Most want reform, not abolition. I think a two year copyright would be sufficient. The way it is now, the value to be added to society for pretending that it is property isn't worth it. Where are the increases in the public domain that are the reason that we are willing to pretend? If they aren't there (and they aren't) then why pretend?

Well if that happened, it would be a contract violation, not theft. At least where I've worked, I can't claim to own anything even I think it up on my "own time". You don't own the code you typed. It isn't stealing. If they don't pay you, that still doesn't make it possible to steal their own code from themselves. But if they don't pay you, that is a contract violation. Likewise, content providers who want to claim copying a DVD is the same as shoplifting are lying. They go after people in civil court, not criminal court. If you really can't see the difference take a few law classes, or read some books.

I would also suggest that if every movie went into the public domain two years later, fewer people would violate copyright. If they could buy a DVD for $1, more DVDs would be sold, and almost nobody would bother to pirate. It wouldn't be cost-effective to pirate. It is inevitable. Laws can be bought, but you can't legislate away the tide.

How about 2 years? With a 3rd year renewal, but only 50% are renewable by lottery? No exceptions.

Disagree that the distinction made is splitting hairs. The fact is that labels make money, and artists get a pittance. The fact is that Disney makes money, and the artists get a pittance. You want to say it is Disney that creates it, and Disney that publishes. The point made was that there are makers and takers, and having the takers contract the makers, or bringing them inside, doesn't change the dynamic. Control of distribution is a choke point. If you construct a choke point on any major flow, you control it. Totally. What good is it to get a phone call if they take away your mouth?

There is a difference, though, between an artificial wall and a separation where form follows function.

Yes. But my point is that just email works just like that. Yahoo users can email Gmail users. However, you can't see google+ posts on facebook. That is where the analogy with phone companies breaks down. Email and phone calls are analogous. Social networks are not analogous to either email or phone calls.

who knew, Greenspan was a proponent of what is essentially "soft-slavery".

A genetic mutation resulting in illness is not a "genetic illness" unless the gene's host survives to reproduce. It doesn't require that the parents each pass on a recessive trait to activate the disease in the offspring, cosmic rays can cause it.

Perhaps you would be happier were I to use the terminology "previously non-heritable genetic disorder that is now heritable and incorporated into the human gene pool in general as a result of preventing the death of the host".

That seems a bit of semantic hair splitting, but the point is we routinely engage in technological intervention into these cases today, such as the SIRT1 gene that JDRF funded the discovery of, and which, prior to insulin treatment for T1D, would not have survived into a second generation, and was therefore a self-limiting mutation.

The argument isn't whether we are going to extend human life or not, or whether the resulting extensions are "natural" or not in terms of the population, and speaking to Travis Mansbridge's argument, it's too damn late to make that argument: we've already thrown a stick in the spokes of that wheel, and now it's only a matter of how many sticks and how many wheels, not a matter of "if we can".

I think you are confusing "recessive genes", which I never specifically mentioned, with "unfavorably mutated genes".

How about a single gene mutation which would normally result in the child dying, but for which treatment exists, and which is now retained and propagated in the gene pool? For example, the mutations to the gene RNU4ATAC responsible for microcephalic osteodysplastic primoridal dwarfism type 1 (MOPD1).

Or how about the SIRT1 mutation, also a single gene mutation, which results in type 1 diabetes? Without treatment, this mutation, which can occur naturally, would ordinarily result in the death of the individual, rather than being passed on to future generations (given that dead individuals have a hard time breeding).

The fact is, we have already passed the point where technological intervention has disabled the feedback mechanism of death in multiple cases where a gene mutation would not be retained in the overall gene pool.

All we are arguing about now is how far we allow these efforts to go in preventing death, and not whether or not these efforts are effective, since they demonstrably are.

Are you serious? Is it that hard to use a search engine?

http://www.nsf.gov/discoveries...

Places with state-paid or state-assisted university programs tend to have a sieve mechanism (like entrance exams) that sort people into programs of different cost (and life outcomes). E.g. a test determines if you enter vocational school or a university program.

