King yao's book online

[pastabatman]

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One common definition of morality is what is accepted by the majority in a society. The majority of the society of internet goers have illegally traded copyrighted works so it's hard to make the case that such exchanges are immoral. They are clearly illegal.

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This is absurd. Even if you accept that 'the majority steals on the internet' (I don't), that does not make it moral. The internet is not a society unto itself, so moral abstractions based upon that assumption are inherently flawed.

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I think your heavy-handed, nearly apopleptic preaching probably will not.

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And neither will your pompous pontificating.

Pasta

[Schwartzy61]

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anyone get a copy of king yao's book online?
my friend sent it to me..haven't really looked at it..wonder how much of a difference it is from the print edition.

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Yeah I got my copy online...

from Amazon.com

[amulet]

bek, i could address a lot of this. however, theft is wrong, and even you know that. you could simply agree, as opposed to your absurd "if most in society do it, it becomes right".

why not just agree that the stealing should stop. the application of that is a different matter, but would be helped by people not trying to justify such behavior.

[benkahuna]

All internet goers fits comfortably within the definition of a society. Look it up if unclear. I was as clear as possible with the operational definitions I was employing. You just chose to use your own rigid definitions. Check the stats on opinions about violations of copyrights on the net. While maybe only a sizeable portion have committed such acts, the majority condone it. Nothing I said implies that I believe that the internet extrapolates to society as a whole. I infer that was your own inference from my statement.

You're being irrational here. Given my definitions, my argument is perfectly reasonable. You just don't like my conclusion and/or presentation so you're taking unfair shortcuts to argue against it.

I was mainly trying to point out that some ranting post with misspellings is probably not the best approach to achieving what seems to be amulet's goal, to limit piracy of written works on the net.

I think to properly address the problem requires a realistic approach and understanding of the group of society contributing to the problem.

And if you're going to in any way affect the problem, it's best to focus on the motivation of those contributing to it rather than preaching to their antisocial asses. Antisocial personality types are known to not respond to authoritarian preaching and morality considerations.

I have not taken a position on copyright law violation here either, just in case someone mistakenly believes I have. And even if you think that you care how I feel about the issue, you probably don't.

[Zygote]

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This is absurd. Even if you accept that 'the majority steals on the internet' (I don't), that does not make it moral.

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You're thinking of ethics.

[amulet]

benk,
your 2nd response is also pitiful. your discussing antisocial behavior, and while you may think that you are not be taking a position, you are supporting unethical, immoral, and illegal, behavior. additionally, i have no idea what you think the purpose of your post was, it appears that is was to support theft (because many people in our society break intellectual property laws).

fyi - as to my spelling; i fractured my skull when i was a teenager, and the only long tern effect was the inability to put letters (and words to some degree) in the proper order. since this site does not have spell check, you will have to put up with it. however, if you wish to comment on my spelling, please follow every post i make, i suspect it will give you pleasure.

[benkahuna]

You've gotta be kidding me. If you can't see how non-partisan my posts on this matter have been, I can't help you and it also becomes utterly pointless to discuss this matter with you. We obviously draw very different conclusions from written text.

You've committed a number of logical fallacies. You conclude that if a number of people do something, that I condone it. You also conclude that since I mention the motivation of a group, I condone their behavior. Both of these conclusions do not logically follow the available evidence.

I couldn't know about your skull (or impacts on language production centers of your brain), but since I now do (and assuming I can trust you), I have more context into which to put your post. Perhaps it wasn't the apopleptic rant that it came across as being. Regardless, your intent is not what is going to influence others. You have to consider their point of view.

I'm going to say something here because people are clearly confused. I believe that we live in an existence of action and response, not in inherent right and wrong. DO NOT confuse that with a lack of morality or loose ethics. I believe in a lot of things being right or wrong, but I am unwilling to act like there' some absolute good or bad.

And a little note about morality. I don't think something is right just because society does (that's what I define as morality--society's values). I define my ethics as what I consider right and wrong. I think many of our military actions for strategic, parapolitical reasons were completely wrong, despite widespread public support which would make it moral.

Defining something as moral doesn't mean that I support it or think it's wrong. I can think for myself. I actually don't appreciate the way the majority of people operate within the world. They're short-sighted, irresponsible, inconsiderate, selfish, unconscientious, and promote unhealthfulness, unsustainability, and senseless destruction.

We obviously think much differently and if you can get outside of your own thinking or the way you see the majority of people as thinking, perhaps you'll understand what you may or may not reasonably conclude from what I have said.

[amulet]

i still believe that your posts clearly condone said behavior. i think your reading them as you want others to, which is not how they appear to me. however, that may also be true for my reading of my own posts.

[benkahuna]

You're hopeless, especially since you think I "clearly" support piracy.

[amulet]

i think you are unable to really see what you wrote. i do not think you support it, but i think the way you wrote your first two posts indictated that you did.

i believe you are unable to see anything you do in an objective light.