Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Blogging at Blogger
I will no longer be blogging on this platform. If you are interested in my blog please visit the alternate locations at blog.ojb.co.nz and ojb42.wordpress.com. Thanks.
Thursday, February 9, 2012
In Support of Piracy
Is it OK to break the law in a situation you consider unjust? That is a question which I have covered a few times in the past and my conclusion has been that people should do what they consider is the right thing whether that agrees with the law or not. It's a philosophy I follow and it can be controversial, of course.
There are two considerations which need to be applied here though. The first is that most laws are reasonably fair and because we have to peacefully co-exist with other people we should usually follow them just so that society works smoothly. And the second is that if an individual does choose to ignore the law they should expect there to be consequences. So breaking a law might lead to a person being punished but that doesn't necessarily make them a bad person.
In fact breaking the law is sometimes the only moral thing to do, and those people who do it should be admired rather than vilified. A recent local case involving a doctor helping his terminally ill mother to die peacefully (at her own request) lead to him being found guilty of a crime, but most people (although certainly not all) admired him for his courage instead of condemning him for breaking the law.
The same applies to many legal issues associated with the internet. To many people piracy is a reaction to a perceived injustice, and while some activities of this sort are possibly illegal (the actual legal status of some of them is uncertain) they aren't always necessarily wrong.
The recent situation where New Zealand police attacked the mansion of internet "entrepreneur" Kim Dotcom - jumping out of helicopters and brandishing automatic weapons like a bunch of crazed ninjas who have watched too many American crime movies - is a classic case. If there was ever a case of an over-reaction and a huge waste of police time and money, this was it.
It seems certain there was pirated material on Megaupload's servers but there is similar material on many other servers around the world. And why do people feel the need to pirate material of this sort anyway? Because the way things work now is unfair and set up almost entirely for the benefit of big corporations. I think most people would prefer to buy movies and music at a reasonable price, in a reasonable way, and knowing that a reasonable proportion of the price goes back to the original artist, but none of this happens with the existing model.
The recording industry, instead of trying to use the internet to give the consumer a fair deal, simply tries to block the inevitable changes by lobbying governments (mainly in the US but even here in New Zealand too) to make laws which support their antiquated business model.
But attempts at blocking piracy haven't been conspicuously successful anyway. When a law of that type was introduced here the amount of peer to peer traffic on the internet in New Zealand dropped significantly but the amount of secure proxy traffic increased, showing people just bypassed detection by using different technologies.
The evidence is that people will buy material if it is priced and distributed fairly. Apple's music and app stores are a classic example but there are even better models where large corporations are bypassed completely. An American comedian recently made a million dollars by distributing his work on the internet. The file was available for free but he appealed to peoples' sense of fairness and asked for a $5 payment. It obviously worked!
Try buying a DVD and compare the experience. First, you must find a store stocking it, then you need to find one which is the right region (is that region system the stupidest idea ever or what?), then you have to pay a price which means only a small fraction goes to the orignal artist, then you must sit through some tedious message about piracy before watching the movie.
Do the corporations not realise that the only people seeing those anti-piracy messages are legitimate buyers because the pirates always strip them out! How unbelievably stupid can they be? But that's the problem: these people are both clueless and immoral. They sort of deserve to have their business destroyed.
The argument that artists, such as musicians and movie makers, lose because of piracy is partly true because there will be some material not being purchased that they would get payment for otherwise. But it's not really that simple.
Assuming that every pirated movie represents a loss of income - as the industry has suggested - is dishonest. Most of those pirated movies would never have been bought by the person who pirated them so they represent no real loss.
And most of the material is mainstream stuff from commercially successful artists. Losing a little bit of income isn't really going to harm them too much because they have so much already.
And finally, if the big media corporations can be destroyed by internet distribution then the artists will win in the end because they will be free from their control.
So piracy is often illegal and it certainly has doubtful moral value, but pretending it is the greatest threat to modern culture is just a self-serving myth invented by the big corporations growing rich from the current model without really contributing anything. Kim Dotcom is certainly no model for good ethical behaviour but that he's not the ultimate example of evil either.
There are two considerations which need to be applied here though. The first is that most laws are reasonably fair and because we have to peacefully co-exist with other people we should usually follow them just so that society works smoothly. And the second is that if an individual does choose to ignore the law they should expect there to be consequences. So breaking a law might lead to a person being punished but that doesn't necessarily make them a bad person.
