logictortured.com Blog

Copyright Maximalists or Middlemen Protectionists?

Every so often a Copyright Maximalist gets caught violating copyright. For example, France’s President, Nicolas Sarkozy, was accused of violating copyright. SOPA sponsor Lamar Smith has been accused of infringing a photographer’s copyright.

People are outraged by this. They consider it hypocritical. How can someone demand stronger copyright laws, but then ignore the laws currently on the books?! It doesn’t seem to make any sense.

However, it does make sense. Copyright Maximalists don’t give a frick about protecting copyrights. A better term to describe them would be Middlemen Protectionists.

These people don’t give a frick about the rights of some photographer. But they are highly concerned if Viacom or Disney feels their profits are insufficient.

When a powerful status quo corporation, which derives all of its profits collecting government granted monopoly rents, wants government protection, the Middlemen Protectionist are the first to jump up to help. They’ll demand new draconian laws. They’ll gladly dump the first amendment and due process to give their middlemen buddies higher profits.

But if a photographer wants a bowl of gruel to compensate him for his work, the Middlemen Protectionist just lights up another cigar and laughs.

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“Crappy but Free” is not a business plan

A guy named Tyler Nichols has decided to stop offering a free “letter from Santa” service because, according to him, it’s not worth the effort.

I feel bad for his experience, however, in and of itself free is not a business plan. To put it another way, free only works as a part of larger plan. Free works for Google. Free works for Facebook. Free works for radio. Free works for over-the-air TV broadcasts.

I’m trying not to criticize Tyler, but in a nutshell he was offering a crappier version of his paid service and hoping and praying that it was crappy enough that people wouldn’t use it and would pay for the higher quality version instead.

That’s a not a plan. That’s nonsense. If the free service is good enough, he is not offering any real reason to pay. If that was his plan, it was bound to fail.

Furthermore, if the free service is crappy enough that people would chose not to use it, why would anyone be willing to pay for it? Once again, if that was his plan, it too was bound to fail.

Think of it this way, if your first experience with Coke was a fantastic free cola, why would you ever buy the next one? Or if your first experience was a crappy free cola, you’d probably be hesitant to pay for the next one.

In reading his blog post on the topic, you can tell he is genuinely frustrated and angered by his experience. But considering his plan was a logical failure to begin with, isn’t being caught between a rock and a hard place the very definition of frustration?

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Succeeding through failure

I was reading about Michigan’s selection to play in the Sugar Bowl this year.

In a nutshell, Michigan’s BCS standing dropped from 15th to 16th so the only way they could attend a good bowl game would be if some better teams lost.

The article stated that the players were watching various key games over the weekend rooting for Georgia and Oklahoma to lose.

“We watched probably every game we could possibly watch throughout the day,” said Koger, who watched the games at linebacker Kenny Demens’ house. “J.B. Fitzgerald was just so negative throughout the day.

In the end, the right teams lost and Michigan was ensured a spot to play in the Sugar Bowl.

A series of favorable outcomes ensured that wouldn’t happen. The Wolverines rose three spots in the final standings, finishing at 13th and punching their ticket to New Orleans.

Man oh man I just love this quote:

“It just kind of re-establishes what this team has been able to do and how far we’ve come, especially with the expectations we had coming into the season,” Van Bergen said.

WTF? The fact that other teams serendipitously lost “re-establishes” what Michigan has been able to do?! Michigan, you didn’t get into a bowl game based upon what you did. You got into a bowl games based on the failure of others!

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Do as I say, not as I say

I just love this one.

These speakers are very loud and sound great! They are in excellent condition as well! I am selling the speakers with a GSX3 amp and all the cords and mic too. The amp will not be sold separately but i will consider selling the speakers separately.

So if he does end up selling the speakers separately, does that mean he’ll refuse to sell the amp?

Heck, maybe he loves the amp, but his wife wanted it out of the house, and this is his way to ensure keeping it…

I tried selling the amp dear, but no one would buy it. By the way, I’m going to need to buy some new speakers to go with that amp.

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Dangerous Protection

I’m not going to argue about whether a person or household should keep a gun for protection. Nor will I delve into empirical arguments that more children die from handguns in their own home than die from invaders, or vice versa. What I’m going to talk about is a particular argument in favor of keeping a gun at home for protection.

I was reading an advice columnist and a new wife wrote in about how her husband is obsessed with keeping a handgun in the house “for protection.”

She countered that it would not be safe to keep a loaded handgun in the house after they had kids.

People in the comments raised the argument that the solution is to keep the handgun unloaded and locked up in a safe.

Think about that. The purpose of the gun is to protect yourself in case someone invades your house and threatens you and your family. If you know in advance that someone is coming to harm you, you can leave or call the police. Therefore, the sole purpose to keep a gun in the house for protection is clearly for a sudden attack.

