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> they will have to lead from a position of deep unpopularity

Can you elaborate on... why?


Tons of regulations over and over.

  General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
  EU Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act)
  ePrivacy Directive (Cookie Law)
  Digital Services Act (DSA)
  Digital Markets Act (DMA)
  Common Agricultural Policy (CAP)
  Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM)
  EU Emissions Trading System (ETS)
  Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD)
  REACH Regulation (chemicals control)
  Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR)
  Nature Restoration Law
  Renewable Energy Directive (RED III)
  Working Time Directive
  Posted Workers Directive
  Roaming Regulation (price caps for telecoms)
  VAT Directive (harmonized VAT rules)
  State Aid Rules
  Schengen Border Code (migration/border controls)
  Eco-design and product standardization rules
  Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD)
  EU Taxonomy Regulation
  Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation
  Regulation to Prevent and Combat Child Sexual Abuse
It dictate sustainability, but instead create unsustainable behemot that costs tax payers more than it brings. It hampers competitiveness, remove freedoms from citizens and holding back the economy. One of the original ideas of building EU was to bring common market. Not any more.

Basically EU holds power through funding projects by grants, which fundamentally breaks free market and there is no transparency in it (ie. Pfizer contracts, proponents of Chat Control, etc.).


ehm lol? Roaming Regulation (price caps for telecoms) is very popular and was even advertised by the EU itself. DSA, DMA and REACH arent very famous but you explain more deeply most people would agree. Orban was voted out of office e.g. because chemical problems in a Samsung factory. So at least your hypothesis must be cited. Apple and Google arent very popular mega corps.

Apple and Google arent very popular mega corps

That's why DSA doesn't work. Small and medium-sized enterprises comply and delete unnecessary content because they face crippling fines, while big ones just pay fines made from harmful content. Over and over.


tell me more about these popular small and medium sized enterprises which are struggeling under the obligation of the DSA. I like to hear which ones at least.

Btw, the Very Large ones regulated under DSA are either neutral or negative seen.


Half of these are vital for wellbeing and financial reasons. Only a libertarian or MAG hatter argued that, say, Working Time directive, Schengen regulations or GDPR are detrimental to EU citizens.

LOL.


Profit-seeking? That seems like a stretch.

Also how do you know they have any "massive deals"? Do they publish details about the money they receive?


It can be so frustrating to read these takes about stuff like DS or Autism - and so tempting to just respond in anger. I'm glad you took a step back too.

You might consider posting that all as a top-level comment. It's very important context.

So sorry for what you had to go through


I guess I'm a little surprised that they felt this release was too hot. I'm not really surprised at the response from the music industry, but rather I thought AA was more confident in their opsec/safety from this sort of threat.

I would assume it's moreso they don't want to lose their domains too quickly. Though they've only given one sentence to go off, so it's hard to speculate.

Stuff like this really makes you wonder what life might look like out in the universe.

https://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/TheyMade.s... - love this short story and its take on that question.

A classic, and regularly shared here on HN :)

I really like this version of it personally: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6JFTmQCFHg


Some things on Earth (especially in the ocean) you'd think were extraterrestrial... What a gift to still be able to find such amazing animals out there.

They all, so far, share the same basic biochemistry, derived from the Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA).

What would be extraordinarily interesting would be if we could find life on Earth with a fundamentally different biochemstry. Very different genetic code, even. This would be sign that Origin of Life is not the Great Filter. And we don't even have to go to another planet to conduct this search for "alien" life.


Some of those things down in the ocean are almost too extraterrestrial... they can stay undiscovered!

Isn't life on this planet also life out in the universe? It depends on your point of view.

[1] Pale blue dot - Carl Sagan https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wupToqz1e2g


Do you consider things that are inside a house to also be outside a house?

All things are moving in space and time and in relation to other objects so inside or outside are relative points of view.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_relativity

[2] Point of view is worth 80 IQ points - Alan Kay. He didn't specify the sign....


I wonder if life elsewhere in the universe is pedantic too.

QED.

[1] Why people hate smart individuals: Studies reveal it's linked to your own intelligence level https://www.gq.com.au/health/wellness/studies-say-who-you-ha...