In fact breaking the law is sometimes the only moral thing to do, and those people who do it should be admired rather than vilified. A recent local case involving a doctor helping his terminally ill mother to die peacefully (at her own request) lead to him being found guilty of a crime, but most people (although certainly not all) admired him for his courage instead of condemning him for breaking the law.
The same applies to many legal issues associated with the internet. To many people piracy is a reaction to a perceived injustice, and while some activities of this sort are possibly illegal (the actual legal status of some of them is uncertain) they aren't always necessarily wrong.
The recent situation where New Zealand police attacked the mansion of internet "entrepreneur" Kim Dotcom - jumping out of helicopters and brandishing automatic weapons like a bunch of crazed ninjas who have watched too many American crime movies - is a classic case. If there was ever a case of an over-reaction and a huge waste of police time and money, this was it.
It seems certain there was pirated material on Megaupload's servers but there is similar material on many other servers around the world. And why do people feel the need to pirate material of this sort anyway? Because the way things work now is unfair and set up almost entirely for the benefit of big corporations. I think most people would prefer to buy movies and music at a reasonable price, in a reasonable way, and knowing that a reasonable proportion of the price goes back to the original artist, but none of this happens with the existing model.
The recording industry, instead of trying to use the internet to give the consumer a fair deal, simply tries to block the inevitable changes by lobbying governments (mainly in the US but even here in New Zealand too) to make laws which support their antiquated business model.
But attempts at blocking piracy haven't been conspicuously successful anyway. When a law of that type was introduced here the amount of peer to peer traffic on the internet in New Zealand dropped significantly but the amount of secure proxy traffic increased, showing people just bypassed detection by using different technologies.
The evidence is that people will buy material if it is priced and distributed fairly. Apple's music and app stores are a classic example but there are even better models where large corporations are bypassed completely. An American comedian recently made a million dollars by distributing his work on the internet. The file was available for free but he appealed to peoples' sense of fairness and asked for a $5 payment. It obviously worked!
Try buying a DVD and compare the experience. First, you must find a store stocking it, then you need to find one which is the right region (is that region system the stupidest idea ever or what?), then you have to pay a price which means only a small fraction goes to the orignal artist, then you must sit through some tedious message about piracy before watching the movie.
Do the corporations not realise that the only people seeing those anti-piracy messages are legitimate buyers because the pirates always strip them out! How unbelievably stupid can they be? But that's the problem: these people are both clueless and immoral. They sort of deserve to have their business destroyed.
The argument that artists, such as musicians and movie makers, lose because of piracy is partly true because there will be some material not being purchased that they would get payment for otherwise. But it's not really that simple.
Assuming that every pirated movie represents a loss of income - as the industry has suggested - is dishonest. Most of those pirated movies would never have been bought by the person who pirated them so they represent no real loss.
And most of the material is mainstream stuff from commercially successful artists. Losing a little bit of income isn't really going to harm them too much because they have so much already.
And finally, if the big media corporations can be destroyed by internet distribution then the artists will win in the end because they will be free from their control.
So piracy is often illegal and it certainly has doubtful moral value, but pretending it is the greatest threat to modern culture is just a self-serving myth invented by the big corporations growing rich from the current model without really contributing anything. Kim Dotcom is certainly no model for good ethical behaviour but that he's not the ultimate example of evil either.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
New Zealand Identity
New Zealanders are often accused of having no national identity and after experiencing (or more accurately, not experiencing) our national day (at least I I think it is) I can see why. We have no national identity because we refuse to allow anything unusual about our country to be celebrated. We originally spent our time trying to emulate England and now that this is no longer fashionable we are trying to assimilate Maori beliefs.
There is nothing wrong with English or Maori culture (beyond the sort of things which are wrong with every culture) but they are just not relevant to the majority of the people living here. Our national day is a classic example. Actually things are so bad that I'm not even sure it is our national day. Do we actually have one or is this just a day for Maori to celebrate the Treaty? I genuinely don't know.
In addition to these factors there is the overwhelming American "culture" we get from TV and movies and that significantly affects us as well. Plus there are the effects from globalisation where successive governments seem intent on selling the country to foreign corporations.
