America
Offers tongue-in-cheek insight into American democracy with coverage of such topics as the republican qualities of ancient Rome, the antics of our nation's founders, and the ludicrous nature of today's media.
Stats for nerds
0recommend
4mentions
4people
2009–2012years
100% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I think at core his argument is that he doesn't want to pay for the content he consumes. He justifies it on the grounds that the prices are too high.
Well, no. At least, that's not the central theme of his essay. I can sort of see why you might get that impression if you read only the middle and neither the beginning or the end, but the author is very clear about what he is saying and you would have to ignore all of that to label him as "a real creep."
So, here is the overall picture of the essay, since you may have missed it. He is saying, "look, I am a pirate -- I'm not going to try to justify that or discuss it; we'll just take it here as a given: I am going to pirate stuff. Now, it just so happens, like many pirates, I actually buy a lot of entertainment, paying a lot of money for games and television and movies. So let's ask a different question: how can you get access to my money?"
Here's one way, he says, to revoke your access to his money: sell him a crappy product. It's not unlike my behavior at cyclist shops in the Netherlands. An obscure piece of trivia: there are three bike valves in common usage, the American/Schrader/car valve, the French/Presta/unscrew valve, and the English/Woods-Dunlop valve. The Dutch prefer by 90% or so the Woods valve, but I have been sold twice air pumps from various cycling shops which simply do not work on Woods valves, and either time I was told that I could not be reimbursed because I had to take the pump out of the packing material to use it. (In fact, both times I found out that neither bike shop knew the name of the Woods-Dunlop valve despite the fact that it's absurdly popular.) Guess who is never getting my business again? The people who sold me stuff that does not work.
In fact, as you might imagine has occurred with me, he is now so paranoid about being sold content which sucks that he will no longer put down money until he knows that it doesn't suck -- just like I won't buy a bike pump unless I can see that I can manually switch the airflow to the smaller nozzle. If I can't demand a refund then I'm going to demand that I know the quality that I'm buying.
On the other hand, he says, one way to really get his money is by convenience. When he sees albums from bands he liked, he buys those. If he pirates a good game he usually buys the sequel, and will even opt to pay a little extra to bundle it with the original game.
IP law is just as important to open source software.
It actually tends to get in the way. There are all sorts of different licenses, many of which are not compatible -- GNU code can use but can't be used by BSD code, Eclipse can neither use nor be used by GNU -- and the biggest problem is that software freedom is not given automatically.
Would any of the coders here be cool with others appropriating their work without compensation or choice in the matter?
I assure you, all of the people here who work on websites would be happy if you visited their website, even though that requires your computer to copy all of their images and client-side code.
We might get mad if you try to reappropriate our content, especially for profit. This is also conceded by the original poster, who says, "The main reason I don't feel bad is because, like I detailed above, I know I'm buying content. Another important reason I don't feel bad is because I'm not profiting. I'm not taking your content and trying to resell it as though I'm a legitimate vendor."
The problem is that digital goods without articily created scarcity and property like "properties"'will suffer a major free rider problem.
No, they won't. The fact that people will download you for free will be perfectly balanced by the fact that downloads are absurdly cheap operations. It's like complaining that, "if we don't make it really hard to get a glass of water at our restaurant, then everybody will just order water and nobody will ever buy drinks." If you start to think that way, when getting someone a glass of water is of absolutely negligible cost, then you will alienate your customers for no good reason. That's what the MAFIAA has been doing: it's dirt-cheap for them to produce digital copies, but they think like you are describing, and insist on trying to create an artificial economy of scarcity. All it creates is resentment. A good restaurant starts you off with a glass of water and refills it whenever your waiter/waitress notices that your cup seems to be a bit empty -- then you go, "wow, this is great service, I'll come back here again."
Same thing with digital content. Because I can get The Daily Show in the Netherlands via TheDailyShow.com, I am really interested in any work that Comedy Central does, and I even own a copy of their book, America (The Book). I have no idea how else they're going to get a revenue stream out of my viewership there, but I imagine they'll find something worthwhile.
- Another lovely counterpoint to Ayn Rand is "Sewer Gas and Electric" by Matt Ruff. It is absurdist science fiction that is hilarious and full of fascinating characters.
I really enjoy Atlas Shrugged as well, I've read the whole book twice, actually. But I don't believe it is a good code to live by. My favorite quite about her books comes from The Daily Show. On the back of America The Book there is a fake blurb from Rand: "just like one of my books, reading this book will make you an asshole for two weeks."
Her books are seductive because they intentionally oversimplify life. Her characters are not realistic and are completely binary. Everyone is either a superhero or a weasel. This makes for entertaining reading, but not much else.
Read "Crossing to Safety" by Wallace Stegner. It is a brautiful book about an intense relationship forged between two couples. It's my favorite thing I've read recently.
- Top right shelf contains "Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell" (in black) and the Harry Potter series. Below that "The Rise of The Creative Class" (green). Middle left contains "America (The Book)" (red).
Fun exercise.
- I can see a copy of The Daily Show book: America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction
