Just wait till this same sensible decision making acumen of the political class is more powerfully governing our banking system, our health care system and our energy policy.

Yes, I think there is something to this research. One only needs to read the posts on this thread, from the asinine top level post to the many equally asinine refutations, to conclude that entrenchment in one's beliefs... especially in the face of facts... leads to deeper entrenchment in those beliefs regardless of the verdict of the facts.

Of course, I think this is more likely to be a problem on Slashdot, where zealotry and entrenched ideologies are more deeply embraced than in the general populous. But demonstrative nonetheless...

I am not a Libertarian, though I do hold many similar political philosophical beliefs and have studied their philosophy as well as some of the others. I would urge you to not call yourself a libertarian at all... based on your message you're not one (big L or little l). I'm not saying that as an indictment, merely as an observation. I'll explain why, at risk of over generalizing... there are many flavors of 'Libertarian Philosophy' and they don't all agree, and there are many more philosophies that draw similar political conclusions but have differing roots.

The one thing that really all of the libertarian philosophies that I know tend to agree on is the right of the individual over collective rights. Under these philosophies, you are the only person with the right to determine how to live your life: whether that's to take drugs, to become a stock broker or to determine the disposition of the property. You have the right to Life, Liberty, and Property/Pursuit of Happiness (a la Locke/a la Jefferson). These rights are not grants from Government but irrevocable rights of natural law. The only limitations on your power of action is that you may not infringe on another's rights. With these rights do come responsibilities... you are solely responsible for making your living, for the consequences of your actions (i.e. take drugs and fry your brain: your problem). Etc.... there are no societal obligations to you.

Now consider the basic premise of your comment. You state that the Government must do what is best for the Nation... and imply that it can do so at the expense of individual choice in the matter. In essence your argument is that there are no natural rights as understood by the libertarian philosophers, but rather what they would call rights are really revocable privileges granted by Government. If you own property (cash/land/whatever) then the Government may morally revoke that privilege when it deems fit for a given purpose when it decides that "it's in the nation's best interest". Your position is a complete repudiation of libertarian philosophical ideals; you emphasize supremacy of collective rights over individual rights. Practical outcomes have no bearing on the philosophical conclusions: you either believe that collective rights outweigh individual rights or the other way around.

And by the way... the problem with collective rights is that they are always exercised by individuals on behalf of society... though these individuals have their own self-interests and motivations. I have never heard any tyrant saying what their actions are intended to harm their subjects... they all claim that what they do is in their nation's interest. You might claim democracy is a safeguard by allowing the majority to claim what is national self interest? Remember that lynchings back in the day had such a degree of popular support that fair juries could often times not be found to try the murderers... as such mobs, too, can have a funny sense of communal or national interest.

So rather than address the arguments I've raised you'd rather just spout dogma as the mainstream position?

Just how is it good that people raising, in calm voices might I add, serious objections to a point and then taking the time to explain those objections merits marginalization? Do you simply have no convincing answer?

Before I go on, I will address the only point of relevance that you made. Regarding the investments being discussed... are you conceding then than they are risky and will likely need on-going subsidies to keep viable? Seems if there was a clear market need and demand for this stuff that these loans, grants, etc wouldn't be needed. Investors take a risk every time they invest.... and in fact are subsidizing this very program through the purchase in Government bonds (as it stands now). And if fact this type of lending being so much 'safer' than, say, green tech is one of the leading reasons why green tech companies can't get investment any other way. Yes, government demand for capital from the market is using capital that would have otherwise been put into other projects.

The problem with the mob, of which you're evidently a part, is that so little of their position is laid out rationally. As for me, I prefer to look at the broader picture, including facts rather than biases and ideological bigotry, and draw my own conclusions.

Oops...

"and in case 3 you penalize spending and encourage consumption"

should read:

and in case 3 you penalize savings and encourage consumption

Remember that whether its loans or grants that there are negative effects of this program.

