[ale] [OT] rant - decadence in society - DRM

Charles Shapiro hooterpincher at gmail.com
Wed Mar 30 10:13:48 EDT 2011 

I did actually watch this video with great interest.  I agree with
many of the points made in it.  Perhaps I am mistaken, but I didn't
see any advocacy for destroying the contract laws which make
corporations as they exist today possible.  I did see arguments for
restraining corporate actions in some ways and using laws to constrain
the ways that markets work.  I don't necessarily disagree with those
things.

My main point is that organizations are powerful in ways both good and
bad, and --like people -- even the same corporation can be on the side
of the Angels one day, and on the side of the Devil the next.  Viz
Novell, which on the one hand has been fighting the Good Fight against
SCO at great expense ( which is unlikely to be repaid ), and on the
other has been playing Footsie with Microsoft in the matter of a large
number of patents which may or may not prove useful in M$'s ongoing
war against open source and open standards. People will band together
to do things. It's a fact of human life. Some bands will do good,
others evil. Some will do both, even at the same time.

-- CHS

On Tue, Mar 29, 2011 at 11:33 PM, arxaaron <arxaaron at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 2011/03/29, at 16:31 , Charles Shapiro wrote:
>
>> And yet, without those evil corporations we would not be swimming in
>> the happy sea of cheap and wonderful hardware which we inhabit.  I
>> bought a 1/2 terabyte drive at Fry's the other day for $50.  Small
>> shops and artisanal craftsmanship cannot produce that kind of
>> machinery at that price.  Corporations are certainly capable of
>> outrageous behavior, but that's only half the story.
>> -- CHS
>
>
> I will ask you to consider these realities:
>
> <http://storyofstuff.org/electronics/>
>
> There is NOTHING good about the WASTEFUL ways corporapists
> exploit our commonwealth resources for their private gains and
> line their pockets with our tax dollars through subsidization of the
> Corporate Welfare State.  The technology tools we all use could
> be FAR LESS COSTLY, both monetarily and in terms of the REAL
> costs of resource exploitation and pollution,  if we grow up to the
> truth and give up the consumerist capitalist myths of of the Freidman
> Fascist Fraud Market.
>
> Word.
>
> peace
> aaron
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>>
>> On Tue, Mar 29, 2011 at 4:14 PM, Jim Kinney <jim.kinney at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>> Yay! Aaron's back!
>>>
>>> Constitution is about PEOPLE not corporations.
>>>
>>> On Tue, Mar 29, 2011 at 2:36 PM, arxaaron <arxaaron at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On 2011/03/24, at 10:11 , Charles Shapiro wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I was merely using Mr. Paine as a hint that copyright laws Need to
>>>>> Change.  "When we are exposed to the same miseries BY a government,
>>>>> which we might expect in a country WITHOUT government..."
>>>>>
>>>>> When "Intellectual Property" laws become an IMPEDIMENT to
>>>>> innovation,
>>>>> rather than a SPUR, it is time to change the laws.  Walt Disney
>>>>> doesn't own my computer. Warner Brothers can't dictate how I use
>>>>> it.
>>>>> Sony Inc. won't stop me from writing code.
>>>>>
>>>>> -- CHS
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Which speaks to the REAL core of the problem, which is that our
>>>> social democracy, a Positive, Just and Constructive system of
>>>> government that was designed by constitution to establish and
>>>> protect the freedoms and civil liberties of its citizens, has been
>>>> destroyed by Corporate Welfare State fascism.
>>>>
>>>> Since usurping the 14th Amendment laws intended to protect the
>>>> _human_ rights and civil liberties of freed _human_ slaves in 1896,
>>>> the totalitarian structures of piratizing corporation have corrupted
>>>> every law and every institution of the good government that was
>>>> designed to protect the rights and liberties of its citizens.  The
>>>> corporapist elites and their vicious pursuit of resource theft,
>>>> worker exploitation and monopolies have been a the blood
>>>> sucking cancer of greed to our nation since its founding.
>>>>
>>>> peace
>>>> aaron
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Wed, Mar 23, 2011 at 6:57 PM, Jim Kinney <jim.kinney at gmail.com>
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>> Brilliant prose from a brilliant person from a time period when no
>>>>>> government had ever yet done any measurable good for any portion
>>>>>> of
>>>>>> their
>>>>>> governed that approached a majority.
