> Having worked for a couple of years in Germany, one thing that struck me is taxes came to almost 50% of my salary.
Are you sure, you didn't mean statutory deductions? Contributions to health, unemployment, and annuity insurance are no taxes.
368 karma · joined November 26, 2008
Are you sure, you didn't mean statutory deductions? Contributions to health, unemployment, and annuity insurance are no taxes.
Check the history of the Rentenversicherung: It was basically ruined by inflation caused by the First World War. [1]
[1] http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesetzliche_Rentenversicherung_...
- I never heard someone discuss the environmental impact of microwave ovens.
- I have some doubts if the public TV stations are still the biggest.
- Unions appear to have lost some power in the last twenty or thirty years here in Germany. At least, the amount of serious strikes seems to have decreased.
- The requirement to be a "Meister" to be able to open a shop have been dropped in recent years, for almost all trades as far as I know.
I disagree mostly with the German description of aggression and violence. Sometimes, I wish he'd expressed a point a little bit more nuanced.
A cooperation is not the natural "business" model for software. It's a club. One won't get different results if one uses the same business model.
There are many reasons but the most important one, IIRC, is existential insecurity. The more one fears for one's wealth, health, and life, the stronger and widespread religious beliefs. The thesis goes back to Gregory S. Paul [1] and has been confirmed by others; for instance, by Inglehart and Norris (2004) [2].
See also the summery by Thomas Rees. [3]
[1] http://www.gspaulscienceofreligion.com/ [2] http://www.hks.harvard.edu/fs/pnorris/Books/Sacred_and_secul... [3] http://epiphenom.fieldofscience.com/2009/07/why-some-countri...
For instance, here in Germany, we have what U.S. people would probably call 'socialized health care'. We invented it, basically.
But this doesn't mean it's one gigantic insurance for all people. Actually, it's a system with hundreds of insurances, and you can pick the one you'd like (with some exceptions). The only thing you can not do is to not pick any of them. And no insurances is able to reject you.
The insurances may be companies, but there are also non-profit entities. Either way, they are separate from government. Strictly speaking, they aren't even part of the state. As far as I know no one from the government is allowed to request their files without a court order.
Additionally, there's a parallel 'free' system for people with sufficient income, and some special groups. Interestingly, civil servants seem to be one of these special groups. They may opt-in into the social system, but most of them seem to use the 'free' system -- not because of fear but because it's cheaper for them.
This means the total wage of the truck driver here would be about €511.30 for 4 days of work.
The conflict between art and craft is present in almost every kind of media, in my opinion: Whether it's books, music, or movies. The only difference is that some media are cheaper to produce and thus more open to art.
The higher the up-front costs for a medium, the less room for art. If it isn't resolved on the script level, it will get punished at the box office.
I assume, this is what worries Amazon, too: Writers who think of themselves as artists are probably those who are unlikely to sell their script(s); but they are also the ones desperate enough to submit it to Amazon. There might be a nice idea in some of these scripts, but they probably need some additional work.
Of course, a bunch of guys who have no clue about art or craft aren't going to produce anything worthwhile, no matter how many of them participate.
Note that this didn't prevent new parties to become popular. In the last 25 years or so, Germany has seen the rise of the Green party, and the Left party. Today, the Pirate Party seem to be on the rise. It seems to be a rather stable yet permeable system.
The German system does not place rules on independent spending; it only requires TV channels to provide ad space for political parties that run for office. The amount of space is tied to the relevance of the party, usually measured by the success in the previous election. The TV channel can charge the party 35% of the usual price, this is considered to be the cost price of the channel. [1]
Parties are, of course, allowded to buy additional space, but they would have to pay the usual price. In other words, the German law doesn't limit independent spending.
[1] http://wiki.piratenpartei.de/Grundlagen_f%C3%BCr_Wahlwerbung...
A simple answer would be 'social proof'. Mashable provides a TopTen list of the most watched shows. That's a good start but the site is too distracting for Average Joe, in my opinion.
Also, web series are too short for true passive entertainment. I guess what your communities would need is a sort of Google Adsense, so you could plug-in advertising to be able to produce longer streams.
That would at least provide you with some money. When one show hits it big, that'll make news, and more people would start looking for shows like that. More eyeballs, more advertising, better chances of another hit, more news, and there you go.
