nop you're killin me
This wingnut is priceless. I like: "It's called
work for a reason" and "You're broke because you
want to be." People who purchased this item also enjoyed: "Why you're dumb, sick and broke"
http://www.amazon.com/Youre-Dumb-Broke-Smart-Healthy/dp/0470049316/ref=pd_sim_b_7 I've had this discussion with my best friend for years and years. He always gets his knickers in a twist because of people he refers to as "leachy loosers." He is pretty conservative in some ways. Anyway, he feels that most all people want to do nothing in life but sit on their fat asses, get free handouts and complain about everyone else. So he is always screaming about cutting taxes and killing social welfare programs. I think a lot of this has to do with projection or simply a different come from. My father tends to believe that if left alone and properly cared for, most all people would do the right thing, work hard and contribute to society - regardless of incentives. I'm somewhere in between these views. Incentives are essential but if they're always monetary it's a foolish fantasy world IMO. People are motivated by a hell of a lot more than money. But as for social programs, I sleep better at night knowing that although some abuse the system that others who are truly in need are getting help. My best friend would probably sleep better at night knowing that although some unfortunates were left for dead on the streets, that at least we didn't let any "leachy Loosers" steal our tax dollars. I understand the sentiment behind both views but find them to be overly simplistic in my friend's case (similar to you) and overly idealistic as is the case with my father.
Capitalism drives innovation. Predatory capitalism (such as what we are experiencing more and more here in the US) is a bad thing and eventually eats itself. And a laissez faire attitude from the government about it allows it to fester and expand.
Agree completely and very well put. I'm not totally against capitalism but I don't worship it either. Capitalism is such a protected and unchallengeable concept that those who even question elements of its worth are considered to be evil, unpatriotic and stupid. Talk about emotional hijacking. Logic is silenced and a gigantic dollar sign on a flag is waved. It's interesting that you can still burn an American flag legally in this country but you can be thrown in prison for burning money.
18 U.S.C. §331:
Whoever alters, defaces, mutilates, impairs, diminishes, falsifies, scales or lightens any of the coins coined at the mints of the United States, or any foreign coins which are by law made current or are in actual use or circulation as money within the United States; or whoever fraudulently possesses, passes, utters, publishes, or sells, or attempts to pass, utter, publish, or sell, or brings into the United States, any such coin, knowing the same to be altered, defaced, mutilated, impaired, diminished, falsified, scaled or lightened - shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.It is important here, I believe, to separate the notion of liberal and equality and capitalism. This is a bad convolution of two completely and utterly separate mechanisms. We should be practicing democracy here in the US, which allows for freedom and our Constitution guarantees equality.
Agree - great point. It's constantly flattened into this unnatural swing between two polar extremes on the same axis.
My problem with a lot of the folks on the side of "free" music and content free of DRM is that it's really, "I want it all, but don't want to pay for it." IMO, too bad, so sad.
How can you possibly continue to inject this completely and utterly false assertion into this debate and then argue against this non-existent philosophy? You've made a false determination about what people really think and continue to argue against this straw man. Yes, this deserves a wiki:
informal fallacyA straw man argument is an informal fallacy based on misrepresentation of an opponent's position.[1] To "attack a straw man" is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by substituting a superficially similar proposition (the "straw man"), and refuting it, without ever having actually refuted the original position.
The straw man fallacy occurs in the following pattern:
1. Person A has position X.
2. Person B disregards certain key points of X and instead presents the superficially-similar position Y.
Thus, Y is a resulting distorted version of X and can be set up in several ways, including:
1. Presenting a misrepresentation of the opponent's position and then refuting it, thus giving the appearance that the opponent's actual position has been refuted.[1]
2. Quoting an opponent's words out of context — i.e. choosing quotations which are intentionally misrepresentative of the opponent's actual intentions (see contextomy and quote mining).[2]
3. Presenting someone who defends a position poorly as the defender, then refuting that person's arguments - thus giving the appearance that every upholder of that position (and thus the position itself) has been defeated.[1]
4. Inventing a fictitious persona with actions or beliefs which are then criticized, implying that the person represents a group of whom the speaker is critical.
5. Oversimplifying an opponent's argument, then attacking this oversimplified version.
3. Person B attacks position Y, concluding that X is false/incorrect/flawed.
This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious, because attacking a distorted version of a position fails to constitute an attack on the actual position.
So...
>My problem with a lot of the folks on the side of "free" music and content free of DRM is that it's really, "I want it all, but don't want to pay for it."
The reason I know for a fact that this is false is because it's false for me personally. Therefore, even
if this was true for other people, which one could only make a wild ass guess about anyway, it's definitely not true for others. But beyond being false it's also completely irrelevant to this discussion. If I believed as you did, that most anti-DRM people are disguising their selfish, warped sense of entitlement with a false mission, then I'd feel differently about this but it still is completely irrelevant. Kids will be kids. Often times kids will just take anything they can because they can. You can't take music though, even if you still believed it to be a noun and not a verb. But the warped sense of entitlement in this case is the DRM folks. The RIAA. The Art Mafia. They crush lives to maintain their dominance. They would have entire countries of people excluded from experiencing the culture of music and art - if they had their way. Why would you want to support them anyway?
When musicians can no longer make enough money to simply be musicians, the art of music will suffer - as will we all.
How in the world can DRM or even the "best intentions" behind DRM do
anything to impact the earnings of musicians who just want to "make enough money to simply be musicians?" You're defending U2 and the Art Mafia, not these musicians you speak of.