>>>>>> I wish Franklin and Jefferson could have seen humans walking on
>>>>>> the
>>>>>> moon.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Mar 23, 2011 2:57 PM, "Charles Shapiro"
>>>>>> <hooterpincher at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>> For a more sensible response: I am sorry, but I strongly disagree
>>>>>>> with
>>>>>>> Ron's contentions about Intellectual Property.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Intellectual Property is nonsense. If you steal my real property,
>>>>>>> you
>>>>>>> deprive me of the use of it. Steal my bicycle, and I can't use
>>>>>>> it to
>>>>>>> go down to the store. If you make a copy of my book (or my
>>>>>>> song, or
>>>>>>> my software...), I can still read (or play, or use) my copy.
>>>>>>> More to
>>>>>>> the point, I can still SELL my copy. You could (possibly) argue
>>>>>>> that
>>>>>>> publishing your copy of my book may deprive me of some revenues
>>>>>>> which
>>>>>>> I might otherwise have acquired from selling copies of my book,
>>>>>>> but
>>>>>>> that money a phantasm. It is not the same as the money I keep
>>>>>>> in my
>>>>>>> wallet or my bank account. "Intellectual Property" laws are
>>>>>>> hacks to
>>>>>>> encourage people to write neat stuff. Once they start getting
>>>>>>> _in_the_way_ of creating stuff, they're obviously a Bad Idea.
>>>>>>> Confusing this putative "Intellectual Property" with real
>>>>>>> property
>>>>>>> is
>>>>>>> a sure way to misunderstand every moral and legal issue
>>>>>>> associated
>>>>>>> with creative work.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> The Original Ranter maybe said it best:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Society in every state is a blessing, but government even in its
>>>>>>> best
>>>>>>> state is but a necessary evil in its worst state an intolerable
>>>>>>> one;
>>>>>>> for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a
>>>>>>> government, which we might expect in a country without
>>>>>>> government,
>>>>>>> our
>>>>>>> calamities is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the
>>>>>>> means by
>>>>>>> which we suffer! Government, like dress, is the badge of lost
>>>>>>> innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the
>>>>>>> bowers
>>>>>>> of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear,
>>>>>>> uniform, and
>>>>>>> irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that
>>>>>>> not
>>>>>>> being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of
>>>>>>> his
>>>>>>> property to furnish means for the protection of the rest; and
>>>>>>> this
>>>>>>> he
>>>>>>> is induced to do by the same prudence which in every other case
>>>>>>> advises him out of two evils to choose the least. Wherefore,
>>>>>>> security
>>>>>>> being the true design and end of government, it unanswerably
>>>>>>> follows
>>>>>>> that whatever form thereof appears most likely to ensure it to
>>>>>>> us,
>>>>>>> with the least expense and greatest benefit, is preferable to all
>>>>>>> others.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> (Tom Paine, 1776)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> -- CHS
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Wed, Mar 23, 2011 at 2:35 PM, Jerald Sheets <questy at gmail.com>
>>>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>>>> On Mar 23, 2011, at 2:24 PM, Charles Shapiro wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> And YOU KIDS GET OFF MY LAWN!!!!!
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> "Residential Vegetation Management Zone"
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> #!/jerald
>>>>>>>> Linux User #183003
>>>>>>>> Ubuntu User #32648
>>>>>>>> Public GPG Key:  http://questy.org/js.asc
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> -----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
>>>>>>>> Version: 3.1
>>>>>>>> GIT/MU d-@ s++(++)>+++:> a+ C++++(+++)$>++ UBLAVHSC++(on)$>++++
>>>>>>>> P++(+++)$>++++ L++(++++)$>+++ !E---(---)>--- W+(++)$>+++ N(+)$>+
>>>>>>>> + !o !K--
>>>>>>>> w(--)>--- O()@> M++(++)$>++ V()>- PS+++()@>-- PE(++)@>+ Y+(+)@>+
>>>>>>>> PGP++(++)$>+++ t+(++)@>+++ 5(+)@>+ X+(++)@>+++ R+(+)@>++ tv-(+)
>>>>>>>> $>++
>>>>>>>> b+++(++)$>++ DI++++(++)>+++ D++(++)@>++ G++(++)@>++ e++(++)$>++
>>>>>>>> h(-)$>-
>>>>>>>> r+++(+++)@>+++ y+(+++)>++++@
>>>>>>>> ------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>>>>
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>>>>>>
>>>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> --
>>> James P. Kinney III
>>> I would rather stumble along in freedom than walk effortlessly in
>>> chains.
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
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