When you steal something from a store, you are necessarily depriving some other person of that particular item. If I walk into Best Buy and walk out with a stolen eMachine, that's an eMachine that somebody else will never have. Granted, I'm sure there are those who would classify depriving somebody of an eMachine as "good Samitarianship" - but you get my basic point.

It should be needless to say, but by downloading the game through piratebay, I am not directly depriving anybody of that game*. So the two cases are different enough that you can't really take a "good for the goose, good for the gander" approach to this.

* - I suppose one could make the argument that by grabbing a working CD key and registering it online, I may be depriving somebody of that CD key. It'd be a technicality, but this is slashdot, after all. What remains, though, is that the eMachine in the above example is a limited resource by its very nature. The CD-key is an artificially limited construct, and while perhaps similar, I still do not feel the two situations really equate.

Twist it around. By not pirating the game, you're putting some trust in Rockstar to attribute the shitty sales of the game to the copy protection, rather than one of the myriad "'old Hollywood' style" excuses of the past ("they didn't like it because the lead character was from Eastern Europe / because the packaging contained too much muave / because they were confused by the "open world" / because it was released on an odd-numbered day"). By not pirating the game, you're trusting Rockstar to get over the perhaps-well-intentioned but certainly-shallow advice of the suits. By not pirating the game, you're trusting the little guys of Rockstar to strike a blow for common sense, rather than go all Milgram on our asses. By not pirating the game, you're trusting Rockstar to give a fuck.

Why should we, the potential consumer, trust Rockstar, if that's how the majority of large game companies act?

Awesome, so Rockstar has the chance to get your $50, then have a shot at busting you for piracy as well? BONUS!

One man's "intellectual honesty" is another man's "simple mindedness". Just look at the hard-hitting "intellectual honesty" of the far-Right.

God bless the benevolent corporation. May They continue to shine Their light down upon us. Thou shalt not steal. Thieving infidels be cursed. Buy a product everyday. Peace®.

Yeah, peaceful, non-harmful, "honorable citizen" Democratic-approved non-threatening "protest" really gets results. After all, that's how President McGovern was able to end the Vietnam War...

The "mellowing and depth" of the aged mind which you cherish may well be a natural by-product of the aging process. Cells die, neurons don't fire in the quick staccato of youth, and in the ever-lengthening gaps, we find "wisdom".

"Kill the rich" = "purge the academics"? Brilliant logic there, comrade.

No, but you have the rethorical skills of one. ;)

Because the "anti-arthritis" gene may be a recessive trait. Alternatively, if you kill their entire families, eventually you'll either have to draw a line somewhere, or wipe out the entire planet. No, it'd be much more logical to have a harem of healthy thirty year old women ready to procreate with any 90 year old man not suffering from arthritis. Hopefully it's not an X-linked gene.

DISCLAIMER: I'm not a scientist, or even particularly intelligent

It's only ignorant if it's wrong. He happens to be correct.