[2] On the importance of being pedantic https://medium.com/@lfloridi/on-the-importance-of-being-peda...

[3] Pedantic definition https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/pedantic

[4] Pedantic opinion https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/pedantic


If you were so smart, you'd probably find better sources than GQ and Medium to prove your point.

Or Hacker News for that matter. Never trust anything on the internet [1] on face value. Start by asking qui bono? Is this a reputable source, like a scientist[2]?. Be critical and sceptical.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Internet,_nobody_knows_...

[2] https://youtu.be/NV0Z6vlIJig?t=216


> sceptical

How can I trust someone who can't use spell check?


I used four spell checkers including Apple, Wikipedia and Google search.

Don't trust anything you read on the internet, including your comment.


I regret to inform you that is the preferred spelling in British English.

Things inside this house are indeed outside that house.

An apartment inside an apartment complex is still inside the same building. Earth is in the Universe. There's a difference between "in the Universe" and "outside of Earth".

A superset also includes everything in all its subsets.


Is the coffee actually in the mug or only on top of it?

Well, can you walk around inside of a coffee cup? If so, you are on it. If not, you are in it.

In Spanish I don't care.

I'm confused, in es-ar, it can be:

* "El café está en la taza." [preferred]

* "El café está sobre la taza." [I'd never use this.]

* "El café está adentro de la taza."

I'd probably use "en(in?)" for a cup, "sobre(over?)" for a plate an "adentro de (inside?)" for a jar.


Sounds like you might be interested in “The Zoologist’s Guide to the Galaxy”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Zoologist%27s_Guide_to_the...


Grouping Notepad and vim together under "tools that make your job harder" is pretty wild.

Has anyone ever known a serious, professional programmer who used Notepad to code?


Next you'll be telling me there's punch card programmers still. For love of the punch card craft.

Click History on the homepage left sidebar > Comments on right side of History page

https://www.youtube.com/feed/history


And now try to find the comment someone replied to

I agree. I wonder how people are motivated to comment if they can't even track replies or check likes. It certainly completely kills motivation for me

Do you and GP not get notifications for replies and (at least some) likes?

In my case I have almost all notifications disabled so maybe there's an option somewhere. Generally find those notification badges too powerful for me to not check and then get waylaid doom scrolling/watching, so I've made it a habit to always disable them everywhere.

Somewhat tempted to re-enable it as I only really comment on videos that are for very very niche communities and I'm usually answering or asking questions.


I don't think I get notified but maybe it's because my replies are unpopular

I get the notifications but it’s sometimes hard to know for which comment if it’s more than one in a discussion.

Oh, fair enough. That is indeed not shown anywhere it seems.

In my experience, people's reasons for piracy are a pretty even mix of all these issues (service problems, principles, and cost)

I'd certainly pirate less if I could afford it, but even if I could, I'd still pirate a lot of stuff because I don't want to worry about what streaming service it's on this week, or because I don't want to contribute to monopolization of some industry. And sure, I'd still pirate some things because I find they're overpriced.

> I know I'll never win this argument on Hacker News because every piracy conversation turns into an infinite game of moving goalposts, where there's always a new rationalization at every turn.

What argument are you referring to, out of curiosity? That some people pirate things 'cause they're poor and make nice-sounding rationalizations about it? Okay, that definitely happens, you win. But I don't think that really takes away from the other valid arguments for piracy?


What are these "valid arguments for piracy" you refer to? Content isn't food, shelter, or clothing. It's a "nice to have" in one's life. It's literally entertainment.

They wrote them out.

And digital media is similarly fungible, and media companies owning copyright can produce a single copy at insignificant cost — and illegal copies are usually produced at no cost to them too.

If you would rather not consume content than pay with time and money being asked of you, there is no real loss to anyone if you consume an illegal copy.


> They wrote them out.

Convenience is not a valid reason to violate others' rights.

> there is no real loss to anyone if you consume an illegal copy.

There is a real loss: The owner isn’t getting paid when people consume their product for free and without their permission.