I agree that making movies is expensive, but we shouldn't fall prey to the availability heuristic.
To circumvent this, it might help to think about TV: What would it cost to produce original content for a 24/7 stream?
[1] http://abovethelineproducer.blogspot.com/2011/12/hollywood-p... [2] http://filmfinancing.org/
Consider 'Blair Witch Project' which cost US$ 35.000 to make, was sold for US$ 1.1 Mil., and then the company spend US$ 20-25 Mil. for marketing. And this was an awesome campaign.
"Open Water" cost US$ 500.000, was bought for US$ 2.5 Mil, and the company spend additional US$ 8 Mil. on distribution and advertising.
Box Office revenue is more closely correlated to advertising dollars spend than production dollars spend, accorindg to the presentation here: http://abovethelineproducer.blogspot.com/2011/12/hollywood-p...
Transaction costs include legal stuff, distribution, and advertising. The later is probably the largest block. There's only a very small minority who likes to engage in the creation of works. The majority just wants to be entertained. For this, they need signals of quality, and the perceivable amount of advertising is such a signal.
If I understand you correctly, you're arguing that piracy is illegal, and prevents authors to be payed.
But just because something is illegal, doesn't mean it's right. Provided a law is morally wrong, for instance, punishment for breaking said law would also be morally wrong, and should not be supported. You'll probably also cheer to the freedom fighter breaking laws to overcome a dictator.
Interestingly, most Americans would probably deny that anybody has a right to have income, or a minimum level of wealth and health in every other profession (for this would be "socialism"). So, why should authors and investors in creative works have that right?
After all, the authors of most works have been payed. Most of the time, even the investors in these works have been paid as well. What you argue is basically that authors and investors haven't been paid 'enough'. But how do we rationally determine what payment is 'enough' or not?
Of course, these "pirates" are fooling themselves if they think their moral arguments hold. Most of them don't do anything constructive (unlike, say, Open Source developers, or the Creative Commons community).
The problem, in my opinion, is that this is only Economics 101. During the last 50 years or so, economists found quite a lot of exceptions from the rules taught in this class.
What I find puzzling is that many American libertarians seem to be so intellectually lazy when it comes to Economics 102 if you can call it so. You may want to read "How markets fail" by John Cassidy to get an overview over the topic.
Here's a review by Business Week: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_47/b41560797...
> This isn't about right or wrong, it's math.
You may want to read Hume, again. "Is" cannot justify "ought". Given an "ought", though, economic theory tells us that we (as a society) will be willing to bear the economic costs for a particular policy based on ethical considerations.
Material wealth is not the only thing worth having.
> They turn the world into an "us" vs "them" environment, where it would be more optimal to have a "me" and "you" environment.
Yes, it would be nice to have an 'me' vs. 'you' environment, but that's not going to happen under any law. Read up on a good book on social psychology: It will always be 'us' vs. 'them'. Men and women, for instance, have opposite preferences when it comes to mating. Young women will always have different preference to old women when it comes to finding a mate. Young men will always have different preference to old men when it comes to distribution of wealth. And these are just the preferences inspired by sex.
What would you do when all the roads around your house are owned by old men who double the prices for usage because they can?
How much liberty will you have, then?
For reference, this was the argument I was replying to:
> … if there's even one proprietary bit of executable code, you can't guarantee your system isn't spying (or capable of spying) on you.
Theoretically, you can have a completely unfree system that is completely open at the same time.
I didn't say that Stallman has no principles, or that he is inconsistent. For me, there's just one main question: Is his conclusion -- that all software should be free software -- rational?
To be rational, a conclusion should follow logically from true premises and at least one fundamental moral principle. It's been a while since I studied Stallman's writings, but back then, I fail to find any sound argument. It was mostly just logical fallacies. Since I doubt, he changed his arguments, this probably still holds true. If so, this is a sufficient reason for me to not support his cause.
The issue is what critical thinkers would recognize as an equivocation fallacy: It's one thing to classify certain software as 'free' according to a particular definition. It's another thing to attribute a moral judgment to something by using a certain term such as 'free'.
Objection number 1 is about Stallman's use of the word 'free' in the second sense. Your response is about the use of the word 'free' is the first sense. Therefore, you either misunderstood the critics, or you're deliberately erecting a straw man.
