You guys might want to consider that the right path is not Finland, but going the other direction, with less government involvement in education. This is about putting education and its institutions in a more competitive environment, governments will always bog them down, making it more about teachers or whatever else, turning them into the massive faceless institutions that are like prisons like @dag points out. Instead, we should put on schools the pressure to compete in quality and price for those who'd normally be paying for education, the students or their parents.

Mintbbb points out that bullying does exist in Finland, even though they have a lot less of it. A finnish friend of mine once told me he never saw a fist fight in his entire life, ever, not even as a kid. However, just because they had the decency of adopting anti-bullying measures, doesn't mean letting government educate and make choices for our kids is any better, don't let that fool you. Bullying has been going on for so long it's become an institution in itself, public schools in America and elsewhere have little incentive of stopping or even acknowledging it as a problem.

I actually believe in protecting intellectual property, but some of this stuff is ridiculous.

Let's take the very first example. We have BakeCo, an faceless corporation that makes generic Cake-like Edilble Party Treats(tm).

Now let's imagine, we have Stan. Stan is a small time artist who one day creates a cartoon character (let's call him ararcnid-man) that becomes kinda popular.

BakeCo sees this and starts selling ArachnidMan cakes without paying Stan any money.

Most people would agree that this is unfair.

Now if you can't tell the difference between that, and a small company allowing people to print their own designs, your thinking is broken.

>> ^ChaosEngine:
You don't think you're oversimplifying the issue just a bit? Or more likely, by an order of magnitude?
Games, moveis, music; all these cost money to produce. You don't think that the people (yes, people, not big faceless corporations) involved deserve to be compensated for their efforts?
People harp on about "a broken business model", but I've yet to see someone come up with a working alternative. Yes, treating your paying customers worse than pirates is not the right answer, but that doesn't make piracy any more morally acceptable.


Piracy is totally acceptable. Intellectual property is logically and morally absurd. Patents - claiming you personally own a slice of the universal laws of physics - are particularly obnoxious; copyright - claiming you personally own access to a string of information, which nobody else is allowed to know without your permission - is usually only something silly that gets in the way of discourse. Merely silly, that is, until people (yes people, I hold each of them individually responsible) send their stormtroopers to attack the innocent just to keep themselves in business.

Mass media always costs more money to produce than it's actually worth. No movie or game, however many millions are spent in its creation, is worth more than the price of a single unit. When producers invest all this cash they're relying on the miracle of media duplication to get paid. That single unit can be copied and sold again and again and again, to thousands or millions of people, multiplying itself and its value. Often they're able to sell their one little media fragment enough times to make a profit - good for them, the bet paid off. To then turn around and complain when others take advantage of that same miracle to enrich their lives is not only a textbook example of biting the hand that feeds you, it's also deliberately obstructing a process that makes the world better, which is a monstrous crime.

These people don't 'deserve' compensation. They're gambling. Whether gamblers make their living gambling or not, they don't 'deserve' to win and it's nobody else's responsibility to ensure that they do.

This is an extremely simple issue.

>> ^gorillaman:

>> ^ChaosEngine:
Care to elaborate? Or should I just take your word on it and ignore the overwhelming amounts of evidence that supports my position?

Evidence that piracy impacts media sales? There's plenty of that. So, media companies have a flawed business model. That's it.


You don't think you're oversimplifying the issue just a bit? Or more likely, by an order of magnitude?

Games, moveis, music; all these cost money to produce. You don't think that the people (yes, people, not big faceless corporations) involved deserve to be compensated for their efforts?

People harp on about "a broken business model", but I've yet to see someone come up with a working alternative. Yes, treating your paying customers worse than pirates is not the right answer, but that doesn't make piracy any more morally acceptable.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Nice write-up. Although I think it's great that Louie is skipping the middle-man, my worry is that this approach doesn't scale.

Imagine if the top 30 comedy headliners all did this on their own websites. The novelty is gone and the content does not get the adoring press on sites like ours. Having to track down individual websites and go through their registration process is not really hard, but probably too much to ask the lazy invisible hand of self-interested consumers.