The entire point of copyright is to protect the time investment of and opportunity cost borne by the author when marginal reproduction cost is zero, or close to zero. This is because we as a society value intellectual labor. We want people to invent things and produce entertainment, and we incentivize it via the profit motive.

You can’t write software for a living and not understand this. It’s what puts food on your own table. Don’t try to rationalize it.


I've spent the bulk of my career being paid to write software that was published under open source licenses. I was paid to write exactly the software the business needed to be built, with software being the tool for the business to provide value to their customers and not a money extracting scheme.

I've also worked on complex web applications/systems, where operation of the web site is ultimately the cost that needs to be continuously borne to extract profit from software itself. Yes, someone else can optimize and do operation better than you (eg. see Amazon vs Elastic and numerous other cases of open-source companies being overtaken by their SW being run by well funded teams), but there is low risk of illegal use in this case.

Today I am paid to write software that the business believes will provide them profit that will pay for my services. The software I write is tied to a physical product being sold and is effectively the enabler and mostly useless without the physical product itself.

Other engineers at the company I am at are building software that requires a lot of support to operate as it manages critical infrastructure country-sized systems, and ultimately, even if someone could get this software without paying a license, they'd probably have no idea how to operate it effectively.

Most of the internet infrastructure works on open and free software, where at "worst", copyright protections are turned upside down to make them copyleft if software is not available under more permissive licenses like MIT, BSD or even put into public domain.

Companies that used to pay best SW engineering salaries like Google, Meta and Amazon would likely not face any significant business loss if all of their software (source code included) was publicly leaked: SW is a tool for them to provide an ad platform or cloud infrastructure service.


Well, most software engineers aren't fortunate enough to be insulated from the impact of copyright infringement. The reality is that a lot of us--maybe not you personally, but possibly even your friends and neighbors--put food on the table via our intellectual efforts, and that deserves respect. Try to have some empathy.

> Google, Meta and Amazon would likely not face any significant business loss if all of their software (source code included) was publicly leaked

You don't know that. Granted, there are other barriers to entry in some markets, but stealing others' control and data planes would go a long way towards building viable competitors without having to expend the same level of investment.

You're cherry-picking the relatively small number of companies that support your argument. Besides all the software they've built, each of these companies has filed for and been issued mountains of patents (though not copyright, it's another IP protection scheme) and will enforce them if necessary to protect their business. I bet yours might have some, too.


You missed my argument: sw engineers are largely being paid for the labour we put in, and I am saying that we still would be paid for the same labour even if someone did legally (open source) or illegally have access to the software we build.

My company has a ton of patents (which are public) and cares about copyright deeply, but that does not mean that it would be significantly affected financially (other than potentially in stock price, which is an entirely different social aspect).

To give you another example, Windows source code leaked 10 years ago or so. Did it slow down Windows?

Just like authors (owners of copyright) aren't negatively affected if someone creates a copy they would never have paid for.


> we still would be paid for the same labour even if someone...illegally have access to the software we build.

Where do you think that money comes from? It comes from the licensing of the software. If everyone is pirating the software, there’s no market for it, nobody’s going to buy it, and there will be no money to pay for your salary.

> that does not mean that it would be significantly affected financially (other than potentially in stock price, which is an entirely different social aspect).

Stock prices aren’t a “social aspect.” They are a financial instrument that reflects the expected future earnings of the company. Companies aren’t going to form and employ people if they can’t sell their stock because their product has no value in the marketplace.

> Windows source code leaked 10 years ago or so. Did it slow down Windows?

You’re asking the wrong question. That leak, in and of itself, didn’t impact the market for the software. Nevertheless, massive piracy of any software would harm the economy. The fact that most people respect others’ labor is what keeps the market functioning.

> authors (owners of copyright) aren't negatively affected if someone creates a copy they would never have paid for.

We don’t know who never would have paid for a copy of software at any price. And there is a difference between knowing that infringement exists and making excuses for it. The question isn’t whether some people do it and the market is still healthy; it’s whether or not we should condone it so that nobody should feel compelled to follow the law. Because, following your logic, nobody should pay for software. If that happens, tremendous economic harm will follow.


I guess there's some confusion in that I don't think anybody's saying everyone should pirate everything all the time. That would, indeed, be problematic.

