I believe this is a good question. I continue to read Slashdot because the obtaining of information (news) and the opinions of the few (kdawson) are not the sole reasons for my use of Slashdot.

I find that there is quite the collective of intelligence here. I almost ALWAYS RTFA but never comment. I enjoy reading what other people have written. I'm fairly young - I don't have an all-encompassing world-view; I lack many experiences that life will undoubtedly heap upon me. News is just that...news. Events. Things happen. What makes that news interesting is CONTEXT, which is what many users here at Slashdot offer me. Comments to articles are much more enlightening and provide a much broader learning experience than the article itself in most cases.

So, to simply answer your question..

I don't suffer. It is better to pass through the sorrow so that we may know the good from the bad.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703748904575411713335505250.html

Most of the time I never comment on how dumb a synopsis is...but HOLY SHIT. I had to log in and comment to just complain about how terrible this is. NEWS FLASH: Technology has finite limits! In other news, fire is hot and humans eat food. More at 11. "It appears the industry may start talking about heat-assisted magnetic recording again, soon." Thanks for actually saying nothing. Your comments to the article are completely useless. This is one of the reasons why slashdot gets on my nerves, what useless junk.

There's nothing we can do. Necessity is the mother of innovation, or in this case, change in general. Nothing will ever be "done". Words will be exchanged and thoughts will be traded but no real change will ever happen until people lose enough. Like I've always said: nothing sparks change like not being able to eat. Or in the words of Zach from Rage Against the Machine: Hungry people don't stay hungry for long. What is "theft" to someone who has nothing? What is "theft" to a nation who has less than you? What is "theft" to people who aren't held accountable for their actions (See Chinese hackers). This is why the UK, US, whoever else needs to get their heads out of the sand and become self-sufficient once again. Ownership of ideas isn't ownership at all. It's temporary, fleeting. Mark Twain once said to buy land, because they're not making it anymore. I see, in the end, only two solutions. Either everyone on this speck in space learns to play along and follow the same principles for humanity (will never happen). OR the nations who stand (or who used to stand) for freedom and democracy get back into line and start standing for freedom and democracy. Stop taking bribes, stop bowing down to the highest bidder, stop walking over the people they're supposed to lead and represent. There's no more transparency, no more accountability. People say what they want and get away with what they want. It's become a game to those who have power and I'm sick of it. The honor and integrity of men has failed and all the good people have sat by and done nothing about it. We should all just blame ourselves.

This is exactly true, and exactly the problem. This is what I've always considered to be the "global" economy balancing itself. It is true that countries like the US, the UK, and some of Europe are highly dependent on intellectual property for profits - and, like you've stated, I too wish "someone woke up and realized that all of our eggs are in one basket, and took steps to diversify the economy." One day, while I was very young, I asked my parents how they made money. My mother stated "I handle business operations for a company, I help them run their business". My father stated "I own a business and I make sandwiches for people". Ever since then I saw no "real" value for service level positions. There are those that "have" and those that "don't have". Service level positions exist mainly in high level economies but when a country has become so "advanced" they have an almost entirely service level economy they have not thought it through. Countries like China who have large amounts of people willing to work very cheaply will soon overtake you. They will steal your intellectual property, because they just don't give a damn, and why should they? Do you think the people who came here to this country or the pirates that helped keep this country safe gave a damn about "intellectual property"? Hell no they didn't, and that's the American heritage. We keep scrambling to tighten control over these "ideas" when we're losing control over what's "real". Nuts, bolts, toothbrushes, combs, steel, batteries, PCB's, etc. We don't own anything anymore and one day we'll wake up and realize we'll owe China everything because we will have NOTHING to offer them anymore.

But what should we expect when politicians are bought and sold and when an actual value can be placed on the price of integrity and transparency. I could rant, but what good would it do? Here's a link to the official ruling from wired.com: http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/threatlevel/2010/04/comcastdecision.pdf

Now only if I could get my wife to do that...