This isn't about sexual harassment, but controlling the internet, and implicitly people in general. A lot of the powers that be have decided that, like other forms of media, they need to sanitize it in the name of control. (even with games, google gamergate) They want a name and an ID behind every post, they want to create "accountability". They gleefully ignore the fact that any woman, gay person, person of color, persecuted minority can take on an anon alias and argue their beliefs, do their work on merit alone. Seriously, how do we even know that Satoshi, the bitcoin creator, isn't a black lesbian? The internet frees productive people from race and gender in a way that before was never even remotely possible.

So maybe, just maybe, the people who want to make it an issue now, are the doing it not because of some high morality, but because they are discovering they can't compete on merit. But the issue is way deeper that that. In today's world, a lot of media and games are controlled via copyright, but copyrights by their very nature require centralized control by those who control them to work. Yet the internet is doing just the opposite, it is moving into the direction of decentralized control, threatening a lot of people, who happen to have a lot of money.

After reading the comments here, it's surprising how few people seem to understand that taxes are just theft. Yeah yeah yeah, I know the government provides public "services", but that's all just a pretext to justify stealing from people. It's pathetic when people think these programs are about helping them.

If the mafia went from business to business extorting money from people, and one of the business people found a way out of it via a technicality. That is not a bad thing. And neither is it getting out from under the thumb of government criminals either. It amazes me how easy it is to see all the evil and crap done by the government, yet people still want to give them money. It's like there is some kind of disconnect.

If a slave escaped from the plantation, would people go off and say that is evil because the master will just make the other slaves work harder ... yet this is the exact kind of logic people use when they see others escape taxes. The gov will take more from us! Less money for our programs! The Mexican mafia has charity programs too, do you think they're doing it just because they are nice guys?

The state is already taking the max they can, and giving back the least they can get away with to justify themselves. People escaping them will not make things worse for us, but instead create more opportunity out there for us to escape too as well.

I stopped driving 2 years ago, voluntarily. My SUV cost me around $800 a month in replacement costs. Another $200 in maintenance. I was burning through $12,000 a year in gas. I spent an average of 1000 hours a year in the car, for work, for groceries, for fun. 999 of those hours were spent focused on the road. I hate talking on the phone while driving.

Consider my annual total: about $25,000 + 1000 hours of my time. For the "privilege" to sit in Chicago traffic.

I'm a consultant. I now use UberX every day. I also use public transportation when I'm not in a rush or when someone isn't paying me to swing by.

I spent about $5000 a year on UberX. $100 a week. While I am being driven around, I can respond to emails, make phone calls. I bill for that time. When a customer wants me to visit them, I pass the UberX fee on to them plus 50%. No one scoffs at it. Some customers will realize the cost of me visiting them is more expensive than just consulting over the phone.

I figure I'm $20,000 ahead in vehicle costs, plus I've literally gained another 600-700 hours of phone and email consulting time a year. Call it $40,000 ahead.

I don't take cabs, because they don't like to come to where my HQ is (ghetto neighborhood). UberX comes 24/7, within minutes.

My little sister had an emergency surgery a few months ago. I immediately hired an UberX driver, who took me from the office, to the hospital. He waited. We then took my sister to her apartment to get her cats and clothes, then he took us to the pharmacy. After, he drove us to our dad's house to drop her off, in the suburbs of Chicago. Then he drove me back to work. 3 hours, $90. I can't get a cab to wait even 10 minutes while I drop off a package at UPS. Forget about them taking credit cards.

UberX charges my Paypal account and they're off. If they're busy, they charge a surcharge. I can pick it or take public transportation.

I know why the Chicago Taxi authorities want Uber gone. But a guy like me is their best customer. Next year I'll budget $10,000 a year for UberX, and it will make my life so much more enjoyable and profitable.

Driving yourself around is dead. It's inefficient. Ridesharing is "libertarian" because it is truly freeing.

