That wasn't Al Gore. That was Tipper Gore, his wife. Also, the PMRC advocated voluntary use of warning labels, rather than outright censorship. Frank Zappa didn't see any difference between the moral panic (some of the stuff targeted is hilarious in hindsight) and explicit, outright censorship, but I think the PMRC were mostly harmless, even if they were batshit crazy. If they'd pushed for anything beyond voluntary warning labels, I'd have cared about their hysterical antics more, but, really, I think it was just a lot of busywork for easily-offended baby boomers. I find it quite amusing that people got so worked up and outraged over both Twister Sister and some dumb warning labels. Overall, I'd say that we'd be better off without the reactionary, socially conservative groups like the PMRC, but I've always seen them as entertainment, rather than a danger. I don't need to watch sitcoms on television, when there are real-life clowns dancing for my amusement, in Congress.

Yes, other people are doing it, too. This is what every speeder says when he gets stopped by a cop. This is a simple fallacy, however. Just because other people are guilty of doing the same thing doesn't mean that you should face no repercussions. Is it fair to Apple that they've been singled out? No less so than it is that some random motorist was stopped by a cop for speeding, out of all those others who were also speeding. Is that cop is hypocrite if he doesn't pull over every single speeder on the road?

Hopefully, those fly-by-night companies that exploit illegal aliens will see their day in the spotlight, as well, but there's no reason to ignore Apple's business tactics, just because someone else might be guilty, as well.

IBM has plants in Albany, NY. They used to have more of them in New York, but they ended up getting shut down. Poughkeepsie and Binghamton, in particular, were hard hit.

It used to be that there were a few people left manufacturing in the USA, but IBM is pretty much it, now. First they went to Taiwan, and then the Taiwanese companies went to China. Pegatron, the former manufacturing division of Asus (now an independent supplier that sells to Asus), has 80% of their workforce in mainland China. While I'd like to believe that Pegatron treats their employees better than Foxconn, it's probably just not true. Have you seen the prices of Asus' hardware lately? Most of their stuff is amazingly competitive. Back in the mid-to-late 90s, Asus commanded a 50% to 100% premium over the competition. Nowadays, it's a $5 premium. On one hand, I'm glad that technology is so affordable, but I feel dirty even thinking about upgrading my PC. Everything is so cheap, but the prices are cheap because of virtual slave labor.

We can wring our hands and feel guilty, but nothing is really going to change unless we put serious pressure on these multinational corporations and their suppliers. The workers, too, are going to have to stand up to their fascist leaders, and I doubt that the poor and hungry Chinese workers much feel like it. Their country is going through a really difficult time, and I don't think there's any easy solution. The industrial revolution in America and Europe was a horrible period, and I doubt the Chinese will have any easier of a time. The best thing we can do is to keep up the pressure, so that the companies can't just ignore the workers.

In the mean time, if you're worried about the morality, you'll probably have to decide for yourself whether it's better to buy products made in a sweatshop and provide income for the workers... or to boycott the products and cause the sweatshops to not hire any desperate workers. Like everything else in life, there are no clear answers. Anyone who claims to have universal answers to morality is a con man.

Sharing copyrighted material is not illegal or immoral. Linux and Wikipedia are both copyrighted. If something is not copyrighted, it's public domain. Just because you have permission to distribute something doesn't mean that the author has renounced copyright.

Are you kidding? Didn't you read the Megaupload indictment? The Megaupload founders are alleged to have gone out of their way to encourage as much piracy as possible, including soliciting and uploading pirated content themselves. Now, whether they did or not will have to be decided in court. They are also alleged to have intentionally delayed and, in some cases, ignored DMCA take-down requests. If what the indictment says is true, the Megaupload guys are going to have a really, really tough time in court.

So, your entire argument is based around a logical fallacy?

It's just a video game. I count six all-caps words in your rant. I think you need to learn to relax. Take up meditation or something.

...or you could just not buy it.

Does he know the mayor of Boston?

So, you get the content for free, if you're the original owner, but you need to buy it, if you're a second-hand owner? That's frustrating, but it's not as bad as it could be.

Anyway, my suggestion to them would be to have a market on their own website, where you can auction/sell activation codes to the games that you own. That way, they can track the second hand market, make it easier for people, and also perhaps make a tiny profit off of each sale (say, 5% or 10%). Also, this would make it very easy to trade/sell DLC. In fact, I should probably set up a third party website like this.

She refused to leave. She was trespassing.