No, it is literally true that the threat of state violence is what props up the ability to own any property.
This is so obviously wrong I have no idea how to continue.
What stops other people from taking your tangible property other than the threat of state action?
Sure, there are plenty of people who would refrain from stealing anyway just because it’s morally wrong. But there are enough people who don’t care that the whole idea of property rights becomes meaningless in practice without some way of enforcing them.
Singular they dates back over 600 years, while the criticism of it dates back only a hundred or two. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they
True, but it has no bearing on what this person was taught when they learned English. It's entirely plausible that some English teachers, influenced by the criticism that arose in the 19th Century, teach that singular they is to be avoided.
Sure, I'm not attempting to say that this person was not taught that singular they was not a proper usage, just that it has been a proper usage for longer than any of us have lived.
This is a level of douchiness I cannot fathom. What possesses these people to act in this fashion and how do they sleep at night? How is this not seen as clearly unethical behavior? A clear violation of Wheaton's Law, here. I mean... I could easily take that lollipop from that naïve baby in that baby carriage... but I don't, simply because I'm Not A Dick™. Did all of Silicon Valley get the wrong takeaway from the App…
Why do elite decision makers, CEO's, boards of directors, make decisions that will certainly have adverse effects, that will literally kill people (eg. Trafigura), just to make more profit? Despite the fact that they are all already individually multi-millionaires and could not really materially improve their lives with more money? I've ruminated on this. I think the only reason that could explain such excess is comp…
I've tended to think that a lot of it is about different social circles. If everyone you know makes $50-100k/yr, you feel fine making that yourself, and may not even be sure what you'd do with a million dollars. If your social circle is full of millionaires and multi-millionaries, all of the sudden making a million feels like barely getting by and you think about all of the cool stuff you see people around you getting that you could get if you had tens of millions.
This is a level of douchiness I cannot fathom. What possesses these people to act in this fashion and how do they sleep at night? How is this not seen as clearly unethical behavior? A clear violation of Wheaton's Law, here. I mean... I could easily take that lollipop from that naïve baby in that baby carriage... but I don't, simply because I'm Not A Dick™. Did all of Silicon Valley get the wrong takeaway from the App…
Why do elite decision makers, CEO's, boards of directors, make decisions that will certainly have adverse effects, that will literally kill people (eg. Trafigura), just to make more profit? Despite the fact that they are all already individually multi-millionaires and could not really materially improve their lives with more money? I've ruminated on this. I think the only reason that could explain such excess is comp…
"its about beating the other guy. I think its the same mechanism that will drive someone to grind for many hours in an MMO or suchlike."
I think their sense of identity is tied to their performance. I noticed the same thing in sports or even in school were students compare exam scores.
This is a level of douchiness I cannot fathom. What possesses these people to act in this fashion and how do they sleep at night? How is this not seen as clearly unethical behavior? A clear violation of Wheaton's Law, here. I mean... I could easily take that lollipop from that naïve baby in that baby carriage... but I don't, simply because I'm Not A Dick™. Did all of Silicon Valley get the wrong takeaway from the App…
Why do elite decision makers, CEO's, boards of directors, make decisions that will certainly have adverse effects, that will literally kill people (eg. Trafigura), just to make more profit? Despite the fact that they are all already individually multi-millionaires and could not really materially improve their lives with more money? I've ruminated on this. I think the only reason that could explain such excess is comp…
Selection bias? You need to have a certain amount of ruthlessness to become a CEO or a serious director.
In software it is well known that nobody reads patents who does the actual work in the field. Getting rid of them would not have a meaningful downside in the dissemination of information. Most people in the industry agree software patents are bad for the software industry and they should be abolished. But, if that’s true for software, why isn’t it true for other fields? Simply put: what evidence is there patents are…
We don't have software patents (as such! [lol]) in Europe. Software is different, in that source and decompilation exist, you can't really keep it secret.
EU has software patents. The same applications that are filed and issued in the US get filed and issued in the EU too.
Also, there is no such thing as a software patent.
This is a level of douchiness I cannot fathom. What possesses these people to act in this fashion and how do they sleep at night? How is this not seen as clearly unethical behavior? A clear violation of Wheaton's Law, here. I mean... I could easily take that lollipop from that naïve baby in that baby carriage... but I don't, simply because I'm Not A Dick™. Did all of Silicon Valley get the wrong takeaway from the App…
Why do elite decision makers, CEO's, boards of directors, make decisions that will certainly have adverse effects, that will literally kill people (eg. Trafigura), just to make more profit? Despite the fact that they are all already individually multi-millionaires and could not really materially improve their lives with more money? I've ruminated on this. I think the only reason that could explain such excess is comp…
>To them, it is like a game. Its not about getting another yacht, its about beating the other guy.
Repeated unethical behavior is not the fault of a few bad actors, but of an organization designed to encourage that behavior. I wouldn't discount Google as being at fault seeing as how we already have two instances of Google's ATAP committing patent fraud despite little research and outreach being done. One fun fact I stumbled across is any misconduct when filing for a patent voids the entire patent application, not…
Yes, failure to include an inventor of a single claim invalidates the patent family.
That's all well and good, but the process of invalidating the patent is long and expensive.
It's sneaky and underhanded and shady and evil. Let's use a different real-world example. An acquaintance shows me an "attic treasure" that I know is worth at least $20k on the open market. Do I offer them $100 and not tell them what it might really be worth? Does it depend on how well I know them? In my case, even if I did not know the person at all and never expected to interact with them again (basically, the reci…
> (even though the particulars on how it's possible to not be zero-sum still escape me and hurt my head).
If I have a hamburger patty and a hot dog bun, and you have a hot dog bun and a hamburger patty, we both win if we trade (it's not zero-sum).
You can generalize this across more than one party and more than two goods pretty easily.