But if companies keep pushing people to piracy... well, I'm not going to blame the people first, that's for sure. Especially when things like TFA happen.


But if you can excuse it for yourself, why shouldn’t the same reasoning hold for everyone else? Do you not see the slippery slope here?

No, I don't really see the slippery slope. If there were such a slope, I would imagine that decades into this piracy thing, we'd be sliding down it. Yet most people don't pirate. Strange?

So you really don't understand that it should be OK for everyone to pirate if it's OK for you? Would you ever tell someone it's not OK? If so, why? And what makes you special and different?

We aren't saying anything you are implying.

You've started with a retort to a point that some who would never pay for some copyrighted work are not a loss to copyright owner if they illegally use their work.

You've since expanded to everyone and SW development, and want to extend it to people who are willing to pay for the value a particular work provides them.

So let's go back to the beginning: can you please quantify how big is a loss to the copyright owner if one watches a movie they would skip if the only option was to pay for it?


No, I'm not going to do that. And here's why: because if you have an excuse, everyone has an excuse. And if everyone has an excuse, the entire system falls apart.

I'll reiterate what I said above: entertainment and software are not life's essentials. Nobody's going to be seriously harmed by being denied access to them.


> Nobody's going to be seriously harmed by being denied access to them.

Nobody's going to be seriously harmed by us pirating them, either.

On the other hand, I bet there have been some pretty serious repercussions due to the sweeping bans like in TFA.


I'm not sure to understand where is the loss because the pirate would not pay for the product anyway.

1. We don't know that. Perhaps they would pay, at a lower price.

2. If it's OK for one person not to pay, why should anyone pay?


1. A copyright owner can test this easily by offering a discount.

2. Because they are getting significantly bigger value out of it. Because they know ahead of time they want more of this type of content to be produced. Because they have more disposable funds. Because it is available in their country legally. Because their streaming package already includes it. Because their cable package already includes it... Need I continue?

Again, you are conflating is it OK not to pay with any loss of profit: they are not the same even if there is correlation.

Nobody loses any money if you spill profanities at someone, but it's still not OK (even though it might not be illegal either).

Legallity and morality are not always in sync even if we try to keep one reflect the other. I am surprised this is even a discussion point.


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(removed)

Fair enough, I take it back.

> I'd certainly pirate less if I could afford it

What's your point?

Try substituting some other verbs in there to see if it comes to you:

"I'd certainly wrestle less if I could afford it."

"I'd certainly eat less ice cream if I could afford it."


We haven't shifted from anything; this has always been the case.

> I can think of no example in history of the entire world deciding to just forsake the development of a technology because it seemed like it could prove to be too dangerous. The same psychological logic always applies.

Can't you? Haven't many (most?) countries agreed to nuclear disarmament? What about biological weapons? Even anti-personnel mines, I think?


Those weapons are still all being developed and would be brought out in any actually existential war where they seemed useful. The agreements would last only as long as the wars were not existential, or as long as the various countries involved believed that use of them, and the resulting retaliation in kind, would be more destructive than not using them. But one way or another, countries still develop them.

I don't think it needs to be a binary to be effective. Yes, those weapons still exist, but understanding of existential risk and political pressures have slowed them considerably and resulted in a safer, more cautious world.

China is rapidly building out their nuclear arsenal as we speak, and the USA is undergoing an expensive replacement process of theirs as well.

That kind of idea might have held water in the 90's, but that's not the world we live in any longer.


> Haven't many (most?) countries agreed to nuclear disarmament?

This misses the point. He specifically said the entire world because the point is that someone will develop AGI (theoretically; I’m not making a statement about how close we are to this).

9 nations have nuclear weapons despite non proliferation agreements and supposed disarmament. It’s not enough for most countries to agree not to build nuclear weapons if the goal is to have no nuclear weapons. Same for AGI. If it can be developed, you need all nations to agree not to develop it if it don’t want it to exist. Otherwise it will simply be developed by nations that don’t agree with you.

(Also arguably the only reason most nations don’t have nuclear weapons is the threat of destruction from nations that already have them if they try.)


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