Is it any wonder we have no identity? The same doesn't seem to have happened in Australia, a country with a very similar background to us. I hope the poor treatment of Aborigines in Australia isn't a significant reason for this, but I suspect the politically correct pro-Maori nonsense we have here hasn't happened in Australia and that has helped them to create their own identity.
I have commented on Waitangi Day in this blog many times in the past and my impressions of the occasion don't seem to be changing much. Almost 10 years ago I said it was a total irrelevance to most and it still is.
We do get a day off work and an opportunity to complain about the day itself but why not? The major news each Waitangi Day seems to be about Maori complaints and the disrespectful treatment of politicians at the Treaty Grounds. Not that I'm complaining about rough treatment of politicians because most of them deserve it. Still it's unfortunate that the stand-out feature of the day is protest.
The stats demonstrate the reality. In a Herald poll 15% saw the day as a day of protest, 28% saw it as day off from work, 21% thought it was just another day, and just 36% thought it was a day to celebrate New Zealand. How many other countries have a national day which only a third of the population see as a day of celebration?
But apart from that day off what is there? Some tedious coverage of Maori groups complaining about perceived injustices and equally tedious responses from politicians trying unsuccessfully to placate their concerns. Morning prayers in a country which has basically abandoned religion. And nothing much else. It's irrelevant, embarrassing, and boring. No wonder the majority of us just choose to ignore it.
There is an easy solution to the problem. We probably need to keep Waitangi Day, for two reasons: first it is a commemoration of a significant even in our history; and second, it would be too difficult politically to discontinue its observance. But we need another day which will be for all New Zealanders. We could call this New Zealand day and I suggest, to avoid complaints about too many holidays, we use it to replace Queen's Birthday. That would give us a new day and symbolise our freedom (not fully realised until we eventually become a republic) from the meaningless influence of England.
There is nothing wrong with English or Maori culture (beyond the sort of things which are wrong with every culture) but they are just not relevant to the majority of the people living here. Our national day is a classic example. Actually things are so bad that I'm not even sure it is our national day. Do we actually have one or is this just a day for Maori to celebrate the Treaty? I genuinely don't know.
In addition to these factors there is the overwhelming American "culture" we get from TV and movies and that significantly affects us as well. Plus there are the effects from globalisation where successive governments seem intent on selling the country to foreign corporations.
Is it any wonder we have no identity? The same doesn't seem to have happened in Australia, a country with a very similar background to us. I hope the poor treatment of Aborigines in Australia isn't a significant reason for this, but I suspect the politically correct pro-Maori nonsense we have here hasn't happened in Australia and that has helped them to create their own identity.
I have commented on Waitangi Day in this blog many times in the past and my impressions of the occasion don't seem to be changing much. Almost 10 years ago I said it was a total irrelevance to most and it still is.
We do get a day off work and an opportunity to complain about the day itself but why not? The major news each Waitangi Day seems to be about Maori complaints and the disrespectful treatment of politicians at the Treaty Grounds. Not that I'm complaining about rough treatment of politicians because most of them deserve it. Still it's unfortunate that the stand-out feature of the day is protest.
The stats demonstrate the reality. In a Herald poll 15% saw the day as a day of protest, 28% saw it as day off from work, 21% thought it was just another day, and just 36% thought it was a day to celebrate New Zealand. How many other countries have a national day which only a third of the population see as a day of celebration?
But apart from that day off what is there? Some tedious coverage of Maori groups complaining about perceived injustices and equally tedious responses from politicians trying unsuccessfully to placate their concerns. Morning prayers in a country which has basically abandoned religion. And nothing much else. It's irrelevant, embarrassing, and boring. No wonder the majority of us just choose to ignore it.
There is an easy solution to the problem. We probably need to keep Waitangi Day, for two reasons: first it is a commemoration of a significant even in our history; and second, it would be too difficult politically to discontinue its observance. But we need another day which will be for all New Zealanders. We could call this New Zealand day and I suggest, to avoid complaints about too many holidays, we use it to replace Queen's Birthday. That would give us a new day and symbolise our freedom (not fully realised until we eventually become a republic) from the meaningless influence of England.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Back to Work
Note: This blog entry was written in mid January but somehow failed to get posted. Since I went to all the trouble of writing it I thought it was still worth presenting here, even if it is a bit late...