In the US, there is still a test-score aspect of things, but if you pay for it, generally, we let you do whatever you like. That's good, in its own way. Some people are tremendously motivated folks who are bad at taking tests. They ought to be free to choose a difficult path and rise to the occasion.

The problem in the US is the state involvement in financial aid. The policy of "college for everyone" may not make Americans smarter so much as it makes college dumber.

If the state has any interest at all in funding college educations (and this is debatable), presumably, that funding should go to people with insufficient means, better than average motivation and/or talent, and only in subjects for which there is a compelling state interest (I'm looking at you, STEM).

Furthermore, such financing needs to be contingent on them NOT taking a job on wallstreet when they are done. The public already funds those bozos enough; there's no reason to use federal scholarship money as a 4 year long interview for some wallstreet firm. Wallstreet can start doing its own talent recruiting. If those guys are as good as they tell their clients, it should be no problem for them to predict the "winners" and only offer private scholarships accordingly..

What also doesn't make sense is that the government allows anyone with a pulse to borrow 30k/year to go to school for 6 years and maybe get a communications degree.

This is simply not in the public interest, nor is it in the interest of the students, nor is it in the interest of the higher-ed system.

I absolutely agree that there is an education bubble. I think certain people should attend university in certain situations. I went to a small state school with an academic scholarship. I make the same amount of money as people who went to much more expensive places -- without scholarships.

I think University was valuable in my case -- but it was much cheaper back then, and my field has much higher salaries than average.

Why they're worthless now: everyone has them, and they're easy or at least predictable enough that they have little predictive value.

Nope. There is an assumption in your statement -- that all college degrees are created equal.

There is a reason certain schools and certain programs are given preferential treatment. You see, in statistics, there are two types of errors -- Type I and Type II.

Imagine a candidate applies to a top school -- pretty much all highly ranked schools and programs would err on the side of Type II. That is, they would rather reject a good candidate than admit a potentially bad candidate. That is not to say it does not happen, just that that is what they try to do.

The reason MIT or Harvard are prestigious is because of this. As an employer, you can use these schools as a filter. It is not that you learn something extraordinary at MIT's engineering department that you wouldn't at, say, Rutgers. But the point is, MIT has a high enough standard for both admission and graduation that you know someone who graduated from MIT is a rock star. The same goes for business schools, law schools, medical schools and so on.

The only exceptions are doctoral programs -- why? Because PhDs have other factors at play, including your area of research and your thesis advisor.

If a department is not serving its stated function, and cannot propose a rational plan for doing so, then it should be eliminated because it's a waste of our money, and therefore our time and effort.

Huh? What does this even mean? You sound as if you are regurgitating the small government propaganda without any sound argument.

The stated function is funding research, and that's getting done. The rational plan is funding scientists who are the most eligible to win the research grants. What is so hard about that?

The problem is the expectation of something "fruitful" to come out of research. As any half-decent scientist will tell you, a lot of good science comes from learning from our failures, and examining questions that may seem pointless today.

NSF grants have funded several amazing scientists and their research -- how do you even *begin* to "measure" the purpose of scientific research? The whole idea behind scientific research is asking questions that may seem trivial or even meaningless. The only viable measure is publications, and even that is meaningless -- would you rather have one outstanding paper every decade or a bunch of pointless papers to check a box?

The myopic outlook that decries large government also decries spending on science and research, never mind the fact that open science is what helps civilization as a whole. Closed research funded by the beck and call of corporations defeats the scientific process -- science is about openness, understanding, and investigating hard questions that may not have tangible benefits for the next few hundred years or more.

And sometimes, that means our time and effort are spent doing absolutely silly things that may have impacts that we do not yet understand. If pursuit of knowledge for its own sake isn't a good enough reason, then I weep for the future of this country.

That'd be a great argument, if all devices of a particular class used the same GUI; of course, then they'd be commodities, and the lowest price wins.

GUIs are a means of doing two things:

(1) Differentiating your product from someone else's to add margin to what is actually a commodity

(2) Causing knowledge to be vendor-specific in order to facilitate vendor lock-in through learning curve.