Humodour

The Wikileaks dirt on Google is about China trying to hack into them and use their data to silence dissidents. It's why Google pulled out of China.

Sweet, you're still going.

He's dead, and thank the IPU that!

Brilliant post!

**** the Tea Party, it's time for the Tequila Party! http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/nov/2...-tequila-party/

They gave Iran long-range missile technology, though...?

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/special-r...2-1225963551792 A bit of a funny twist to the 'Christmas is bad' PC theme.

You're right, I never could understand why he killed all those Jews.

You know who else was also crazy? Hitler.

can anybody explain to me again how stealing 1000 copies from 1000 retailers hurt the industry? talk about different cultures and mentality. I don't understand... The only cultural aspect of this is how much one values freedom of information. Unfortunately however, your example, does not raise this issue at all, and instead is a purely economic issue which is referred to as the 'free rider problem'. But if we were to consider this a question of values, then there are some possible avenues to address the economic issues involved here whilst keeping media free to access. They are basically all equivalent to redistribution of wealth (which I am fine with, within reason) and good examples are public broadcasters. What I don't like is things like Canada's scheme where people can download songs all they want legally, but everyone is charged an entertainment tax which is given to various music companies. Talk about government picking winners and propping up non-viable business models. So ****ed up. Canada, if it really wants such a government-backed scheme, should have a state-owned music label under which all music produced is public domain or copyleft licensed.

I think the odds of a quick war are extremely high. China won't support North Korea. It may even support South Korea (south Korea is a huge trade partner for China). Certainly China would not support NK militarily and may even cut off all financial and food aid to North Korea. Then you've got sheer numbers stacked against North Korea in terms of Western allies, technological disparity, and South Korea's own army itself. I think that if NK does start a war, it will be quick and very bloody (for both North and South).

Well, Wikileaks will next target various governments and businesses, including the Russian government and a large corrupt US bank. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6AS68S20101130

Oh ****, I thought my mate was joking when he said that Di! I'm genuinely worried.

Well, on the issues of the China-NK relationship... what relationship? http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/nov/2...reunified-korea Kevin Rudd has also confirmed that in the event of a Korean war, Australia's mutual defence treaty with America (and America's with South Korea) would mean Australia would defend South Korea by the transitive property. It would be amusing if this meant New Zealand would also be involved as they have a mutual defence treaty with Australia.

Illegal copying in poor countries might be economically beneficial in the long-run. Microsoft's internal stance on the issue is that they'd prefer people make illegal copies of their products because the alternative is they are never exposed to Microsoft products, or worse, use competing products instead. So you've got an issue of mindshare. It's a similar thing to Google purchasing YouTube and loosing billions on it for a few years - long-term it pays itself off. People in poor countries might be poor now, but if you can get them into gaming, then as those countries develop they'll become a paying market. One other potential benefit of previous cases of illegal downloading (though not current cases) is probably that they provided the impetus for the development of legitimate online downloading services as well as the subsequent much-needed price cuts associated with them. Arguably this would have happened with or without illegal downloading, but probably much more slowly. If you price your products too high, then a cheaper or free black market will very often evolve, and the only way to eliminate it is to out-compete it (again I refer to Steam, GoG, iTunes).

I... think I'm going to go for a run and then eat a salad.

You weren't sharing your life experience. Sharing your life experience would be explaining how you personally have grown up to regret copying games... not matter-of-factly telling young people they will come to rue their actions once they "grow up". There you go again. Shame we can't have a decent discussion of business models, differences in cultural attitudes, and what the incentives for making illegal copies are (and thus how to eliminate them).

Well, if China can help solve the North Korea problem, that will go a long way in my eyes towards improving China's reputation.

We should do things that eliminate the causes of murder obviously - increased education, increased prosperity of the populace. Increased law enforcement only works up to a point and the long-term gains are not as large. It's a fitting example you chose Volourn, because it demonstrates why eliminating the source of a problem - changing one's business model in this case - has superior efficacy in the medium to long-term to treating people harshly. I already explained why age is important earlier. I'm going to assume by your reluctance to share your age that I hit the nail on the head, although I'm now thinking you are closer to 23. This is quite a ridiculous post, Hurlie. You (and Gorth earlier) have been saying things that make you guys look bitter, out of touch, and most of all condescending. A really, really bad basis for your arguments, especially if you want anybody who downloads illegally to read them and give them some serious thought. Earlier I laid out an effective way to argue your case to people, especially people my age, and you ignored it. "Back in myyyy day..." I dunno what kind of youth you were Hurlie, but there are things I may regret doing when I was younger (as well as now, being only 22), but that's unlikely given my personality (did you even consider that people have different personality types and come from different cultures?). I certainly can't think of anything I regret yet, and I've done some silly things. These things make me who I am and to regret them would be to bemoan something which a) I can't change, and b) makes me who I am. Definitely "piracy" (arrr!) is not and never will be one of the things I regret doing, I can say that much now. The notion that it will be is laughably naive. If I never downloaded games when I was younger, I'd never be as into games as I am now, and I would not be purchasing the number of games I do now - if any at all. I would not have discovered many wonderful things about science, philosophy, and art either, because games were often my inspiration for this. Nor would I be exposed to various cool internet gaming communities that have helped shape who I am. No, even though I no longer have any interest in copying games, I am quite content with my past record on this issue, as I suspect are most people. Your current argument is a distraction from your core thesis.

Er, no. North Korea is 'Far Left'. China is 'Far Left.' The USSR was 'Far Left.' Please explain for those of us not gifted with your skills of political divination how these 'Far Left' entities were flag-wavers for civil liberties and free speech? The far left and the far right are generally indistinguishable. Agreed!

Considering they describe Russia as a country run by the mafia, and directly implicate Putin and his cronies in this, as well as describing cases of bribery between Berlusconi and Putin... yeah, I'd say it steps on his toes.

Yeah, I've found myself importing a lot of stuff lately because it's often half the price of the equivalent item in Australia. I kind of feel bad for not supporting the local economy. And on the topic of Steam, my 118 games totalling $973.10 works out at roughly $8.25 per game. And this is why Steam stops illegal downloading. Or perhaps a better statement would be "this is why the free market stops illegal downloading". Not to mention my games are auto-updated and stored in the cloud.

That is brilliant Calax. On darker note, has anybody mentioned North Korea's slave labour camps in this thread? Probably worth mentioning if we are discussing the threat North Korea poses to humanity. Over 100,000 people are estimated to be held in this manner, with many of them being killed and replaced each year. Here is one of North Korea's slave camps: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yodok_concentration_camp

I already said I'm neutral on the matter. I'm not arguing for Wikileaks's cause, so you do not need to try and convince me. I don't think you can hold up the bureaucratic or electoral processes of the US as ideal. American citizens certainly do want more transparency and it is not being delivered by their government. Whether Wikileaks is a viable solution to that I don't know. Read more of them. There's a bunch of stuff that has never been reported by news agencies. Perhaps. What's done is done, and we'll soon see if that claim bears fruit. Agreed, and I would like to see this. Some Chinese citizens recently created their own Wikileaks clone for this purpose. However I have no problem with undermining a country where it is in the wrong. And America has been at times, as evidenced by the many of the leaks themselves. Whether or not these leaks do more harm than good remains to be seen. I feel they released too much information sensitive to Western peace efforts and did not redact nearly enough.

I was hoping we'd get to 10 posts before somebody pointed out my conflation.