After a break of about three weeks over Christmas I am back at work today. That is always a challenge but today has been particularly interesting! Before I even arrived I got a cell phone call from someone experiencing problems with Microsoft Word hanging - I know, that hardly ever happens! (sarcasm)
And now I have just finished setting up a PC (I am a Mac specialist and hate PCs) which was hideously slow and yes, Internet Explorer (which I only ran for 30 seconds) crashed, followed by the printer installation program hanging. So it's got to get better from here.
One positive note is that I spending the last three days of the week in Auckland working on some computers up there, so that will be a nice break (although still work).
I do find that, even though I am a Mac consultant and programmer, most of my problems are caused by Microsoft products. In all the time I have used Pages it has never crashed on me where I almost expect Word to crash several times if I'm working on a document of any complexity. Of course, I don't use Word myself unless I really have to, but I do support a lot of people who do.
And I get more issues with Exchange based email than any other type. Again Microsoft products destroy the elegance and reliability of the Mac experience. I do avoid using Exchange for email as much as possible but that isn't always totally practical.
I often wonder how much better the world would be if Microsoft hadn't wormed its way into the dominant position it is in now. What would have happened if we had genuine innovation going on? Look at the progress in areas not dominated by Microsoft (tablets, cell phones, etc) and they seem a lot better than the world of PCs.
Not that I should complain too much because, as I intimated above, I refuse to use Microsoft junk unless I am really backed into a corner. Generally that means I am helping out a client who has to use a Microsoft program for some reason.
The most common reasons for using Microsoft software are interesting. In my experience the most common is "that's what everyone else uses", closely followed by "that's what I was given" and "I didn't know there was an alternative".
Licensing agreements sometimes make using Office almost compulsory. If an organisation pays a large sum every year for a site license it makes sense to use that licensed software even though it might be better economy if there was a choice.
There are genuine reasons to use it too. The "everyone else uses it" argument is valid because sharing documents with someone using a different program does introduce an extra layer of complexity. And I will admit that Microsoft programs do tend to be fairly feature rich (they do a lot of things very badly) which is an important factor for some people.
So it is a tough one. I am convinced that if Microsoft hadn't reached the monopoly situation it is now in we would all be better off, but now that it is there in many ways it is just easier for most people to accept the inevitable and use its products, despite how frustrating an experience that is, especially for someone who has seen how much better similar software from other companies usually is.
After a break of about three weeks over Christmas I am back at work today. That is always a challenge but today has been particularly interesting! Before I even arrived I got a cell phone call from someone experiencing problems with Microsoft Word hanging - I know, that hardly ever happens! (sarcasm)
And now I have just finished setting up a PC (I am a Mac specialist and hate PCs) which was hideously slow and yes, Internet Explorer (which I only ran for 30 seconds) crashed, followed by the printer installation program hanging. So it's got to get better from here.
One positive note is that I spending the last three days of the week in Auckland working on some computers up there, so that will be a nice break (although still work).
I do find that, even though I am a Mac consultant and programmer, most of my problems are caused by Microsoft products. In all the time I have used Pages it has never crashed on me where I almost expect Word to crash several times if I'm working on a document of any complexity. Of course, I don't use Word myself unless I really have to, but I do support a lot of people who do.
And I get more issues with Exchange based email than any other type. Again Microsoft products destroy the elegance and reliability of the Mac experience. I do avoid using Exchange for email as much as possible but that isn't always totally practical.
I often wonder how much better the world would be if Microsoft hadn't wormed its way into the dominant position it is in now. What would have happened if we had genuine innovation going on? Look at the progress in areas not dominated by Microsoft (tablets, cell phones, etc) and they seem a lot better than the world of PCs.
Not that I should complain too much because, as I intimated above, I refuse to use Microsoft junk unless I am really backed into a corner. Generally that means I am helping out a client who has to use a Microsoft program for some reason.
The most common reasons for using Microsoft software are interesting. In my experience the most common is "that's what everyone else uses", closely followed by "that's what I was given" and "I didn't know there was an alternative".
Licensing agreements sometimes make using Office almost compulsory. If an organisation pays a large sum every year for a site license it makes sense to use that licensed software even though it might be better economy if there was a choice.