So how is that gun going to protect you when it’s unloaded and locked up? Are those thugs really going to wait until you run to the room where the key is then run to the room where the safe is, because you obviously can’t keep the key anywhere near the safe, pull it out from underneath the bed or from the closet, get the ammo, load gun, and then use it?

And are you really going to leave your wife and kids alone with those thugs while you run around the house as I described above?

If you want to keep a gun in a house with children, because you like taking it to the firing range and shooting targets… you’re being rational. Your desire to own a gun is a subjective pleasure while your desire to protect children makes sense.

However, locking up a gun intended for protection makes very little sense. The more you try to protect children, the less useful the weapon will be for protection. The more assessable the weapon is, the more likely it will be that children will be harmed.

This is one circumstance where you cannot have your cake and eat it too. You have to make a choice. A useless gun and safe children or putting your children at risk. Please choose wisely.

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Insurance is not the solution to the health care crisis

Presidential hopeful Gov. Rick Perry was a little shocked recently. While at a town hall meeting, the question was asked about a hypothetical person who failed to obtain health insurance, but who needs medical treatment. Should the government step in and help such a person? To the Teabaggers and fans of Ayn Rand in the audience the answer was a simple “no.” The person should be denied care and should die for his failure to obtain insurance.

But that presupposes that private insurance is the solution to the health care crisis in our country. Private insurance is a solution, but is not the solution.

If simply buying insurance was the solution to health care, I’d probably agree with the teabaggers. If society offered a simple solution to a problem, and if you refuse to use the simple solution, maybe you should be allowed to fail. But it’s not that simple.

There are millions of people who are denied insurance due to pre-existing conditions. Are they supposed to die through no fault of their own?

And what about the children of parents who choose or who simply cannot afford to buy insurance? Are those innocent children supposed to die, through no fault of their own?

And there are millions of others who have insurance but are denied coverage for any variety of reasons. Are they supposed to die through no fault of their own?

The Right complained about “death panels” associated with ObamaCare. But what the Right conveniently ignores is that insurance companies already have death panels. Insurance companies employ bureaucrats without medical training, who make life and death decisions about who can receive coverage and about what procedures and medicines will be covered.

So, the Right is either incredibly ignorant about the situation or they’re lying when they argue that insurance is any sort of a solution to our nation’s health care crisis. I’m leaning heavily towards the latter.

The truth is that if the Right admits that insurance is not the solution, they’ll also have to admit there are flaws, gaps, and holes in our health care system that the free market cannot solve. And they’ll never admit that.

So the self proclaimed “pro-life” party will continue pretending that private insurance is the solution to our health care crisis, and will condemn to death anyone who disagrees.

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Horseshoes and Hand Grenades

We had a hearing for a defendant who had violated the terms of his probation by failing to report to his probation agent. The judge asked why he stopped reporting to his agent. This conversation ensued:

Defendant (Strongly): “Your honor, my agent told me if I paid my restitution I wouldn’t have to report no more. So I stopped reporting.”

Judge: “So, did you pay your restitution?”

Defendant (Sheepishly): “No.”

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Double Standard: Men are pricks and women follow their hearts

I was reading advice columnist Dear Amy today when I came across this gem.

There’s a double standard between men and women who break up with their significant others. When a man breaks up with an otherwise fine woman because she’s not smoking hot, he’s a shallow prick. But when a woman dumps a hardworking devoted guy because there’s no Hollywood created magical “spark,” that’s perfectly acceptable because she’s following her heart. Heck, some people would consider her brave for not settling.

I’ve changed the brave woman’s letter to be from a guy’s perspective on this issue to illustrate my point:

Dear Amy: I am responding to the letter from “Worried Fiance,” who is planning to marry someone he does not love as much as he loves his smoking hot ex-girlfriend.

I had the same situation and it turned out badly.

I was hesitant about marrying my fiancee because she didn’t have a great rack or perfect ass.

I was given lots of advice. I was told that lust could be a fleeting thing and that real, mature love will be more lasting.

Well, I married my fiancee and was always disappointed that the lust wasn’t there.

She was a good girl, but without the perfect rack and ass our marriage became a battlefield, as she realized I didn’t love her like she loved me. She felt frustrated.

It was many years and four children later when I finally had to leave the marriage.

We were both terribly unhappy and it was affecting the children.

I later met my current wife of 19 years and there were instant erections that have never stopped.

I hate that I allowed myself to be talked into a marriage that should not have happened.

I’m sorry I ignored my own instincts.

— Dude

Dear Dude: Thanks for your feedback. People may be divided about the role of lust in a marriage, but doubt on the way to the altar is the great equalizer.

Can you imagine anyone feeling sympathy for this male version of the story? I sure can’t.

He wouldn’t be praised for his bravery. He’d be criticized for breaking up a family and leaving a devoted wife to chase his base subjective desires.

However, read the woman’s version here. In both situations the dumper wants some subjective feeling from the dumpee. There’s no rational reason for a woman to demand ethereal “passion” from her husband any more than there is for a guy to demand “lust.”