A Government itself is not concerned with wealth generation, as such it can only supply capital for any purpose in only a few different ways:

1) It can redirect capital by taking it from those that are producers in society (taxes).
2) It can borrow capital from those that have it to lend.
3) In a fiat money system it can print it.

All three methods of government capital acquisition have negative impacts on the broader economy. In case 1 you reduce the money that individuals and business can spend on their own needs, in case 2 you do the same thing with the exception of delay the consequences of case 1 but at greater cost (an effective savings/investment penalty) and in case 3 you penalize spending and encourage consumption... which in turns leaves less money over time for investment into productive purposes.

You might object that the money is being paid back since these are government loans. But because that money was obtained in one of the ways listed above, there is real short term damage as described. So all that's happened is that the Government has substituted its investment priorities (which are not predicated on market needs) for those of the market and displacing market needs/wants in the process.

Since the expansion of productive capacity isn't even the goal, this (and other programs like it) will likely lead to a net loss of employment and personal wealth over what would have been without it.

Speaking as someone with only a high school diploma, I find your reasoning pure silliness. Of course, as I advanced in my technical career, and later in my managerial career, I met people that believed as you do. Many of them applied such 'rules of thumb' in the most inappropriate ways and I fired a lot of them along the way. Some I saw coming and just never hired.

Then again, as I keep up with my career through many resources, including the resources that my ACM & ACM SIGMIS memberships give me access to, I find that even on the merely theoretical and academic computing topics that I am consistently better informed in the field than most of my peers with CS degrees.... and have the benefit of having earned my stripes in the field with real world scenarios and issues.

Many of my 'degreed' colleagues were merely playing by the rules and checking off the boxes we are all suppose to check off. They lacked passion, they lacked professional dedication... they were simply trying to be sure they could get a job... any job.

Don't get me wrong there were some good degree holding people, too, many of them. But I have no doubt they would have been great without the degree. Their character, which made them successful in school and career, would have made them successful in career alone or any other endeavor for that matter.

Cheers,
SCB

I admit it I didn't RTFA... but it sounds like the Willow Garage stuff... http://www.ros.org/wiki/ ?

(http://www.willowgarage.com/ for the record is their main site).

Respectfully, what actually I assumed was different than what you contest.

The ignorance or knowledge of the any of the participants is completely irrelevant to the end result in the absolute sense and my assumption was only related to the absolute end result in this case. I assumed that the implementation was slapped together based on an extensive reading of the forums: I made no other assumption. If 404 pages are appearing in addition to other problems, regardless of privacy issues and the like (which I was not addressing in the statement), then it is poorly implemented. If an industry standard is that fly-by-night quality is acceptable, then the industry norm is to have poor quality, but not a factor in my argument, and irrelevant to my being a customer of this specific company in this specific case.

Having said that, there are a couple of counter-criticisms I can make. Regarding the law suits. There are many, many lawsuits filed that have no justification. The fact that someone else is suing/has been sued is irrelevant until, at the very least, the case is decided. Sometimes even then courts decide poorly or with external interests in mind. Details do need to be rationally considered before law suits or their outcomes can be relied upon in argument.

I actually suspect what you were trying to address by bringing up the suit was actually embodied my statement about 'competent partners'. The word 'they' in that sentence refers only to Turbine. I have little doubt that SuperRewards knew exactly what they were doing and yes, they would have collaborated with Turbine on the implementation. Having said that, Turbine isn't in that line of business and there is every reason to believe that they wouldn't know what the issues, standards, and practices are of that market. In order to believe that mere collaboration would have made Turbine completely savvy in this area, you would also have to believe that it was in SuperRewards's self-interest to tell Turbine the full story, warts and all.... and until I hear something different, I just don't believe that to be likely. Should Turbine have been more diligent and been more inquistive and thoughtful about the ramifications? Sure. But I said that:

Naiveté and desire can make one want to believe the great story a trading partner tells. When one falls for that traps inevitably one pays the price.
       