When that happens you have to think about aggregating that content, marketing plans, promotion and then ... you're back in the same boat with needing a distribution engine and lots of middle men.

On justifying torrenting, Daring Fireball pulled out a great quote from that Louie AMA on Reddit:

To steal from someone and not feel bad, you either have to be a sociopath or view the act differently. One way is to remove “Someone” from the equation. You’re not stealing from a person. Big companies do a lot to help people view them as less than human. I heard a speech by Noam Chomsky who said that corporations are like super humans. They cannot be hurt like a human can and they never die. They are not susceptible to scrutiny or accountability. This makes them more profitable. If companies want to enjoy these benefits to some degree they have to live with what else comes with being not human. You miss out on compassion, forgiveness, camaraderie, empathy, trust all kinds of shit.

I'm happy to hear this.

The police are basically crapping on their own people when they beat up OWS protesters.

I wish it wouldn't have come to this, but it has.

Faceless cops can no longer beat people, shoot people, and spray people without expecting some retribution.

The time to choose sides has come.

Man that was scary. Had that shooter not been an idiot, that cop would no doubt be faceless right now.

>> ^cason:

This guys is right. We should use our middle finger more for conversational hand gestures.


In the comments section on YouTube, he points out that this action was a lulzy stab at E-Bay/Paypal Cason

YouTube quote:- "my subliminal message to the faceless corporate money changers. People have been given these scumbags the finger since Jesus was a kid"

15 people were arrested for taking part in ddos attacks, which are the virtual equivalent of walking into a store with a 1000 friends and buying nothing. they're facing $500,000 lawsuits and 15 years in prison.

how do you propose we, the people, hold a board of directors accountable for their actions? what steps exactly can we legally take? usually when a group of people disagrees with the actions of a corporate entity, they organize a boycott of the goods/services said entity is providing. your entire last paragraph was not thought out entirely. and a reeked of a typical protofascist cop-out. turn off your corporate medias, son.
>> ^critical_d:

what in particular are you talking about when you say "virtual version of walking into a store and not purchasing anything?"?
The hillbilly analogy was used as an example of punishing an individual (the drunk) versus punishing a faceless company like PayPal. By punishing Paypal (taking down their site) you are punishing the people who work there and the investors who own the company. Do they deserve punishment because of the decisions of a few at that company? Shouldn't we hold the leaders or directors responsible instead?
>> ^peggedbea:
>> ^critical_d:
When will we stop romanticizing the vigilante acts of a group of people who aim a LOIC at a website and press go?
I am in no way defending the targets or their actions that caused them to fall under the crosshairs. But PayPal is not a hillbilly with a who drank too much at the bar, got a blowjob from a hooker, and came home to beat the wife cuz dinner wasn't ready. People who don't deserve to be punished are...and that sucks.

romanticizing? or supporting? ...and hopefully never.
the drunk hillbilly analogy makes very little sense.
who exactly is punished? people who couldn't access their paypal accounts for a few hours?? inconvienced maybe, punished? not quite.
or are you talking about the 20 year old kids who are facing $500,000 law suits and 15 years in prison for what is the virtual version of walking into a store and not purchasing anything? beacuse yeah, that does fucking suck.

when will people stop sounding like protofascist drones and reclaim their innate ability to think critically and be free?
what's happening here is so much bigger than bored teenagers fucking shit up for a day. it's a new current in radical movements. there's always been radical activity under the surface of any dominate power structure, and hopefully their always will be. this is the fist time in history it's been so able to truly be a global force. and that my friend, is fucking huge... a few hundred thousand kids, world wide, understand the technology so much better than any corporate/governmental IT division. they're writing the fucking code. this is the kind of movement that i think really has staying power, and it will be impossible for either political party just absorb some of the ideology into their platform to placate it, like they do with all movements that gain any sort of momentum.

what in particular are you talking about when you say "virtual version of walking into a store and not purchasing anything?"?

The hillbilly analogy was used as an example of punishing an individual (the drunk) versus punishing a faceless company like PayPal. By punishing Paypal (taking down their site) you are punishing the people who work there and the investors who own the company. Do they deserve punishment because of the decisions of a few at that company? Shouldn't we hold the leaders or directors responsible instead?