And a guy can no more become magically romantic or passionate anymore than a woman can become magically hot. The goofball nice guy only becomes a romantic “catch” in Hollywood movies (or in the real world after he wins the lotto).

In a nutshell, I’m not saying either way is right or wrong. I’m not criticizing women who avoid “nice” guys. I’m not condoning Shallow Hal types who constantly chase hot chicks.

What I’m saying is that such guys are not shallow. They’re just chasing their own personal and utterly subjective desires, just like women do. But with a different underlying basis. Women want their perfect Cosmo lives. Men want their perfect Playboy lives. (And quite strangely, the covers for each magazine are nearly interchangeable.)

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We have a right to our opinions, but not necessarily to act on them

You might have heard about the bride to be who was denied a wedding dress. When the dress shop owner found out that the bride was marrying another bride instead of a groom, she refused to sell the first bride a dress.

Bloggers got a hold of the story and eventually it hit the fan at the Consumerist. Then people started rating down the dress shop at Yelp.

Some people argued in the comments that the dress shop owner should be left alone because she has a right to her opinions, e.g., you may believe in the right for gays/lesbians to marry, but the dress shop owner has a right to believe the opposite.

The dress shop owner does have a right to hold any number of irrational, racist, homophobic, and contradictory opinions. That’s an absolute right and no one can take it from her.

However, people who argue that the dress shop owner has a right to her own opinions are missing the point. The issue is not that the lady has a mere opinion against gay/lesbian marriage. It’s that she’d denying equal access to customer based upon illegal discrimination.

There’s a huge difference between having an opinion and committing an act. Having an opinion does not affect anyone else in anyway. Acting upon that opinion does.

Let’s look at some analogies of acting on an opinion. If acting on an opinion is acceptable, then a rapist should never be charged with rape, because his opinion that his victim should have violent and degrading sex with him is perfectly valid. The murderer should never be charged with murder because his opinion that the decedent should be dead is perfectly valid.

See how that works? Clearly, acting on an opinion can be harmful. And discriminating against a customer based upon her sexual orientation is illegal.

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Criminal incarceration is not slavery

I recently made fun of a guy who complained about his life sentence. Someone instantly responded with a comment as follows:

Yes, slavery is funny!

At first I thought it was spam, because on first glance it was not related to the subject matter of my post and, well, no one reads my blog. So it had to be a spambot, right?

Nope, after investigating it a bit I determined it was not spam, it was written and sent by a real guy with his own blog.

So how did his comment relate to my post? My guess is that his comment was meant to be ironic. I made fun of someone who was sentenced to life in prison. The guy analogized a life sentence to slavery. And then mocked me for making fun of someone subjected to slavery.

Superficially and empirically, slavery and imprisonment are similar. They both involve locking people up against their will. But superficial observations aside, slavery and imprisonment have opposite underpinnings.

Slavery is the physical objectification of ainnocent humans. (Or aguilty, for the half empty crowd.) In other words, slavery turns people into objects. Slaves are not humans, do not have rights of humans, and are used as mere tools. On farms, for example, slaves are used like any other tool or beast of burden. The purpose of the enslavement is not to produce any change in the enslaved or to deter others to change.

Incarceration, on the other hand, is a form of punishment used to discourage criminal activity. It’s a social contract epitomized by the expression, “If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.”

People act in various ways. Societies determine that some actions are “wrong” and should be discouraged. Some societies use caning, some use banishment, some use incarceration, and some use death.

So let’s move on. If both enslavement and imprisonment involve the locking up of people, how are they different?

Criminal incarceration assumes humanity, and that’s because in our western based culture, only moral beings can be punished for their actions. People who lack the mental capacity to recognize the moral implications of their actions are generally not punished. If they are adults, they are found guilty by reason of insanity and are placed in mental health treatment facilities. If they are children, they are given rehabilitation.

However, slavery is the opposite of criminal incarceration. While criminal incarceration presupposes a human being to be punished, slavery presupposes the lack of human being to be enslaved. The reason white Europeans could morally justify enslaving non-whites is that non-whites were not considered to be truly human.

Of course some people will point out that completely innocent people are occasionally sent to prison. But that does not mean that criminal incarceration is slavery. That only means that a person was wrongly imprisoned.

Some other people will argue that we send too many people to prison. However, others will argue that we don’t send enough. Those are empirical issues that have nothing to do with the definitional aspects of slavery or criminal incarceration.

And of course some people will argue empirically that prisons don’t work. They’ll cite to studies which show that the threat of locking up people does not stop people from committing crimes. Of course some others will interpret that data to mean that if incarceration is not working, then we need even harsher punishments.

To put my response to these red herring arguments in a different way, merely because you subjectively don’t like prisons, does not mean that prisons are objectively slavery. We’re fortunate that logic does not give way to mere subjective feelings.

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