...and now that I have your attention let me explain that.

Look, Turbine is a company. They exist to make profit and along the way they incur costs (taxes, hardware, bandwidth, employees). Finding new ways to monetize their product is the right and proper thing for them to do and, as a customer of their products, I wish them all the success in the world in that endeavor.

The Offer Wall wasn't actually all that bad of an idea on the face of it... they offered a way for F2P players to get something that many, in these hard economic times, may not have even been able to do on their own... get some quick item store points with out laying out RL coin and doing so in a way that they didn't have to toy with game mechanics. Having said that... they were pretty stupid in the implementation.

They clearly didn't understand the 'rewards marketing' industry they chose to rely on enough to find a competent partner (if they existed), they didn't put much time or effort into the solution... based on a complete read of the forums it looks very slapped together (an assumption on my part, not having seen it first hand), and they didn't give their customers much credit for thinking very deeply about these sorts of things (and given the complexity of the game, they clearly misunderstand their customers).

As for me and my wife... we came to DDO because we are short on funds now-a-days and they provide a cheap way to be entertained without resorting to something like TV. We really like their game and the implementation (I'm an old AD&D player... so had to get use to it). We've even bought adventure packs from them. We'll give them a pass on this... that doesn't mean they will get a pass forever if they keep doing stupid stuff or if it's dramatic enough (as I'm sure some takers of their offer might feel). If they continue to fail to respect their customer base repeatedly they will fail themselves.... as well they should.

In the meantime, I hope they've learned their lesson from this fiasco... and continue to provide a great game.

Well said.

OK... I buy a disk containing Windows 7 Professional for my company (@$179 or whatever the price is for a single copy). The purpose of that disk is to install Windows 7 Professional on computers. I install it onto 500 computers without buying an individual license for each machine... if I read you correctly I don't need more than one since that is the intended purpose of the disk, which I now own. I don't see that holding up in court, neither in the old days or today.

I think the idea that copying a program into RAM for it to run and not needing a explicit license to do so, since there is an implicit license to do so, is a materially different idea than the central issue here. While I may have an implied license to read the book that I bought, I don't assume ownership of the content of the book. That is still held by the publishing house, author, etc. Nor can I use that content in any way that I chose. I may be able to legally read the book that I bought, but I can't make and publish a derivative work such as a screenplay adaptation or a book on tape. All of this predates consumer software and the related copyright law that has evolved over the years. In this case, you may well have the implied license to install and use the content on the disk, but even under the most liberal reading of what you are suggesting to be the case I would need an additional license for the small bit of code that is downloaded and enables the DLC to be used in the game and you do not have the legal right to bypass that mechanism.

It sounds like you are trying to mix in some of the Libertarian philosophy which basically maintains that intellectual property really isn't property at all since it's not a tangible, scarce resource. In other words, the book is property since it's made out of paper, ink and binding materials. The game (in a retail package) is property in that is is made of plastic, metallic films and the like. The content in either case is not property and there are no restrictions on your use of that. Of course, this is philosophy and not anything at all like the law.

Your complaint is valid. Like I said in an earlier post up the chain, this probably wasn't a consumer friendly decision. Regardless of legal realities, there is the visceral feeling that you've bought some 'thing' and that it's yours to do with as you please, in its entirety and regardless of what you really were buying: a software license in which no actual ownership of anything changes hands. The company, by treating the game as what it is, a license agreement, broke trust with it's customers by failing to recognize their perception of what they were buying: a product. They also built up bad will by appearing to nickel and dime their customers, as one poster commented.

My original point though is that a violation of trust isn't necessarily an ethical violation. When people get pissed off rightfully/wrongfully they like to throw around statements like, 'it is unethical' or 'a violation of rights'.... ethics and natural rights are very important concepts and I don't like to see them treated casually.

See: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1583644&cid=31487918
for response.

I suppose no more so than it installs a cup holder with a lock on it.