Registered: Feb 2001
Location: Them Twin Cities
Posts: 1758

quote:

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Originally posted by GSR13
Not trying to go any further off topic, but how do you Quote someone like Toby does? He replies to each paragraph immediately underneath that paragraph.

Is it as simple as just adding /B] /QUOTE] to the beginning and end of each paragraph?

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Registered: Dec 1999
Location: Connecticut USA
Posts: 2682

quote:

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Originally posted by GSR13
how do you Quote someone like Toby does?

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You can't... I think it violates his copyright.



Actually, you can do a bunch of neat stuff with vbCode.

__________________

God bless America, my home sweet home...

Registered: Feb 2001
Location: Atlantic Rim
Posts: 570

quote:

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Originally posted by MarkEagle
You can't... I think it violates his copyright.

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location:
Posts: 3034

quote:

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Originally posted by MarkEagle
You can't... I think it violates his copyright.

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location:
Posts: 3034

Interestingly enough, here's a peripherally related piece from an enewsletter that I receive...

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CARLTON VOGT "Ethics Matters" InfoWorld.com
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Friday, December 7, 2001


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A MORAL QUANDARY

Posted Dec 05, 2001 10:11 Pacific Time


I'm living a lie. Well, to put it more precisely, I'm in a dishonest relationship with my VCR. It has been blinking 12:00 at me for a long time now, living in some fool's paradise thinking that it's noon or midnight (the latter, I suspect), and I haven't done anything to correct it.

Part of the reason we continue in this relationship is that I don't remember how to set it straight, and I don't have the time or inclination to find out -- even if I could unearth the owner's manual. Although some people may be horrified at this display of VCR abuse, I don't feel I'm doing anything ethically wrong. I don't think I have any ethical obligations to inanimate objects.

That attitude seems reasonable. To make any sense of a moral theory that relies on rights and obligations, it would seem that those who hold the rights -- those to whom we have obligations -- need to be moral agents. I don't have any moral obligations to my VCR, my automobile, or my television set. I think -- although I could be wrong -- that most people feel the same way.

This would probably be pretty uncontroversial if it didn't raise a larger issue: whether or not we have any moral or ethical obligations to a corporation. Corporations, as we've noted before in this space, aren't real persons (see "http://www.infoworld.com/articles/o...302opethics.xml". The law considers them persons, which means that we may owe them some legal obligations, but they're not natural persons, and therefore wouldn't appear to have any moral rights.

A couple of cases we've considered before -- one involving whether or not to return a found sum of money belonging to a corporation and a more recent one involving lying on a r�sum� -- hinge on our ethical obligations. If I find a sum of money that belongs to you, it's easy to build a case that you have a moral right to the money, and I in turn have a moral obligation to return it. But does that obligation hold when the money belongs to an inanimate object such as a corporation, and if so, why?

The same goes for lying. I can build a strong case that some ethical relationship between you and me prohibits my lying to you. But if I can lie to my VCR with impunity, why can't I lie to General Motors?

You could argue, I suppose, that there are people involved -- even if the corporation is a separate entity and not a real person. That's true, but the ethical obligations I have to those people are separate and distinct from the obligations, if any, that I have to the corporation itself, which is a separate and distinct entity.

The sum of money that I find -- and that I am perplexed about returning -- doesn't really belong to Mr. Smith in accounting. It belongs to the corporation. And the HR clerk to whom I submit my r�sum� isn't really hiring me. He or she is only a conduit -- and an interchangeable one at that, at least in the corporation's eyes. He or she could be fired tomorrow -- or quit -- and be instantly replaced with an analogue, who then becomes the new conduit. So in essence, I'm not lying to that person, but to the inanimate corporation.

You could also argue that stockholders own the corporation, and in cheating or lying to the corporation I'm lying to or cheating the stockholders. In a sense, you might be right, but it's more complicated than that. It's the same as my trying to evade a traffic ticket by reminding the police officer that I'm really the boss because my taxes pay the police salaries. In one sense it's true, but in a more important sense it's not. I don't think anyone ever got out of a ticket using that line of defense.

Two things argue against the stockholder line of reasoning. The first is that, if the argument is true, then buying a few shares of stock would allow me to indulge in activities that other people cannot because it's impossible to lie to and cheat myself. The more important consideration is that the stockholders are behind the "corporate veil." They are not personally liable -- legally or, they would argue, morally -- for the actions of the corporation.

