TuringAI

Suppose Sony goes ahead and requires people to sign a contract BEFORE buying any games that means they cannot sell them once they have bought them. (I assume here that making people agree to terms AFTER THEY HAVE ALREADY BOUGHT THE GAMES is at the very least grounds for mandatory refund.) What kind of force should be used to ensure that the contract is followed? Should the person be incarcerated if caught, and should the police initiate force, or is this simply a matter of the courts, for Sony to initiate a lawsuit? The article is http://www.mcvuk.com/news/1053/Sony-to-kill-pre-owned and I know this is old news but I intend to make a point. I argue that Sony must initiate the lawsuit. It is wrong to imprison people solely for breach of contract unless there was some other mitigating factors, such as intent to damage the company or behavior that is 'rent seeking' in nature. The reason is that the punishment for a crime must be commensurate with the crime itself. How is selling a disc of the game (presuming you did not make a copy or that you only made a copy for backup purposes and have since destroyed the copy) to a second hand store something that could rightfully be made illegal outside of contract violation? If it's an imprisonable (darn this spell checker) offense to violate contracts, then what of all those other contract violations out there for which the 'criminal' is not imprisoned? If I sue an employer and win should my employer go to jail? While I respect contracts, it's simply absurd to use police forces for civil matters, and a contract between a game producer and a game consumer is a civil matter, no 'buts' about it. Not drawing the distinction between a civil matter and a criminal matter is far more immoral than selling a rightfully purchased copy of a game in violation of an agreement, where it would otherwise be a perfectly legitimate exercise of ones own right to property.

If there is no right to privacy for this reason, then the same could apply to certain violations of "intellectual property". You can't defend one without defending the other.

The right to withhold information may not be physically touchable like a car or a cell phone but it is indeed a property right. It is a prerequisite for living amongst other people, since otherwise any personal affair at any time would be subject to becoming a public affair. The concept of privacy is what differentiates civilized men and barbarians.

Well, the thing here is not to criticize WalMart for finding a way to exploit people, but to encourage the mom&pop operations to make an agreement with the others to offer some sort of guarantee to their customers to not raise their prices. Say they all work together to register a trademark and to use that trademark to offer guarantees that they will not engage in business the same way as their opponents, and to run ads and the like. They have any right to organize with other businesses, and if the government stops them, they have any right to campaign for the guy who's not in office. Also, when I say they have any right to campaign for the other guy, what I mean is you have any right to vote for the people who are committed to protecting your rights as long as the ones they are fighting against are committed to opposing your rights. A grower of cannabis and hemp would be right to vote Democrat so long as it is done to protect their rights and if the Republicans supported elimination of growing cannabis/hemp, even if the Republicans are for a lot of other freedoms that the Democrats are against. There's nothing wrong with voting for the party that would defend your freedoms in general more than the opposing party would, even if doing so takes away other people's freedoms, so long as your REASON for voting them is selfish and if you fight for freedom across-the-board regardless of party and are willing to criticize the party you voted for heavily for every right they took away from others.

The Hitler example was out of line. Nobody should take any comparison to Hitler seriously unless there IS a REAL comparison, IE with Stalin, Pot Pol, et cetera. Also, "Why does X person get to do bad thing but we don't?" speaks of childishness. If X WAS being arbitrary it is unnecessary for others to be equally arbitrary in order to disprove it. In fact, this works to the advantage of X if BOTH are being arbitrary. Think about it. Who is more foolish? The original fool, or the one who follows him/her? There is no cheating in debate other than silencing your opponent or falsifying perceptual data. Since he has done neither (as far as I know) there is no cheating involved. He may be acting belligerent but to say he is 'cheating' is conceding defeat. Just my two cents: Even if someone rightfully uses force to defend their life, they should still have to go to a judge afterward to make their case because force is legitimately monopolized by government. Not because they are guilty, but because the government has a right to know when force has been used, no matter how and why it was used.

I disagree with her theory of male metaphysical dominance over females. I disagree with her contention that all but the first to invent something are leeches to want the rights to the fruits of their labor. I disagree with some other notions as well. Luckily most of these things are at the end of the branches of philosophy and do disagreeing with them, while inconsistent with Objectivism, does not make the rest of the knowledge false.

How, if infinity is disallowed, can something have range and domain over the real numbers? If we're talking about pure mathematics, a real number can always be expressed as an infinite sequence of digits in any base. Furthermore, there are more real numbers than integers in a very fundamental way. If we're talking about practical application, how many measurements would it take to verify that the length of two rulers were EXACTLY the same qua real numbers?

So long as 'identity' is defined in relation to existence, IE recognizing that something's identity IS its existence, yes. And you've only mentioned the starting point for knowledge. I think what the OP was getting at was "How are we sure that what we predict will happen is exactly the case?" to which I respond, "We use induction. We define our terms. There is no 'falling up' because falling is gravitational. Gravity won't change its nature, lest it cease to be a fundamental force. At a point in time after repeated observations we can draw such conclusions, and hence label the force absolute. But it is absolute within the context of our experience as a whole. Speaking about 'what if' scenarios, in defiance of observation and appeal to the senses, is absurd, UNTIL there IS proof, in the sensory experience sense of the term." and let this case be pretty much shut.

