Passwords are different because:
a) they are small and trivial to communicate (unlike your examples), and
b) they are (for all practical purposes) essential for the running and maintenance of an important and expensive part of many companies
When a sales company fires a salesman, they can try to recoup the salesman's loyal customers, or they can bear the losses. There will be plenty of others.
When an engineer leaves, if he's worth keeping, he'll have kept some reasonable schematics of his work. If he decides to steal or vandalise them before he goes, well, then he's liable.
I can't see why this is so difficult to grasp.
But since nerds are a subset of human beings, and these awards are worthy discussion points for human beings (even if they don't have some grave consequence in life), I submit that they are worthy discussion points for nerds.
Seriously though, what's with the vitriol? It's entertainment. In moderate amounts, it can be, y'know, fun. Sometimes, even nerds like to have fun (sometimes).
It doesn't have to. It shows (apparently) that video games cause some people to act violently. That's cause enough to consider a ban, regardless of what the other people do.
Really? That's interesting. Could you link me to an article confirming that?
Like leaving this pointless thread without posting!
A little, yeah (except decidedly less dangerous). Not that I'm a fan of guns, but at least they have very common legal uses like protection (against more guns, of course).
The GP was saying that, all conversions be done, 84 hours is not as devastating as it can sound. That's not saying it couldn't, nor that it shouldn't, be improved.
Mind you, it's a freaking social networking site. How many lives will be seriously inconvenienced (much less endangered) by its downtime?
The challenge is not to find a google search that returns illegal torrents, but to find a TPB search that doesn't.
Yeah, yeah, I know, linux, etc, but you have to admit that TPB is primarily about the copyright infringement. Google is not.
Bad example. It would work better if the phone book had, say, 80-90% of all numbers being drug dealers. Then we might have a case coming close to being analogous.
Now that's just confusing! ;)
Heh. Reading "Smart people can behave in illogical ways", and reading "prisonexp" as "prisonxp", I figured whatever site you linked to needed to update its name to "prisonvista".
AFAICT = As Far As I Can Tell
AFAIK = As Far As I Know
IMHO = In My Humble/Honest Opinion
And, while I'm ahead, I might GTFO.