Then you have free to torrent. And?

Personally I couldn't care less, I haven't found anything worth watching even for free in quite some time. The answer is the same, though-you're relying on a certain subset of people not wanting to get it for free (or ad-free), and the rest are already gone. The more inconvenient you make it, the smaller that pool becomes.

I'm afraid your analogies fail as well, and I think the post reading one does work. Here's why.

On the sideshow ride, there is no way to know, when you sneak on, if you'll be taking a seat from a paying customer or not. The important difference, though, is that it's possible you would be at all-the number of seats on the ride are limited (scarce), while the number of copies are essentially unlimited (non-scarce). That's why you can't compare copies to ride seats, or candy bars, or anything else that's limited in supply. With these marvelous machines capable of making copies at high speed of anything that can be digitized, copies of any digital information are no longer scarce, unless we artificially make them so.

Your second analogy is that of, essentially, a verbal contract between you and I. You began work on my car specifically because I promised you $100 for it. If you complete the work satisfactorily, and I stiff you on half the money, that's fraud and breach of contract.

However, that's again a flawed analogy. No one from Dreamworks called me up to say "Hey, look, we've got this great movie idea, but we wanted to negotiate what you'd pay for it before we start work." They didn't begin work on it at my request, or based on a contract and promise to pay from me. A more appropriate analogy here, to go back to car washing, would be the guys in New York that come up and start washing your windows without asking, and then expect payment. They didn't begin their work at my request, and I'm under no obligation whatsoever to pay them-I never made an agreement with them. If they do a good job, I still might out of being nice, but I'm not obligated. And that's where you say they "demand" payment-well, yes, some of them do, but in this scenario, I'm under no obligation to oblige them. Asking nicely will work much better than a demand in that scenario.

That's where we're back to the "reading the post" analogy. The person who made that post didn't contract with me to read it after it was finished. The author of that post has no obligation to pay me just because I say so. Similarly, a person who makes a movie, writes a book, etc., doesn't do so under contract with me. If I enjoy them, I probably will "drop a couple bucks in the guitar case," unless they become so obnoxious and demanding that I don't want to give them a nickel.

I generally will pay for things I like, if they're made available easily enough and without onerous DRM, and they're not through an organization pulling these shenanigans. As you said, it's not always lost sales. Several years back, my sister burned me a CD of an independent band she'd come to quite like. Well guess what? I came to quite like them as well, and since then have attended several of their shows, gotten a couple T-shirts, recommended them to others, etc. If not for that CD, I probably would never even have heard of them, and even if she'd just mentioned them, it probably wouldn't have been enough for me to seek them out and pay for a CD. Did she harm them by burning that CD, or do them a service by giving them free publicity?

The administration ought to get an 'F', given that they've approved Shell to drill in the Arctic Ocean. You think it's tough to clean up a spill in the nice temperate Gulf of Mexico? Wait until we have a midwinter blowout up there, with no idea how to clean it up or even stop it.

You'd think they'd at least learn something. Apparently not.

The author, and original publisher, are both damaged by lost revenue from their more difficult endeavor of creating the original content.

You owe me $5 for going to the trouble of reading your post. I offer several means of payment, which do you prefer?

What's that you say? You don't intend to pay that? You've damaged me sir, you stole from me, that was money I could potentially have and do not! I will see you in court!

Does that sound ridiculous? I sure hope it does. Not giving someone money they could theoretically have had under certain circumstances is not the same as depriving them of property they actually currently possess. The second is theft, the first is not. Copying cannot be theft, because the original owner is not deprived of their property.

At the risk of a car analogy, imagine telling the police your neighbor stole your car, and it's in his garage right now. The officer arrives at your house, asking for a description of the stolen vehicle. You point to the car in your driveway. At this point, the officer looks confused-"Sir, did your neighbor return the car while I was driving over here?" "Well no, it's still in his garage!" "But sir, the car is in your driveway, you just pointed it out to me." "Well this one is, sure, but it's also in his garage! He bought the exact same make, model, color, everything, right down to the same leather seats!"

Sound ridiculous? That's because it is ridiculous. Theft requires that something be -taken away- from the original owner, not just that someone else has something just like it.

There isn't even an argument against that here. This guy legally acquired the books, then resold them at a higher price than he acquired them for-you know, like thousands of businesses do every day. If you're a free-market type, you ought to be the first to his defense. Going into business for himself is exactly what he did!

Then, as many here have already pointed out, they'll just bootleg them anyway. Gouge too hard, and that will always happen. It's a good check on publishers being able to arbitrarily run up prices.

