"start later, and be performance orientated and not generally goal orientated."

School usually starts between 7am and 9am. This is when most people also start work. It's a nice preparation for the working world.

How is school not performance orientated? You do homework (and are graded on performance) and you take tests (also graded on performance).

Getting rid of goals is just silly.

"homework hurts kids more then helps."

Why does it hurt more than help? When I was in school, the classes that had no homework generally resulted in kids doing nothing after class and scrambling to try and study 3 weeks of material in a couple of days, to pass the tests. When you do this, you don't really retain the information you memorized in a few short days.

I would give myself homework every night and check it in the back of the book. I was almost always prepared for the tests. Most people (especially under 18) do not have the discipline to do this. Homework is almost a sort of discipline training.

"About half the US population is sitting in jail as a result of drug related offences - due the the war on drugs and 3 strikes policies there.
It's also a big part of the reason why California is going bankrupt."

I doubt a "big" part of the reason California is going bankrupt is because of people in jail. The main reason is because of all the super liberal social programs that pissed away all of the tax payers dollars.

"The other difference is in the US, workers are sold the dream that anyone has an equal chance to make it big if they work hard enough at it, and workers are free to complain long and loud about the system , their bosses, how much the government sucks, etc."

You do have an equal chance. Hard work has to do with it, but it also takes a little bit of luck and a good idea (something that's actually worth money).

"In China, they had a revolution that was supposed to make everyone equal"

Does a society really want everyone to be equal? Everyone should have an equal chance, but human nature dictates that some people will put more effort into life than others

"For example, do you think that the average CEO of a company really does such a magnificent job compared to the average employee, that they should be paid 531 times the average hourly worker?"

Why does it matter? Private companies can pay their employees whatever they want to. If they want to pay the CEO $10 million dollars and the regular employees $10/hour, there should be no problems.

"There is definitely a case for CEOs getting paid more than a regular worker, (say, 10x), as they do have a great deal more responsibility and a rarer set of skills compared to the average worker, but that level of difference is a sign of a broken and unfair system, just as it is in China."

I love how you just throw a number out there and think that's it's "fair".

"The only difference between Chinese and Americans is that Americans think they're free. Just because we have nice TVs doesn't mean we have it so much better than the average Chinese."

It has nothing to do with "nice TVs". We are allowed to speak out against the government without getting thrown in jail. There is more than one political party (every US citizen has a chance to vote) and we can run businesses without having to pay off the corrupt government. There is no such thing as a license to have a certain amount of kids in the US.

"The government, often through corporate pressure, should not have to create artificial scarcity just so you, those like you, or those that leech off you can have a viable business model of selling virtual widgets. The same way I have no sympathy for print media, newspapers and their ilk, I have no sympathy for the music industry. Sorry if technology is obsoleting your business model. Do what others before you have done, and innovate or learn a new skill."

This kind of thinking will result in consumers having to pay monthly fees for most software (software as a service FTW). Businesses aren't stupid, they will find ways around piracy.

I also have no sympathy for people when their job gets outsourced to a country that pays a cheaper wage. "Innovate or learn a new skill"

"Like a 20th century horse dealer sending an angry letter to Ford demanding the return of his customers. Like it or not it costs nothing to copy now and that means you can't sell as many copies as you used to, doesn't matter whether you think that's "right" or not. It's a pretty damn simple fact."

This is a bad analogy and I'm really sick of hearing it. When automobiles came out, it was innovation (and real competition). Piracy is nothing more than copying the original. It's not competition nor innovative.

It would be like a horse dealer sending an angry letter to ford because he started a horse dealership and he called it the same exact name as that dealer and made people think he was that dealer.

"And a doctor worked their entire life to have the knowledge and skillset to cure a patient... but a doctor doesn't get paid every time the patient's heart beats."

Your analogy is wrong. Doctors do get paid every time they work on you.

"Listen, I'm all for a fair compensation for the artists, and against copyright infringement... but your specific argument doesn't stand up to any kind of scrutiny."

Neither does yours.

"And I work in residential construction. I have apprenticed and studied for years to gain the skills I employ but I don't get to collect a royalty check every time someone uses a door I installed..."

No, but you get paid each time you install a door. Since you installed a door in bob's house, should you now install it in my house for free?

Artists get paid each time someone buys music, but each one of those people are getting enjoyment out of it.

Also, if they only got paid once, they would charge hundreds of thousands of dollars for the first copy.

"Logically, if you just flip the reasoning, any artist whose work is never pirated, should be the richest one, right?"

That is a logical fallacy. If your work is never pirated, you have more of a chanced of being the richest one, which I don't think is too much to ask.

"box office name recognition is the worst thing to happen to movies ever. "

It's just human nature at work. People like an actor and want to go an see a movie. This brings in more ticket sales and the actor (because he/she is known to bring in a shit-ton of sales, can demand a high salary).

The same thing happens in politics. Many times people don't vote based on the best candidate for the job, but for some reason they may like them.

"Actors and licensees don't need to be set up for life on one movie. If acting is your job, you can live on $500k per year. That will cover plane tickets and expensive clothes. Do 2 movies per year and, minus taxes and expenses, you'll have a very comfortable life *working*, not spending my ticket money on hookers and blow and mansions for MTV's Cribs."

I don't see how anyone can dictate this. The market really decides the price.

"How many walk away because their product will not make a profit... based on how many in the past have failed, due to piracy? "

How do you ever prove such a thing? It's not like anybody can get accurate statistics on how many times something was pirate as opposed to purchased.

The problem is that piracy has muddied the waters. I often wonder if it's why we see so many shitty movies, software, and games these days. Companies don't know if there are terrible sales due to piracy or a genuinely bad product. If piracy didn't exist and people just didn't buy something, they would know for sure that they need to make a better product and we, as consumers, would start seeing better products.

Instead, we are seeing more protection schemes.

"Few, if any, sales were lost to my piracy. I simply could not afford the things I was pirating."

It's not a lost sale, but it changes the mindset of people, which results in lost sales. If everyone knows they can get something for free (and continue to download it for free), eventually, they will just expect it.

Look at iPhone apps. Since most are .99-$1, if you try to sell one for $30 (no matter how good it is), you will most likely not get any sales because people expect it to be cheap.

This is why companies need to fight piracy. If not, they will lose the ability to sell any product.

"It was either Hugh Hefner or someone else at Playboy who said that they realize that their work is pirated and while they have been known to crack the whip when it got out of hand, they also realize that at least their work is good enough for someone to consider to pirate and that it keeps them in the public view even if they aren't directly making money from it."

Why don't we hold the GPL to the same standard? When it's used in proprietary projects and not the source of the project is not given out for free, at least someone is using it.

Instead, like piracy, the person is sued in court (and many of the people here say it's "stealing")

"They don't let banks cheat and collapse the country like in the US where everyone must get the latest HDTV, big cars and just spend money on non-important items and entertainment. That is how US has been doing for many many years and loaning more and more money along the way."

Except they allow the government to put them in jail for practicing free speech, organized religion, or anything against the best interest of the top members. The government has been known to "acquire" private property as they see fit and there is a one-child rule where you need to get a license from the government to have more than one.

Have you ever been to China? The people in the big cities (IE: making a living that is as much as or more than people in the US) buy just as many "useless" gadgets. The rest don't because they are more worried about getting enough food to eat.

"even though they now possess the knowledge and can do it themselves," ..so you know how to play all of the songs that you download?

Many people like you confuse the hard work that put into making the album (which is not easy) and the split second it takes to copy the resulting work (which any moron on the Internet can do)