If that's true, then the stockholders/owners see themselves as having no moral obligations toward other people with whom the corporation comes in contact. Ethical rights and obligations seem to have, at the very least, some reciprocity. It's hard to argue that you have some ethical claims on me, but I have none on you.

Now, some people will also want to argue that their ethical obligations are to a higher authority, which is a widely held belief. But even in that case, it seems to require interaction with another moral agent for the ethical obligations to kick in. I know of no religious proscription against lying to a tree, for example. I feel perfectly comfortable in telling my cat something that isn't true -- although extreme animal rights activists might have something to say about that.

If we don't have moral obligations to corporations, then we may have to re-examine some ideas we have about what conduct is ethically allowed and what isn't. Many people already feel it's OK to deal differently with corporations than they do with natural persons. Is there a chance they're right? While on one hand, I always try to act ethically -- even in my relationship with corporations -- I can't come up with a good rationale for why I would feel that obligation to an entity that isn't itself a moral agent. If there is such a rationale, then I may need to sit down for a heart-to-processor talk with my VCR.

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Last edited by Toby on 12-17-2001 at 03:58 PM

Registered: Jul 2000
Location:
Posts: 3034

Incidentally, I found the follow-up to that one quite interesting as well, considering...

quote:

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CARLTON VOGT "Ethics Matters" InfoWorld.com
========================================================

Friday, December 14, 2001


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LIVING THE EXAMINED LIFE

Posted Dec 12, 2001 09:40 Pacific Time


"The unexamined life is not worth living"

-- Socrates

When I raised the issue in my last column of whether we had ethical obligations to corporations, I expected a spirited response, primarily because the question and the idea are controversial. I have to admit that I was unprepared for the ferocity of the opposition. In some cases, the response was similar to something usually seen in a lioness that is protecting her cubs.

Many people tried to construct reasons for why we would have such obligations. What was interesting was that for many people the answer was painfully obvious, and they didn't hesitate to tell me. What was more interesting was that there were many different and contradictory "painfully obvious" answers, leading me to believe that my original question wasn't so far-fetched after all, as we seem to be all over the lot on this.

Some of the responses were extremely plausible -- and I'll discuss them in a future column. Others were less so. Quite a few devolved into "ad hominem" attacks, which focused on me personally, rather than the question at hand. This device is a staple of neo-adolescent Internet newsgroups, AM radio talk shows, and political campaign tactics. Maybe it's spreading. I hope not.

What was most disturbing was the unusually high number of people whose main objection was that I had raised the question at all. Some went so far as to say that I had done something unethical by even asking it.

I realize that in some quarters asking questions has recently been declared "politically incorrect," or even dangerous. Like so many others, I reject that. In fact, I think that not asking questions -- even tough questions -- is more dangerous. And when it comes to our ethical beliefs, not asking questions quite possibly might be unethical in and of itself.

Where we get our ethical beliefs is interesting. For many of us, we acquire them as we go along. We get some from our parents; some from teachers; others from religious figures, coaches, mentors, and peers. Often those imparting these beliefs do so for very specific reasons of their own, and the principles we get are either extremely broad or very narrow and related to specific situations.

The problem with broad principles is that they often fail to capture the nuances of daily life. At the same time our parents are telling us that we should never say anything that's not true, they're filling us in on the details of Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the ubiquitous stork. Our parents are interested in getting us to be truthful people and don't confuse our little 6-year-old minds with the notions that there are some times when it's permitted to deviate from the actual truth. We're usually left to figure that out for ourselves.

The problem with the very narrow principles is that we have no idea as to whether they are transitive -- whether or how they can be applied wholesale to other situations, which may have some relevant differences from the situation for which we learned them. Again, we often must fend for ourselves.

Many people write in to tell me they get their ethical principles from religion, and that's a laudable and worthwhile endeavor. But even scriptural principles in many cases require some human intervention -- some extrapolation to make a particular judgment in a situation not mentioned or even conceived in the original text.