The really sad part is, I don't even think you're a troll-I know people who really do think like you do.

Interestingly, those people wonder why their departments steadily decline in productivity and increase greatly in turnover. Treating people like dirt is not just bad ethics, it's ultimately bad business. There's no substitute for having employees who genuinely like and respect you, and look forward to waking up for work in the morning. Your style will get you a bunch of drones who will do what they absolutely have to, never innovate or try to think of how they can help more, leave the moment they can get away with it, and play cover-my-ass for half the workday in the meantime. That's not conducive to productivity.

So even in a business sense, yes, decency has a place in the workplace. Those you have "helped to the door" probably have looked back on that as the one good thing that happened at that job. As that reputation spreads, it will turn away well-qualified candidates who have heard nothing but bad things about working for your company. You are not doing your company a favor by treating workers as disposable.

Aside from the fact that what you're saying shows a total lack of humanity, it's also wrong.

If I saw another employee I worked with being treated that way, believe me, I'm looking for a new job the moment I get off work that day. And then all of the training, experience, etc., that they've paid me well to develop, walks right out the door.

That aside, loyalty is meant to be reciprocal. As long as a company is "paying the bills" adequately, a little decency for those undergoing tough times and have spent years of their lives helping to build the company is not exactly uncalled for. I have worked several places that coworkers were more than happy to pick up some slack for someone in a tough situation, especially since it was well understood they could accept the same in return. That type of environment is far more productive than one where everyone spends half the day looking over their shoulder.

"It's just business" is not an excuse for unconscionable behavior, and it's been used that way for far too long.

Non-trivial? Seriously, it can't be more than a pittance; they just speak loudly in certain areas.

I wish you were right, but I'm not making that up. It's right around half, see this column for some more detail. I would say 45-50% can be classified as nontrivial.

On top of that I resent the implication that refusing to accept traditional evolutionary theory makes you scientifically illiterate.

Terribly sorry for implying it. Let me say it more clearly, then: If you refuse to accept the overwhelming evidence that humans resulted from evolution by natural selection, you either have a case for your own hypothesis that should be winning you a Nobel next year, or you are ignorant and scientifically illiterate, at least on that particular topic. If you've got the evidence, please direct me to the journal you published in.

There, no more implying it. Happy now?

Thanks for bringing up the Y2K bug! It's actually an excellent case in point.

The reason that Y2K wasn't a disaster is specifically because it was recognized and addressed in time. If it hadn't been, there would have been significant issues. Since it was, and reasonable steps were taken to ensure it wasn't a problem, it went out with a whimper. And now people assert there never was a problem in the first place.

I would love to see global warming addressed satisfactorily, the harm mitigated, and in a half a century people saying "See! It was never that bad!". Unfortunately, we might be in for a little harsher lesson this time around.

Weather is far from predictable-- as a pilot I find the weather predictions can rarely be trusted more than one day out... How can we possibly make predictions for *decades* in the future?

Weather != climate. Saying that Seattle has a wet climate is far different from saying it will rain in Seattle on Tuesday.

their religion is the failing point. it is not compatible with the modern age and this is 100% of the problem.

You added an extraneous "their". Religion is not compatible with the modern age, and it is a huge problem.

If you'd like to have the abortion debate, I'm game, but it'd be inflammatory and offtopic here. If you do want to, respond and I'll start a journal entry for the purpose.

Uh...I know a lot of people who have made shifts like that. And incidentally, it makes for a more pleasant life.

The only piece I really haven't done is "stop eating meat," I've tried vegetarianism, and even the suggested diet leaves me tired and hungry. As to the rest? I bike or take public transit almost everywhere-I still have a car, I think I put maybe 1500 miles on it last year. This year will probably be even less. I very rarely fly. If I need to log into a client's system to troubleshoot it, that's what remoting in is for. I don't need to personally be there.

As an added bonus, it's better! Biking is much more pleasant than sitting stuck in traffic, as is reading a book on the train, and the cycling part of it is good for your health to boot. Remoting in to a client's system rather than physically going out there saves the client paying for travel costs, and saves me having to deal with the hassle of it. Win-win.

Totally agreed on hybrid cars. If people want to make a difference, they don't need a different car, they need to drive the car less. Someone with the worst gas-guzzler SUV in the world that they rarely ever start is doing much more good than a Prius owner commuting in it daily. There is one thing, though, that encourages people (including the most ardent climate-change denialists) to leave that car in the garage more often-higher gas prices. I'm not sorry at all to see them rising.