>> ^peggedbea:

>> ^critical_d:
When will we stop romanticizing the vigilante acts of a group of people who aim a LOIC at a website and press go?
I am in no way defending the targets or their actions that caused them to fall under the crosshairs. But PayPal is not a hillbilly with a who drank too much at the bar, got a blowjob from a hooker, and came home to beat the wife cuz dinner wasn't ready. People who don't deserve to be punished are...and that sucks.

romanticizing? or supporting? ...and hopefully never.
the drunk hillbilly analogy makes very little sense.
who exactly is punished? people who couldn't access their paypal accounts for a few hours?? inconvienced maybe, punished? not quite.
or are you talking about the 20 year old kids who are facing $500,000 law suits and 15 years in prison for what is the virtual version of walking into a store and not purchasing anything? beacuse yeah, that does fucking suck.

when will people stop sounding like protofascist drones and reclaim their innate ability to think critically and be free?
what's happening here is so much bigger than bored teenagers fucking shit up for a day. it's a new current in radical movements. there's always been radical activity under the surface of any dominate power structure, and hopefully their always will be. this is the fist time in history it's been so able to truly be a global force. and that my friend, is fucking huge... a few hundred thousand kids, world wide, understand the technology so much better than any corporate/governmental IT division. they're writing the fucking code. this is the kind of movement that i think really has staying power, and it will be impossible for either political party just absorb some of the ideology into their platform to placate it, like they do with all movements that gain any sort of momentum.

Also, it's important to check out the Youtube comments and the video uploader's description. If you did that, you'd know his non-dying performances outweigh his dying performances. Someone did all that work and now you don't need to: http://www.compleatseanbean.com/deathbycow.html

HE DIES IN:
Airborne - bye bye Toombs
Caravaggio - Rannuccio gets his throat slashed
Clarissa - Lovelace is skewered by Sean Pertwee
Don't Say a Word - Patrick Koster is buried alive
Equilibrium - Death by Poetry - Partridge is blasted away by Christian Bale while reading Yeats
Essex Boys - Jason Locke meets a nasty end in a Range Rover
Far North - Loki is frozen. Naked. In the snow. A chilling end if there ever was one.
The Field - the infamous Death by Cow - Tadgh falls over a cliff, pursued by a herd of stampeding cows
GoldenEye - Alec Trevelyan falls a long way down and is crushed by a satellite dish thing
Henry VIII - Robert Aske meets a gruesome end
The Island - Death by Clone. Merrick is shot in the throat by a nasty grabber thingy with a sharp
hook and a cable that gets wrapped around his neck, and while he's struggling with Lincoln
Six-Echo, the catwalk they're on collapses, and Merrick ends up dangling by the neck. Currently
the most creative dispatch of Sean's career. Definitely well hung.
The Lord of the Rings (The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, The Return of the King) - Death
by Orc. Boromir. Arrows. Need I say more?
Lorna Doone - Carver Doone drowns
Outlaw - Dead Dead Dead. Was there ever any question? Dead.
Patriot Games - Sean Miller is beaten up, boathooked and finally blown up by Harrison Ford
Scarlett - Lord Fenton is dispatched
Tell Me That You Love Me - Gabriel Lewis is stabbed by Laura. Or he stabs himself. We're not
quite sure about this one, actually.
The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion - Death by summoning a god's avatar. Martin Septim (the son of the Emperor, aka The Lost Heir) meets his X-Box end when he attempts to save the world.
The Hitcher - Surely you jest. You need to ask? (There were two different versions filmed. He dies
in both of them.)
War Requiem - The German Soldier dies, but returns in the afterlife