As I always used to tell my students, the easy cases are easy. If someone walks up to a total stranger and kills that person without reason or provocation, any credible ethical system I know of will say that is wrong. That's easy. But as situations become more complex and nuanced, we begin to differ. Is self-defense allowed? Most say yes, and a few say no. Conducting war? The gap begins to widen. Capital punishment? Wider still. Euthanasia? Bar the door! And this is just among people who say they draw their principles from the same source.

Part of the problem many people have is that they have taken on moral judgments from all their different sources almost by rote and without understanding how the principles work or what supports them. When they confront new and different situations, they run the risk of misapplying the original judgment.

So, at least in my opinion, it's necessary from time to time that we examine what we believe, and -- most important -- why we believe it. If I believe that I am required to live as ethically as possible, then I also have an ethical obligation to examine my judgments and principles.

This can be frightening for a lot of people. We always run the risk that we may have to change our minds about something we've believed for a long time. In a worst-case scenario, our whole system of beliefs may be threatened. This is the challenge that faced people who had to confront, at some point, systematic racial segregation. The underlying beliefs -- some of them justified by religious principles -- had created an entire social, political, and economic landscape that threatened to collapse if the basic beliefs changed.

For others of us, the scenario may have less social context but might be just as threatening on a personal level. Many people are loath to change their minds -- especially about long-held beliefs. Our culture discourages it; and it is considered a sign of weakness. I used to see this in my students. When confronted with an ethical dilemma, they would make a snap decision -- very much like Judge Judy -- and then would devote the rest of their efforts to defending their uninformed judgment, even when it was proved indefensible.

My goal was to get them to overcome this resistance and to see that changing your mind can sometimes be a sign of growth as well as intellectual and spiritual development. Few of us believe the same things about political, scientific, or technical matters that we believed when we were 16 years old. Quite a few people hold the same broad-stroke ethical beliefs as they did when they were teenagers.

In a best-case scenario, we don't have to change our mind. We come out the other end of the process believing in the same principle and holding the same judgments, but our belief in it is stronger because now we understand why we hold it, we know how it works, and we can apply it knowledgeably to new and different situations. And that's not such a bad idea.

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Registered: Mar 2001
Location: Nebraska- the Good life
Posts: 695

quote:

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Originally posted by dick-richardson

Then why would an electronic version be any different? You're not paying for the words, only the medium it is distributed in - unlike music where you can put the same song in as many different formats as you like.

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Registered: Oct 2000
Location: Aberdeen, SD
Posts: 2531

dietrichbohn, you are correct - you are paying for content as much as the medium. Lost the link after spilling pop into my computer, but it's true.

quote:

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Originally posted by Madkins007
If I buy a book, I should be able to scan it into an E-book format, or photocopy or audio-tape sections to take with me so as to not worry about loosing or hurting the rest of the book.

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__________________
-Joshua
Abortion: Darwinism at its finest.

Registered: Oct 2000
Location: Aberdeen, SD
Posts: 2531

quote:

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Originally posted by Toby
*shrug* I'm not sure about atheism necessarily as much as organized religion. IOW, 'imagine there's no Heaven', not 'imagine there's no heaven'. Of course, it was also an important to note that there was 'no Hell below us'. To me it always seemed that Lennon's point was that we should be nice to our fellow man because they were our fellow man and not because of some after-life reward/punishment system.

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-Joshua
Abortion: Darwinism at its finest.

Registered: Apr 2001
Location: Atlanta, GA
Posts: 708

quote:

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Originally posted by Madkins007


If I buy a piece of software, I should be able to put it on any machine I own- home computers, laptops, handhelds (as long as it is really the same program). We also can make a copy for a back-up (er, at least we could when it was a 'floppy' world. I have no idea how this applies in the 'CD' world!)

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In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. JOHN 14:2

Registered: Apr 2001
Location: Atlanta, GA
Posts: 708

quote:

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Originally posted by dietrichbohn

Word. Apparently, it's also been noticed elsewhere that we sometimes take threads far afield. I'm guessing that I'm the "other nimrod."

*sigh*

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__________________
In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. JOHN 14:2

Registered: Feb 2001
Location: Them Twin Cities
Posts: 1758

quote:

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Originally posted by GSR13
Here is the thing. The Agreement states plainly that what I am doing is legally wrong. I cannot have the software installed on two different handhelds, regardless. However, I consider it to be morally okay, as I only use one at a time and one is strictly backup for the other. The truth is, I am still breaking the law as defined by the Agreement.

