If I were looking for something silly to argue
against, I wouldn't have to look further than the
ridiculously reductionist point that you
parenthesize.
"Less government is better" is like preferring
binary codes with lots of the bits turned on.
What's needed isn't less government nor more
government but *smart government*.
Man, people on this board have all the analytical
skills of a stuffed rabbit.
The fact that no one at any point holds a gun to
anyone's head doesn't change what Microsoft is
doing.
You'd think that if a federal court could find
Microsoft to be a monopoly, people here who are
supposedly interested in these issues could also
understand them. But it doesn't seem to be the
case.
The difference, of course, is that it is illegal
to use a monopoly in one area to gain a monopoly in
other areas. When MSN locks out non-MS browsers,
it's a clear case of monopoly extension, and it
violates U.S. federal law.
Intellectual property is nowhere near as obvious
as ordinary property. And much more than ordinary
property, it can't exist without a government to
enforce it.
Note: I'm not advocating against the existence of
intellectual property. What I'm saying is that a
strict libertarian shouldn't believe in it.
If you're a libertarian, then I guess you don't
believe in patents?
Without intellectual property protection of any
kind, the chip race would simply be: who can fab
the most cheaply? And, I guess, who can protect
their secrets?
This just proves what they say, "If you want the
real story, just post something wrong to
Usenet^H^H^H^H^H^HSlashdot, and wait for the
corrections to roll in."
Amazon did *not* make a profit. Not unless you
pretend that a bunch of their costs don't exist.
Which is exactly what they did for this
announcement. By "generally accepted accounting
principles" they still lost $millions this quarter.
Buyers of labor power often don't need to band
together because a single buyer is effectively
a cartel all by itself. Have you ever heard of
a one-company town?
The minimum wage is set by government decree, but
it's not even a living wage. Furthermore, it's
often not enforced, especially when the workers
are illegal immigrants working under the table.
Employers can have kids, but most employment comes
from corporations, and corporations do not have
children (though they do pay rent). You're missing
the point though. Employers can always afford to
let a low-skill worker go, whereas a low-skill
worker can't always afford to go or be let go.
How therefore can a low-skill worker get an
arm's-length price for his work?
You're right, a worker who doesn't ensure that he
won't be in a bad situation has a "bad business
plan". So what? Do you want to live in a nation
of 300 million MBAs?
That's true. For low-skill work, the power
balance is generally in employers' favor.
It's been interesting to watch the balance tip
back towards employers in high-tech fields in the
last few months. It's still pretty good for
workers, but not as good as it was just a year and
a half ago.
I should know better than to argue with a market
fundamentalist. It's just like trying to talk
reasonably with a fundie Jesus person or a Communist.
One gets so lost in the maze of one's opponent's
faulty preconceptions that one barely knows where
to start.
The question is, what happens when the market
value of manual labor is not enough for a manual
laborer to live on?
Many here will say "it's the laborers' faults",
but for every laborer who refuses to work below
a living wage, there's another who will take the
job.
So why don't they organize? Well, look at what
management at the HP plant did to people who tried
to organize. It's not like the labor market is a
level playing field -- management has plenty of
opportunity to talk to each other, for example,
but workers get fired if they talk to each other
at the workplace.
What are we doing, as a society, when we require
that certain work be done but we don't offer the
doers enough compensation for the work to even
make ends meet? What does this say about our
values?
It's been reported here on Slashdot that those
laws are getting violated. There was a lot of
discussion about this maybe a year and a half ago,
when big companies were lobbying for a greater
H1B allotment, and older programmers were protesting
that there's no shortage of programmers, just
stinginess and age discrimination. Where were you?
The thing you market fundies always forget is that
the "buyers" and "sellers" of labor power are
never on an equal footing.
The use of power in the employer/employee relationship
distorts the market in favor of the employer.
I mean, read the article. In an ideal, frictionless
market, if the buyer (employer) didn't pay what
they'd agreed to pay, the seller (employee) would
take her "goods" (labor) elsewhere. But she has
rent to make and kids to feed and is not free to
act as an ideal market participant.
Thank you. I thought it was egregiously overrated
too. Everyone knows about Handspring.
I think it's silly that if one posts something
halfway decent early in the discussion, one's
basically guaranteed to get modded up by two or
three points.
I even got accused of being a karma whore one time
because of this.
Slashdot Mirror
The news site debacle was another skirmish in
the browser wars. It's part of MS's strategy
to leverage their OS dominance into browser
dominance.
If I were looking for something silly to argue
against, I wouldn't have to look further than the
ridiculously reductionist point that you
parenthesize.
"Less government is better" is like preferring
binary codes with lots of the bits turned on.
What's needed isn't less government nor more
government but *smart government*.
Man, people on this board have all the analytical
skills of a stuffed rabbit.
The fact that no one at any point holds a gun to
anyone's head doesn't change what Microsoft is
doing.
You'd think that if a federal court could find
Microsoft to be a monopoly, people here who are
supposedly interested in these issues could also
understand them. But it doesn't seem to be the
case.
I should have stuck with Usenet.
I presume so far on the intelligence of Slashdot
readers that I refuse to spell this one out. It's
too boring.