My guess is on the first interpretation: "Please, feel free to use any proprietary software you want." is the opposite of what the Free Software movement is all about: One should not use proprietary software! It's evil, according to Stallman.
From an economic point of view, by trying to prevent something like the tragedy of the commons.
Since everyone can make copies if there is no ownership, the majority of authors have no incentive to make their works public. And since authors can figure this out before starting to work, there's less production of works than beneficial.
In other words: Nobody would have spend the money to make movies like Lords of the Rings, or whatever you fancy.
The free market argument applies in a world with ownership, too: Those who paid the price for a work are assumed to be better off, otherwise they wouldn't have agreed to the bargain. If they would want works without ownership, they can always assemble, throw their money into one pot, and have works made for them.
Since they don't do this, an average, the incentive of having works with no ownership can't be that great.
You got to admit that every author is the possessor of his work, even in a world without ownership, since he possesses the first copy. So, the question is: How can you make him publish his copy?
There is good evidence that we're predisposed for (1): Our brains seem to have "interpreters", located mostly in the left brain hemisphere, that are trying to make "sense" from the input (Gazzaniga, M.S.: The Ethical Brain, 2005).
There are two situations when this gets more obvious:
1. When the brain input (or the brain connections) is partially broken. For instance, if one shows split-brain patients the word "Walk" so that only right brain hemisphere notes it, they stand up and walk. When asked why they did what they just did, they often come up with an ad hoc explanation: "I just wanted go get a coke." This is the interpreter working, trying to make sense from the fact that the person just stood up although the interpreter had no signal from other parts of the brain about possible reasons.
2. When the brain input is "unexpected". In psychology, so-called "non-deterministic" (or non-contingent) experiments make the participant believe she can influence the results or reactions of a setting, although, in fact, she can not. In such situations, humans also come up with explanations even if there's nothing to explain. In other words, they are trying to make sense out of non-sense input. These experiments go back to B.F. Skinner who was able to induce superstitious behavior in pigeons. [1]
What's interesting is how resistant some of these beliefs are. Generally speaking, the more effort is put into an explanation, the more resistant to change.
Worship, on the other hand, seems to be a more complex and special kind of belief. It's not just trust without doubt or unreasonable admiration, but also magical thinking: the idea to be able to influence reality by appealing to a powerful being.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._F._Skinner#Superstition_in_t...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_system...
The usual caveats apply, of course. According to the web browsing data, iOS indeed overtook Linux-based OSes, even when one includes Android.
It also has a page discussing Linux adoption:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_adoption
It lists the reasons or barriers for using Linux. When you compare these for different systems, you'll note that -- on the one hand-- the reasons to adopt Linux have become less convincing. For instance, stablility is not that relevant, anymore, since competitors are often sufficiently stable, too.
On the other hand, there was nearly no change concerning the barriers for adoption: Android made a dent in the 'pre-installed' barrier, but that was it, basically. On netbooks, Linux had a lead initially but lost it to Windows.
While the article states that Linux is on par concerning application and peripheral support, I have my doubts. It has no third-party ecosystem that is able to compete with its competitors, which is probably due to the lack of a viable business model for desktop applications, lack of a decentral installer, higher fragmentation, in general, and consequently less public support.
I was absolutely fascinated by the first part; such a shame, the author wasn't able to apply its point to his own suggestion: Whether the law is made by one body or by many -- it will remain an authority, a government made by people, used to impose one set of values to other people, and open to misuse.
His blind faith in free markets seems to have clouded his judgment.
Counter-examples to his free market for laws are easy to find. Sharia laws in Britain are just one example. Women are hardly 'free enough' to voluntarily accept its authority. What about children: Can they voluntarily accept the authority of a certain court? According to the cases of child indoctrination and abuse by crazy religious parents, priests, and schools, not so much.
Markets fail rather often (depending on the definition of failure). Shoes are a perfect example of a free market that somehow 'works', but is inherently inefficient in many regards. One just needs to try to find a shoe that (a) fits, (b) is subjectively good looking, and (c) priced fairly. Now imagine one would additionally need to look for (d) an acceptable court for clearing disputes!
Or a rationalized expression of confirmation bias.