HE LIVES IN:
(Leo Tolstoy's) Anna Karenina
A Woman's Guide to Adultery
The Big Empty
The Bill
Black Beauty
Bravo Two Zero
Exploits at West Poley
Extremely Dangerous
Faceless
The Fifteen Streets
Flightplan
Fool's Gold
How to Get Ahead in Advertising
In the Border Country
Inspector Morse: Absolute Conviction
Jacob
Lady Chatterley
The Loser
My Kingdom for a Horse
National Treasure (But only because of a rewrite. In an early version
of the the script Ian Howe got eaten by alligators in the subways of
New York. Really. Honest. I wouldn't lie to you. I wouldn't.)
North Country
Percy Jackson (Zeus is more or less an immortal so death seems a bit
redundant, really...)
The Practice
Pride
Prince
Punters
Ronin
Samson & Delilah
Sharpe (14 films)
Sharpe's Challenge
Shopping
Silent Hill
Small Zones
Stormy Monday
Tom & Thomas
Troubles
The Canterbury Tales - The Nun's Priest's Tale
The Dark
The True Bride
The Vicar of Dibley
Troy
Wedded
When Saturday Comes
Windprints
Winter Flight

Major Theatrical Performances:
Macbeth ... Yes. He dies. And gets his head impaled on a spike.
Romeo & Juliet... What do you think?
Fair Maid of the West ... Spencer doesn't die!

I'm with @chilaxe.

Yes, politicians are human, but they're also the ones at the helm of the ship. We need to hold them to a higher standard.

I look at it like this: if you're willing to blatantly lie to, deceive, and betray your wife and family--ostensibly the most important people in entire world to you--then it's not too much of a leap in imagination to suspect you wouldn't think twice about f*cking over the faceless constituents who put you into office and to whom you have absolutely no personal connection.

Pom Poko was fun I like the faceless scenes where they frighten people

Well, this is one of those "Tragedy of the Commons" scenarios, where, sure it'd be nice if the one guy with one sheep could graze for free, while the people with 10 or more sheep would have to pay some sort of maintenance fee, but it doesn't work like that. This is precisely the same argument as why universal health care must force some people who'd like to press their luck to buy insurance. Pretty soon a whole lot of guys with 'one' sheep are grazing for free, and one of the owners of the larger herds are whistling away in the corner, with seemingly zero sheep. Should the number of 'comped' appearances one can have before having to join AFTRA be raised? I dunno. I'm sure that number didn't come out of someone's ass. While it might not seem so, AFTRA is indeed looking out for you, as it does anyone who works in the industry. You might not appreciate it as a lowly peon, but you would if you found yourself being 'requested' to be an extra, over and over, for less and less pay each time. Remember what Chris Rock said about minimum wage ("If I _could_ pay you less, I would")? The same premise holds for any exchange between an impersonal employer and a faceless employee. AFTRA's trying to give you a face.

I'm in a public sector union, and a co-worker's spouse has a job with an employer where most of the staff are union, and he's not, and no one knows that he's not. He gets a lot of work on the side, but he also gets a lot of crap jobs that no one wants, and he can't turn them down, because they'll find someone else who WILL do them, for a cheaper rate. She complains to me all the time about how the boss treats him, and, quietly, I'll ask her if the boss treats the union guys the same way. "No," she'll reply, thinking. In truth, she thinks he should join, but they've gone so far down this road that to admit that he'd never been a member would cause real problems in the workplace. I never told her, but I think that if he went to the shop steward and said, "I now know why unions exist, and I'd like to join," they'd have him in a heartbeat.

I've been more or less a silent lurker for a long time now, after having really invested a lot of time in being a part of this really great community. If I had found this place first before my main online hangout, I'd probably still be on here as much as I was during that (surprisingly long) period after I first discovered the Sift: a place with great videos of a truly wide variety with a (almost completely) fun, friendly, and intelligent community that actually saw themselves as a community and treated each other as individuals rather than just some faceless internet persona.

Seeing all the familiar names every time I come back, plus new ones who bring new tastes, new senses of humor, and new insight to the site really makes this place a unique site, and the fact that it's been able to stay that way for so many years is a testament to both the quality of the members and the amazing amount of work that Dag et al have put into making this place what it is. Thanks for more than just procrastination, VideoSift. I've made some great friends and learned a lot about all sorts of things from the videos and discussion here. Here's to 5 more years.