The process which handles much of the screen
drawing can run on one CPU while the actual
application runs in another.
Also, there's parallelism in the libraries that
support the system's APIs.
No closed hardware would mean no Apple. It's that
simple.
The difference, of course, is that it is illegal
... if you live on Mars.
to use a monopoly in one area to gain a monopoly in
other areas. When MSN locks out non-MS browsers,
it's a clear case of monopoly extension, and it
violates U.S. federal law.
A minor point, perhaps
Intellectual property is nowhere near as obvious
as ordinary property. And much more than ordinary
property, it can't exist without a government to
enforce it.
Note: I'm not advocating against the existence of
intellectual property. What I'm saying is that a
strict libertarian shouldn't believe in it.
I didn't say it would be a good idea. I was
pointing out the inconsistency in the libertarian
position.
I dunno what a liberal is, my belief is that the
people who extend copyright are those who are
beholden to Disney and other entertainment
companies.
Shouldn't a libertarian not believe in copyright
at all? After all, a copyright is a government-
granted monopoly.
Without copyright protection, Microsoft wouldn't
last a week.
Libertarians, pah. All the analytical skills of
a Chia Pet.
If you're a libertarian, then I guess you don't
believe in patents?
Without intellectual property protection of any
kind, the chip race would simply be: who can fab
the most cheaply? And, I guess, who can protect
their secrets?
Stupid libertarians.
You're right! I got my news from elsewhere.
This just proves what they say, "If you want the
real story, just post something wrong to
Usenet^H^H^H^H^H^HSlashdot, and wait for the
corrections to roll in."
Isn't anyone reading the press releases closely?
Amazon did *not* make a profit. Not unless you
pretend that a bunch of their costs don't exist.
Which is exactly what they did for this
announcement. By "generally accepted accounting
principles" they still lost $millions this quarter.
Sure, you could build it yourself, and your
hardware cost would be lower.
But what about the cost of your time, in terms of
dealing with vendors, putting machines together,
testing them, integrating them, and testing again?
I'm guessing these machines come with support, too,
though I can't tell because their web site is
Slashdotted.
Are you trolling?
Buyers of labor power often don't need to band
together because a single buyer is effectively
a cartel all by itself. Have you ever heard of
a one-company town?
The minimum wage is set by government decree, but
it's not even a living wage. Furthermore, it's
often not enforced, especially when the workers
are illegal immigrants working under the table.
Employers can have kids, but most employment comes
from corporations, and corporations do not have
children (though they do pay rent). You're missing
the point though. Employers can always afford to
let a low-skill worker go, whereas a low-skill
worker can't always afford to go or be let go.
How therefore can a low-skill worker get an
arm's-length price for his work?
You're right, a worker who doesn't ensure that he
won't be in a bad situation has a "bad business
plan". So what? Do you want to live in a nation
of 300 million MBAs?
That's true. For low-skill work, the power
balance is generally in employers' favor.
It's been interesting to watch the balance tip
back towards employers in high-tech fields in the
last few months. It's still pretty good for
workers, but not as good as it was just a year and
a half ago.
I should know better than to argue with a market
fundamentalist. It's just like trying to talk
reasonably with a fundie Jesus person or a Communist.
One gets so lost in the maze of one's opponent's
faulty preconceptions that one barely knows where
to start.
The question is, what happens when the market
value of manual labor is not enough for a manual
laborer to live on?
Many here will say "it's the laborers' faults",
but for every laborer who refuses to work below
a living wage, there's another who will take the
job.
So why don't they organize? Well, look at what
management at the HP plant did to people who tried
to organize. It's not like the labor market is a
level playing field -- management has plenty of
opportunity to talk to each other, for example,
but workers get fired if they talk to each other
at the workplace.
What are we doing, as a society, when we require
that certain work be done but we don't offer the
doers enough compensation for the work to even
make ends meet? What does this say about our
values?
It's cheaper and less messy than hiring the
Pinkertons to shoot the uppity workers.
It's been reported here on Slashdot that those
laws are getting violated. There was a lot of
discussion about this maybe a year and a half ago,
when big companies were lobbying for a greater
H1B allotment, and older programmers were protesting
that there's no shortage of programmers, just
stinginess and age discrimination. Where were you?
The company I work for is profitable, but not
as profitable as it could be if management were
focused solely on the bottom line.
Heartlessness is neither necessary nor sufficient
to prevent bankruptcy.
The thing you market fundies always forget is that
the "buyers" and "sellers" of labor power are
never on an equal footing.
The use of power in the employer/employee relationship
distorts the market in favor of the employer.
I mean, read the article. In an ideal, frictionless
market, if the buyer (employer) didn't pay what
they'd agreed to pay, the seller (employee) would
take her "goods" (labor) elsewhere. But she has
rent to make and kids to feed and is not free to
act as an ideal market participant.
Thank you. I thought it was egregiously overrated
too. Everyone knows about Handspring.
I think it's silly that if one posts something
halfway decent early in the discussion, one's
basically guaranteed to get modded up by two or
three points.
I even got accused of being a karma whore one time
because of this.
What do you mean, "begin to sell their OS
separately"? Haven't you ever heard of
Handspring?