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Don't like somebody? Click "Profile" on a post and then click "Ignore "so and so's" posts". Voila!

Registered: Nov 2001
Location: Sumner, WA
Posts: 70

quote:

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Originally posted by homer


Personally, I think it is a great idea. Have Application Service Providers and you simply pay for different 'packages'. You would always have the latest updates, etc. Also, they could implement a pay-per-use model, too. There's a lot of times when I needed to use an expensive application for one small job. I usually had to find someone with the program and ask them to do it for me. It'd be great to have access to an application for a small fee to use for one day, for instance.

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Registered: Jan 2000
Location: Twin Cities, MN
Posts: 1683

quote:

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I can reason it out morally all I want to, but that still does not give me any legal grounds to do what I am doing.

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We're all naked if you turn us inside out.
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Registered: Nov 2001
Location: Sumner, WA
Posts: 70

Software Examples

quote:

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Originally posted by homer


Examples?

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Registered: Jul 2000
Location:
Posts: 3034

quote:

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Originally posted by homer
[...] There is no direct correlation between morals and laws.

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Registered: Dec 1999
Location: "Children are a gift from God, they are a reward"
Posts: 1049

quote:

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Exactly. There is no direct correlation between morals and laws. They can be completely independant and contradictory at times.

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"I am a debtor both to Greeks and to Barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish."

Last edited by BobbyMike on 12-20-2001 at 10:39 PM

Registered: Jan 2000
Location: Twin Cities, MN
Posts: 1683

quote:

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I might be confusing what you're trying to say, but aren't most laws based on the baseline morals of the population (when they're written)? I totally agree that many current laws, for good or bad, don't seem to correlate to present day standards.

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I agree. My point was that morals are independent of laws technically speaking. Laws are certainly inspired by morals, but finding concensus in morals can be difficult at times.

Some are somewhat easy in broad terms, ie, MOST people think killing another human is bad, so we make murder laws. But when you get into details, such as why is a human life more important than other life, what about self-defense, what about assisted suicide, abortion, what about war crimes, what about manslaughter, what about etc... then it becomes EXTREMELY difficult to use morals to dictate the laws, as morals are extremely personal, and, as such, can differ wildly from each other at that level of specifcity (is that a word?).

As this thread points out, one can agree with the law and/or agree morally and those opinions can differ wildly. Defining right and wrong in terms of the law is easy (well, relatively speaking...lawyers can make it difficult). Defining right and wrong in terms of morals is impossible. Of course, the goal in any situation is to mix respect for the law and personal morals in a meaningful balance.

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I make and design things so I respect the act of creation and ownership.

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I go back and forth on this all of the time. I am a designer, so my livelyhood is somewhat dependent on intellectual property rights. That said, all humans are designers, and progress tends to be hampered by current intellectual property rights. I realize that these rights were established to ENCOURAGE progress, but I feel that in their current state, they hinder and tend to favor the big guy more than the small guy. Ideally, intellectual property rights would be policed out of respect for one another, rather than via laws.

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If you don't want to have to pay for software, how about trying out Linux (or something similar)?

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Excellent point. Once you try linux, you begin to appreciate WHY paying for software isn't such a bad thing.

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We're all naked if you turn us inside out.
-David Byrne

Registered: Dec 1999
Location: "Children are a gift from God, they are a reward"
Posts: 1049

Good point! Linux has been/is very challenging for me, but the price is right! My only regret is that I didn't have my dad teach me how to write code while my mind was still plastic, it's kinda hard and lumpy now.

I just tried out Richochet from a demo included on the current issue of PC Gamer. My eight year old was up when I got home late, waiting to ask me to buy the full version for him (with his own money). I ended up doing so ('cept I paid for it so his brothers could use it too), and I felt good about it 'cause it was relatively cheap at $9.99.

It was a full featured demo that just timed out. I think that that's a better way to allow demos rather than putting out 'crippleware'.

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"I am a debtor both to Greeks and to Barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish."

Registered: Oct 2000
Location: Aberdeen, SD
Posts: 2531

Just out of curiosity, how many of the "never" voters have registered winzip?

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-Joshua
Abortion: Darwinism at its finest.