The wage gap is a symptom, not the problem. The problem is self entitled democracies, and the fiat money banks created to accommodate populist demands. It'd be like trying to cover up herion convulsions, with seizure medication. It reminds me of the old south. When the plantation masters beat the fuck out of their slaves, they wanted to micro-regulate the treatment of slaves, instead of getting rid of slavery. In retrospect, the people advocated those regulations, were just prolonging the problem, and head so far up their fucking ass, they were beyond stupid.

Today, our fiat/populist systems create all these credit bubbles, housing bubbles, stock bubbles, excessive government debt, high prices, inflated executive pay. And these retards want to go around regulating everything, instead of attacking the problem at the source. Fuck them, just fuck them. Irrelevant worthless idiots who will accomplish nothing anyhow.

For chrissake, there has never been a day since the birth of humankind where journalism has been impartial. Right now, the powers that be seem to be changing hands, and so all the old partialities are falling to the new ones. Maybe the old minions are whining about impartiality, but in practice they are really just whineing that their partiality is being subbed out for somebody elses.

IMHO, copyright is a manifestation of a severe misunderstanding of why a society even has any property rights at all. Property rights do not exist to help people make profit, that's a consequence property. Property exists to deal with the truth that not everybody can use everything at the same time. We create property so we can resolve disputes over scarce resources without beating the crap out of each other. While it's true that when people stop knocking the crap out of each other, society tends to be prosperous and happy. That is a consequence of property rights, not the reason for them.

Well, with content and information, everybody can use everything at the same time. Copyrights impose a restriction on use, not for the sake of resolving conflicts over scarce resources, but for the sake of controlling how people distribute information for optimum profit. They are an abomination of everything free markets, property rights, and capitalism were ever created for. They are a fraud, and likewise everything we have ever been taught about them is a fraud too.

Ever since childhood, we have all been taught that copyrights are a property right that protects creators and incentives creation. But in the real world copyrights act nothing like normal property rights, they protect cartels, and incentive lawyers. This is a fact, it is impossible to deny. The few creators who do win the copyright game are like people who win the lottery, no mention of the countless others locked out. They don't incentive creation, all they do is force the market to centrer around creation controls instead of creation services. They aid the people who control, far more than they aid the people who create.

All Microsoft problems really indirectly boil down to one problem. They try to be a licensing company, rather than a technology solution company.
This is why google nailed them in both search and phone and now tablet. Even IBM got the message, and moved toward a Linux datacenter strategy.

I just amazes me to see all their "reforms" all their "restructuring" all their products that have been doomed to fail, and they still don't get it.

I'll believe it when the NSA is actually defunded.

The more cynical side of me says this is bullshit politics as usual.

Here's what's really going to happen: the congressman is going to go to the NSA leadership, and say "look, I have hundreds and thousands of constituents who want to shut you down, but if you let me spy on my political opponents, and listen in on their calls, and help me sabotage them, then I can justify and risk continuance of your funding"

The more we petition them, the more they will be able to use shutting them down as a threat to get more political power that is turned against us. I predict it will be a cold day in hell before political leaders in DC give up that kind of power to spy on and blackmail people.

pick up a bunch of Surface tablets, and put Linux or Android on them

If you have billions in capital, it is extremely hard to move around billions in assets without all the small traders taking notice, and piling on before you can reach your full position. That's why large traders like Buffet absolutely hate day traders, and has never split his stock, causing shares in his company to be valued at over $65000 per share last I checked. Being able to trade freely and quickly is one of the few great equalizers in large capital markets.

I think the problem is that people find themselves going to the licensing zoo, because they need to find a way to undo a lot of the damage caused by the very nature of copyright and patents (and the DMCA, etc ...). A better solution is just to get rid of copyright and patents (at least on things like media and software)

... that way I can hire somebody from India to clean my house, mow the yard, do dishes, and laundry remotely over the internet. At an estimated 70K for this one, I don't think that's going to work out for me anytime soon.

... but does anybody else think the whole world should just move to 24 hr GMT, and get it over with.

... but once you get in, you can take any ride you want.

>So instead of the load being distributed properly, you want the government to shift most of the load to your back?

that argument is no logically different than saying, "well if that nigger escapes from the plantation, the master will make us other niggers work harder"

It's just plain stupid.