I would say it depends on the severity of the problem. Certainly trading with a country with which we are at war should be illegal. Though I do think trade embargoes are used too often, that doesn't mean they're illegitimate. Though often, either the other country really isn't doing anything to us, or they've done far too much to us, that such middle-of-the-road treatment is unfair or unwise.

One thing I've noticed is that he does not present anything new as alternatives to her philosophy. I don't doubt that he has a point to make, but he simply doesn't make that point. The only positive things he has to say are that "she was right sometimes", and where he says she wasn't, he doesn't offer a tangible alternative. He is following one of the follies of being too critical, and that is to attempt to lead away rather than to lead towards. Ayn Rand was a leader type, as well as a philosopher type, and so it was necessary for her to not only lead you in the right direction, but to convince you that it was good for you so that you are not being led blindly. Nathaniel Branden, on the other hand, takes a more passive role, that of the watch dog, and not of serious opposition. So with Ayn Rand, you know what you stand for, and with Nathaniel Branden, you do not. This is why his works shouldn't be taken as seriously as Ayn Rand's. There may be merit in reading them, but helping develop a fully comprehensible philosophy of your own is not one of them.

Hah, look at all those comments. All those people who didn't agree with the joke are making the EXACT same comments that the detractors of capitalism made after John Galt's speech. LOL! ^^

There are non enumerated costs to consider, such as the cost of your time, the cost of the worry, and so on. I'd say go over, but also use sound judgment in determining how much more it is just to have him pay. The dollar cost in retributive cases should reflect the difference in your life that the event has made, not just how much of that difference exists in the form of exchangeable goods.

BTW, I was referring to supreme court nominations. Gah... how could I have let that part go without saying?

... and Obama is in power as president too. I hope that the Republicans filibuster. Otherwise we're without a paddle.

I don't get it.

Wait, what does Obama Cool Man Of The Year DK6 mean?

Okay, another question... is it okay to break an unjust law that one knows one cannot fight on legal grounds by running to another country that is offering a safe haven? I would say this applies just as much to the draft as it would to tax-evasion.

Better fission? That's What I'm guessing.

Yeah, that's not the kind of skepticism I meant. I meant that when there is no evidence of something, you refuse to believe it. If there is evidence of her guilt, and the freedom to present evidence counter to her guilt but none existing, then I'll give the government a benefit of the doubt. However, when law allows the government not to show evidence of her guilt, and also allows government to suppress her right to present evidence of her own, such as the Patriot Act allows, you get into a scenario where there is no evidence either for or against her guilt. At first, you could say "well then no judgment of her or government on any grounds is warranted". But consider this: Every time government is in war, it suppresses information that is not only proven not pertinent to the war, but proves that government did something wrong. It gets released after a period of time after the war has ended. Given this fact, shouldn't one judge the government as the one that has the burden of proof? How do we prevent corruption during wartime if government gets to act as a dictator? My position is simply that if government has added powers that it should also have added responsibilities. To shirk these responsibilities in the face of its own power is simply not excusable, not even during wartime. The continuity of a government is not an end in itself. In fact, I daresay that abuses of power threaten the government unnecessarily even during wartime and that we need to consider eliminating such threats by evicting them from office. Victory isn't simply a matter of defeating the enemies without. Victory is also a matter of defeating the enemies within. To do one without the other is just another way to promote the moral/practical dichotomy in politics.

I'm not saying it isn't justice were the courts to be objective. I'm saying how do we know the courts are objective? Who selects the judges and how do we know the selection process isn't partisan or otherwise vulnerable to politics? Given the pool of people from which one must select judges, I have a good reason to be skeptical. Why is this kind of skepticism okay in science but not in socioeconomic subjects?

How can she be judged based on information that isn't made available? If she had an open (though not necessarily civilian) trial we could at least examine the forensic feasibility of the charges being leveled against her. That is impossible with the Patriot Act, however.

True enough, but you missed the point of my entire point. Just because something is along a logical chain of events of something happening doesn't mean that, if we're afraid of the result that we should be afraid of the starting point. The best policy is to monitor their actions. And preferably through espionage, as a UN watchdog organization means nothing.

Me? I'm not so afraid of nuclear power. I'm afraid of nuclear weapons. If nuclear power can lead to a nuke being deployed, then how? If it's because nuclear power leads to nuclear development, and nuclear development leads to nuclear weapons, and nuclear weapons leads to nuclear bombings, then why not go further back and say the spirit of exploration lead to all of this? After all, the spirit of exploration leads to finding nuclear resources, and nuclear resources lead to nuclear study, and nuclear study leads to nuclear power. So tell me, should we fear the spirit of exploration?

It has often been the case in politics that it is not about property rights vs non-property rights, but WHOSE property rights to violate. I am glad you are speaking about this. It also goes to show that three parties are better than two.

Sound bizarre? It would seem that anyone would have an INTEREST in blocking campaign contributions from Saddam. Well, that's not all. Apparently telling the locations of a factual event that can be observed by anyone is also illegal. http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0903/S00130.htm While I personally can't vouch for the evidence, the case is well built and the source is credible. Unfortunately many people would not see it this way. They would prefer to dismiss the evidence. If certain provisions of the Patriot Act were repealed this country would be stronger. It's one thing to use aggression and secrecy against enemies. It entirely another thing to use it against people working for America.