I had the same thought. After reading their introduction manual, it seems they work by the same model.

In theory this should work.. hire bright, motivated people, set them broad goals to achieve, don't let anything impair their motivation or the ability to achieve their goals, and you should out-perform conventional top-down management structures by an order of magnitude.

It'll be interesting to see how it works in practice as Valve scales up. So far so good, but they're about to come up against the likes of Google and Microsoft with their latest projects, so let's see if the theory holds true...

Well we have no way of proving that, there are areas of the universe that are forever beyond our reach where the laws could be different. And there's the other hypothetical point that there could be many possible laws of physics until we observe one of them to be true. But edge cases aside, you're right.

But moral codes change over time, and it's not a continual smooth evolution towards a 'better' moral code. If there is a universal moral code, we struggle to define it or attain it, and seem to frequently get all turned around and regress from it.

So when does all of that become a new moral code for a specific subculture? There are many examples of subcultures living within the confines of a more permissive society who have defined a culture-specific moral code that is more restrictive (or even more permissive, with say the Swingers or the Nudists). when do we consider those sub-cultures to be proper cultures with proper moral codes of their own that they've defined?
For example, the rural conservative sub-culture would define burning the nation's flag as a deeply immoral act. But for urban progressives, it's a valid form of protest that is illegal but not immoral.
Surely this moral difference is defined by the cultural difference, not that a different 'universal' moral code applies?

So his morals are wrong but yours are right? Interesting...I wonder what he thinks of that.
The majority of theists believe that morals are passed down from whatever deity they believe in, and are therefore perfect, universal and unchangeable. This gets problematic, of course, when different theologies believe that different things are moral/immoral.

Of course, the way we normally cope with this is that visitors adapt to the cultural norms of the place that they're visiting ("when in Rome"). It usually works fine, until you get asshats who are convinced that their $deity-given morals trump your weak western culturally-defined morals and they can behave like they at home regardless of who it upsets.

I'm struggling to see what does define moralily if it isn't culture, or indeed, how you define a culture without including its morality.

Interesting point. Let's equate the nasty brogrammer culture that harrasses women with the nasty muslim culture that harrasses women*.

Given that it's apparently acceptable for a country to define a set of rules or cultural norms based on a religion that allows, even condones, behaviour like this, and OK for members of that country to take those cultural norms on holiday with them, is it therefore also acceptable for a group of people to define a set of rules or cultural norms for an event based on social awkwardness that allows, even condones, a set of behaviours that would be unacceptable outside that event?

Where do you start drawing that line? How small does a subculture get while retaining the right to set cultural norms? Can you have two differently-normed subcultures of a parent subculture attending the same event and respecting each other's cultures?
And how do you get the 'infringing' subculture to behave itself? If a muslim man thinks he has the right to touch up my girlfriend because she's wearing a bikini, but will respond with violence if I burn a Koran in front of him, how do you get him to see that his morals are not absolute and don't cover everyone? If some muppet at a convention thinks he has the right to sexually assault girls, do I have the right to spray-paint his laptop screen with abusive graffiti?

Of course, it could be argued that hacker culture does not, in fact, include the right to randomly assault strangers and 'appreciate it or leave' is not only logically flawed but actually just bullshit posturing.

* I'm not talking about the strange women-only clothing rules, the bizarre 'no driving while in possession of a vagina' rules, or even the exclusion from wide areas of public life for people with matching chromosomes. I'm talking about what muslim men get up to when put in a holiday resort where half the population wear bikinis. It's very similar to what the brogrammers get up to.

Pretty much my thinking too. But the law is not necessarily logical (or concerned with justice but that's another discussion).

Given that the software is probably:
- written by an outsource company in a foreign jurisdiction, and no-one from the 'owning' company has ever examined the code to check that it does what the developer said it does
- running on a transient set of virtual servers rented (and indeed only existing) by the minute from a commercial hosting provider in a foreign jurisdiction
- subject to change at any time without notice by another outsource support provider operating from a foreign jurisdiction

then what gives it the authority to act as a copyright holder in the USA and issue a DMCA notice?

how do you grant a piece of software the authority to act as a copyright holder?
 