There are genuine reasons to use it too. The "everyone else uses it" argument is valid because sharing documents with someone using a different program does introduce an extra layer of complexity. And I will admit that Microsoft programs do tend to be fairly feature rich (they do a lot of things very badly) which is an important factor for some people.
So it is a tough one. I am convinced that if Microsoft hadn't reached the monopoly situation it is now in we would all be better off, but now that it is there in many ways it is just easier for most people to accept the inevitable and use its products, despite how frustrating an experience that is, especially for someone who has seen how much better similar software from other companies usually is.
Things Could be Worse
Things could be worse, apparently. According to some people almost every complaint can easily be dismissed because whatever is being complained about is trivial compared with certain other similar situations.
For example, they say you shouldn't complain about your conditions of work because there are other people with no job at all. And similarly there are people who do have jobs but are working in much poorer conditions than you.
And complaining about the government is pointless because at least it's not as corrupt and dysfunctional as the governments of some some African states such as Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe. And the same applies to complaining about the management at your place of work because at least you're not a slave on a plantation, or something similar.
But these are really silly arguments put forward by people who are either too lazy to argue the real points or genuinely have some extreme feeling of entitlement which makes them think that they are so superior that they are above criticism.
No matter how bad things are elsewhere there should always be the opportunity to make things better here and now, and criticising existing conditions has got to be a significant way to initiate change. Or at least it should be because it seems to me that in most situations where there is one group in a position of power and another in some form of subjugation that criticism of one by the other is always seen as a personal attack to be repelled without any thought about its validity.
The "things could be worse" argument is effective because it puts the person complaining on the defensive and possibly even introduces an element of guilt. After all, if you wanted an increase in your salary wouldn't you feel guilty when your relative affluence is compared with the situation of the poor working in a factory in China or India?
The natural endpoint of these arguments is that we should all be working for a subsistence wage apparently, which in turn will make us more competitive and force other countries to reduce their wages and conditions even more. It's a classic "race to the bottom" scenario and it's commonly advocated by modern right-wing governments such as New Zealand's.
Of course it's no surprise to anyone that this idea does seem to be applied evenly. According to the same people who encourage us to make sacrifices for the greater good of the economy the same logic doesn't apply to the rich. If an executive, politician, or some other useless bureaucrat wants a pay rise they deserve it, even if there are people in similar jobs elsewhere making much less.
Apparently for these people things could be worse, but thanks to the immorality of the economic system we live in, in their case it won't be!
For example, they say you shouldn't complain about your conditions of work because there are other people with no job at all. And similarly there are people who do have jobs but are working in much poorer conditions than you.
And complaining about the government is pointless because at least it's not as corrupt and dysfunctional as the governments of some some African states such as Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe. And the same applies to complaining about the management at your place of work because at least you're not a slave on a plantation, or something similar.
But these are really silly arguments put forward by people who are either too lazy to argue the real points or genuinely have some extreme feeling of entitlement which makes them think that they are so superior that they are above criticism.
No matter how bad things are elsewhere there should always be the opportunity to make things better here and now, and criticising existing conditions has got to be a significant way to initiate change. Or at least it should be because it seems to me that in most situations where there is one group in a position of power and another in some form of subjugation that criticism of one by the other is always seen as a personal attack to be repelled without any thought about its validity.
The "things could be worse" argument is effective because it puts the person complaining on the defensive and possibly even introduces an element of guilt. After all, if you wanted an increase in your salary wouldn't you feel guilty when your relative affluence is compared with the situation of the poor working in a factory in China or India?
The natural endpoint of these arguments is that we should all be working for a subsistence wage apparently, which in turn will make us more competitive and force other countries to reduce their wages and conditions even more. It's a classic "race to the bottom" scenario and it's commonly advocated by modern right-wing governments such as New Zealand's.
Of course it's no surprise to anyone that this idea does seem to be applied evenly. According to the same people who encourage us to make sacrifices for the greater good of the economy the same logic doesn't apply to the rich. If an executive, politician, or some other useless bureaucrat wants a pay rise they deserve it, even if there are people in similar jobs elsewhere making much less.
Apparently for these people things could be worse, but thanks to the immorality of the economic system we live in, in their case it won't be!
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