81–90 of 120 posts
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Just make lots of short bills instead, or make a sort bill granting vast regulatory authority to another group. Congressmen are clever and they will get around arbitrary restrictions like that.
If they have to individually pass 10 15-page bills to get 150 pages of legislation passed, that's still progress.
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Public funding. If getting information to the public about candidates costs money, then that's just another tragedy of the commons - an external cost of government that is simply ignored so that the rich and powerful can have government to themselves. It is very easy to argue that informing the public about their options in an election is essential and should therefore be covered by public funds.
Who decides which candidates get public money to spend?
It seems to work pretty well.
There's no story here. The alternative to "supporting SOPA in virtue of membership in the BSA" is "leaving the BSA over the BSA generally lobbying government to enforce copyright protections." That's kind of the point of the organization. If you don't expect AutoDesk and MathWorks and SolidWorks to leave the BSA just to avoid this kind of second-rate muckraker reporting, then ignore the fact that Microsoft, CA, and A…
Note also that BSA members fund it proportionally to each member's revenues, so it's fair to assume that Microsoft and Apple have a bigger weight in its decisions.
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All Microsoft has to do is to publicly state they don't support SOPA. This is hard to believe because they supported PIPA. The conclusion Microsoft suports SOPA by helping support an organzation that supports it is inescapable.
Textbook logical fallacy.
How is it a fallacy to assume MS has a large voice in deciding BSA's policy? Also when you dismiss an argument with a pithy "Textbook logical fallacy", shouldn't you disclose that MS is one of your clients? [3]
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Software_Alliance#Crit... [2] http://books.google.co.in/books?id=AwsAAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA70&... [3] http://www.matasano.com/about/
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Textbook logical fallacy.
1. BSA has long been critisized as a fornt for MS. [1] 2. Microsoft is widely believed to be largest contributor to BSA [2] How is it a fallacy to assume MS has a large voice in deciding BSA's policy? Also when you dismiss an argument with a pithy "Textbook logical fallacy", shouldn't you disclose that MS is one of your clients? [3] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Software_Alliance#Crit... [2] http://books.…
The fallacy is, "if they're not guilty, all they need to do is deny it". It's used by the powerful against the powerless way more often than it's used against big companies, which is all the more reason not to legitimize it.
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Who decides which candidates get public money to spend?
In Denmark (and other European countries i assume) we have public founding. Parties who have been nominated for an election and received at least 1000 votes in the recent election, are entitled to receive state aid amounting to 28 DKK (~USD 5) per vote. It seems to work pretty well.
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The REALLY long term game is helping your country be prosperous so that you have an educated workforce to draw from and people and people and companies wealthy enough to pay high prices for your products. That requires a pretty pervasive altruistic/moral attitude to make it work, though... tragedy of the commons and all that, otherwise.
Try selling national prosperity to shareholders.
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The two aren't mutually exclusive. Sure, only selling things makes revenue directly. However, policies abridging freedom help both companies scale--by attempting to lock users into their platforms and making it difficult or impossible to not buy their software when getting a new computer, both companies get more people to spend more money.
Could you elaborate on how MS and Apple do this specifically? I find their revenue models very different, Apply making it on hardware + iTunes (Music, apps, movies, etc), MS making it on Software. How do you group them as the same? And call it 'Lock-in'? Edit: for clarity
/sarcasm
Why are Dell and Intel members? None of their direct competitors are.
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I have interned with Microsoft in the past, and am scheduled to in the future. Therefore take everything I say with a metric ton of salt. Obviously my opinions don't speak for them. Most corporations put their lobbying efforts behind or against legislation based on what's in their interest. I don't believe that the public can honestly expect them to act any differently so long as their behavior is in accordance with…
>I don't believe that the public can honestly expect them to act any differently so long as their behavior is in accordance with the law -- even if only technically, and even if the law should be changed. Corporations are composed of people, and I expect people to act morally. Laws are never going to properly capture morality, to put it another way legality is a weak indicator of morality. I humbly submit that it's n…
This complex system is goal oriented towards making more and more profits - and the trouble is Groupthink happens. Let me quote Wikipedia on this:
the desire for harmony in a decision-making
group overrides a realistic appraisal of
alternatives
And in corporations, because of inertia it is really hard for individuals inside it to steer it off the wrong path, especially since such individuals also have their own problems to worry about, like building a career or paying their monthly mortgage or paying for their child's private school. Instead, they end up getting assimilated in the hive-mind, which is a powerful force. Sometimes corporations do change drastically, but it starts from the top, most likely from the CEO. But not even a CEO can steer a company unless she's a force of nature, mostly because a CEO doesn't get elected unless she can promise ... more profits.
Basically corporations are inherently evil and should be treated as such. Unfortunately, this doesn't happen and the only reasonable things that you can do as an individual is to (1) fight against such legislation + (2) vote with your wallet.
And I don't know what other people will do about SOPA, but my intent is to not pay for music ever again. Fuck iTunes. And even though I have a monthly habit of going to my local movie theater, I'll never again rent or pay for a home movie again. I work too hard for my money and the RIAA and MPAA of the world can kiss my ass.