Interesting question actually. Not sure that's been tested in law yet.
People doing things as a consequence of their employment are representing a company and the company is responsible.
Officers of a company are vicariously liable for the things that their employees do.
But is a company responsible for the actions of software claiming to represent it?
IANAL, just a business student (in another country), so if there's anyone out there who does know, I'd be interested...

I think part of the problem here is the ridiculous situation the USA got itself into with regard to lobbying.

Shrill screeching from an established industry about how they're about to be destroyed (and with them all those jobs) has a tendency to convert into tax breaks, improved legal protection, even whole brand new restrictions on trade that favour the incumbent players.

So, as you say, the cooler heads prevail and behind the scenes are perfectly aware of the market conditions and how to cope with them, and the shrieking for help is a deliberate, cynical tactic.

Interesting reply.

'People like me' have the opinion that arguments from authority are a logical fallacy. That's it.

Believe it or not, you can support someone's right to have their research considered without necessarily agreeing with their research or being 'anti-science'. In fact I would think that the definition of being 'anti-science' is refusing to consider some research because of the credentials of the author.

Just calm down, take a deep breath, accept that we don't know everything about everything and that there's no need to get into a frothing rage about someone trying to do some research. If his research is wrong, then I'm sure someone will point it out soon enough. If it's right, then we've gained more knowledge and that's a good thing.

He was awarded his PhD in the same year that he published his paper on Special Relativity, previous to that he'd had a single peer-reviewed paper published (4 years earlier).

So yes, no credentials to speak of. He was definitely not an established figure in the field for such groundbreaking work, and not even employed in academia or doing grant-based research.

Arguments from authority are a logical fallacy. Comparing Watts to Einstein is irrelevant. However, saying that someone is not qualified to have an opinion or publish a paper worth looking at because they're not an established figure in the field is as wrong for Watts as it was for Einstein.

Patent clerk. No credentials. 'nuff said

Not only for the idea that a serious company lets a masturbating-and-throwing-poo grinning idiot loose in their sensitive vitals, but also because it draws so many parallels with other resilient systems.

Allergies cured by parasitical worms? Chaos Monkey Effect - you need something attacking your defences for your system to stay healthy

Ecosystem that relies on bushfires to clear old vegetation? Chaos Monkey Effect

Something almost Zen about not only turning an attacker's violence against them, but deliberately introducing new attackers so your system is strengthened by them.

Well done chaps, carry on.

Can't be arsed to spend the time or energy arguing any more.
I've done the research, I'm still watching the blogs and journals, but I'm done with the discussions. It's become too polarised, it seems there's no longer a sane middle ground that says 'I don't think we know this as well as we think we do'. And I'm as guilty as most of taking a side and arguing it, instead of admitting my ignorance and being objective.

So, from now on I'm just going to vote for and donate to the people who seem to be making sense, and wait for the thermometers and tide gauges to tell us who was right and who was wrong.

I'm pretty sure, however, that we're not going to drown or burn, and neither are we going to be herded into green work camps by a new UN World Government. The truth, as always, will be somewhere in between.

oh here we go again... another slashdot discussion ends up in yank partisan bickering.

Please, for the love of all things shiny, stop. Just stop. Both your political parties are exactly the same, and no-one in the rest of the world gives a toss.

IP laws do not provide 'protection' for anyone, they just provide the grounds for a court case.

Because court cases are generally won by the side with the best lawyers, unless they're complete idiots as in TFA, laws generally favour corporations rather than consumers, and larger corporations rather than smaller ones.

This, obviously, is a generalisation and there are always counter-examples of the little guy winning. But if IP laws can be said to protect anyone, then they generally protect the rich against the poor.

and damn... I got into the morality argument again. I hate that. The portrayal of this whole issue as a moral issue and not a business issue is a move by the content industry to attempt to preserve their broken business model.