d1stortion wrote:

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

I'll admit, I've pirated all sorts of things over the years (who hasn't? 😜), but I think pirating an indie game that lacks DRM is kind of low, in my opinion.

So there are "good" developers/content creators who deserve the money and others where it's OK to pirate, and then go online to rant about evil pirates who steal from the aforementioned "good" people? Interesting.

I never said that it was OK to pirate things, I mean I'm certainly not proud of doing it, and it is kind of a low thing to do in general, but at the same time I see pirating indie games as being especially low since they rely on each sale to survive much moreso than say some big publisher like EA. As well, just being on the Internet, it's kind of hard not to be a pirate, though it certainly doesn't hurt to at least think about what you're doing once in a while.

Man, I feel like I'm this big ball of contradictions. 🤣 It's like I can't decide if I'm with the pirates or the content creators. I will say this though; I don't mind paying for things that I enjoy. I do however mind having to deal with DRM in order to do so. That's why sites like GoG.com are awesome. 😁

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

Profit = revenue minus cost.

Employee's salary is cost. A company can have zero profit and still be able to pay its employees.

Close. Those sentences are correct in themselves.

However, a company that makes zero profit one year, won't have any investors in the next.

Then there won't be any money to pay employees.

By failing to maximise profit, people will lose their jobs.

SquallStrife wrote:

Close. Those sentences are correct in themselves. […]
Show full quote

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

Profit = revenue minus cost.

Employee's salary is cost. A company can have zero profit and still be able to pay its employees.

Close. Those sentences are correct in themselves.

However, a company that makes zero profit one year, won't have any investors in the next.

Then there won't be any money to pay employees.

By failing to maximise profit, people will lose their jobs.

Failing to maximize profit is not synonymous with making zero profit. The zero profit case I described is merely an extreme example that a company still make zero profit and pay its employees.

You see, still in accordance with my post above, I think it's time for me to rant.

I remember games from the past, the floppy-era games. Some of them had on-disk protection - the ones need COPYWRIT.EXE utility to make backup. Still, many more of them relies on off-disk copy protection, resorting to code wheels or manual lines and paragraphs and so on.

What's interesting is the publisher's attitude in the old days. On games that come without on-disk copy protection, it was pretty common for the publisher to advise the consumer to make backup of their disks and play from backup instead, while storing the original copy in a safe, clean place. Furthermore, many publishers offered free replacement if the disks got damaged.

Contrast with game publisher's attitude today, where fair use is raped and violated without limit. DVDs got lost or damaged? Well too bad DRM keeps you from making backup copies, so you have to buy the same game again. Need to reformat your hard drive because of virus? Too bad the DRM doesn't allow you to recover your installation limit, so you have to buy the same game again.

A sane person will admit that this is bad thing for the consumer, instead of blindly defending the corporation by any debating tactics possible.

As Malik has pointed out, game publishers like EA and Bethesda are greedy. It's a fact, their only goal is to maximize profit. As such, there is no point of defending such publishers in the name of their employee.

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

d1stortion wrote:

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

I'll admit, I've pirated all sorts of things over the years (who hasn't? 😜), but I think pirating an indie game that lacks DRM is kind of low, in my opinion.

So there are "good" developers/content creators who deserve the money and others where it's OK to pirate, and then go online to rant about evil pirates who steal from the aforementioned "good" people? Interesting.

I never said that it was OK to pirate things, I mean I'm certainly not proud of doing it, and it is kind of a low thing to do in general, but at the same time I see pirating indie games as being especially low since they rely on each sale to survive much moreso than say some big publisher like EA. As well, just being on the Internet, it's kind of hard not to be a pirate, though it certainly doesn't hurt to at least think about what you're doing once in a while.

Man, I feel like I'm this big ball of contradictions. 🤣 It's like I can't decide if I'm with the pirates or the content creators. I will say this though; I don't mind paying for things that I enjoy. I do however mind having to deal with DRM in order to do so. That's why sites like GoG.com are awesome. 😁

Totally agree. The severity of a crime is influenced by its circumstances. I'm not saying that robbing from the rich is the right thing do to, but robbing from the poor is a much worse crime.

I don't pirate myself. But EA execs whine that their profit goes down because of piracy, then boo fucking hoo. Yes, software piracy is a crime, but is it the most heinous crime against humanity? Is it worse than rape or child porn?

In fact, certain people are so zealous in "defending copyright" that they called Jason Scott - someone who is doing service to society - a dickhead.

I already -and always- vote with my dollar. I carefully read the review before buying any game, and when the game is plagued by DRM, my decision becomes more careful. That's why I mostly bought games from ebay or GOG.com - old games that comes without DRM. It's no big loss for me, since old games are as good as - if not better - than newer, DRM-plagued games. After all, we're here because we love old games, aren't we?

If my action translate to EA's lost sales, then boo fucking hoo.

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

appeal to emotion fallacy

Careful, you shouldn't criticise the use of emotive language or imagery when you're more than guilty of it yourself.

"EA and Bethesda also have execs who depend on their jobs to support their SUVs. Should the consumers be forced to pay more so the game company CEO and execs can get higher bonus and golden parachutes?"

"I have no interest to put my hard-earned money on the holy altar of corporatism so the Atlas can have more expensive three-martini lunches."

SquallStrife wrote:

Careful, you shouldn't criticise the use of emotive language or imagery when you're more than guilty of it yourself. […]
Show full quote

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

appeal to emotion fallacy

Careful, you shouldn't criticise the use of emotive language or imagery when you're more than guilty of it yourself.

"EA and Bethesda also have execs who depend on their jobs to support their SUVs. Should the consumers be forced to pay more so the game company CEO and execs can get higher bonus and golden parachutes?"

"I have no interest to put my hard-earned money on the holy altar of corporatism so the Atlas can have more expensive three-martini lunches."

Ahem. 😉

The definition of appeal to emotion fallacy is uses emotive language rather than valid logic. I use emotive language and valid logic. Sliderider, on the other hand, uses emotive language and false assumption fallacy.

Right now EA employees are losing their jobs...

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

Ahem. 😉

Rationalwiki... good thing I didn't click that.

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

The definition of appeal to emotion fallacy is uses emotive language rather than valid logic. I use emotive language and valid logic. Sliderider, on the other hand, using emotive language and false assumption fallacy.

[/quote]

You made an appeal to emotion. Whether or not you used other forms of argument alongside, you used one form which is, as you were quick to point out, fallacious.

Practice what you preach.

Furthermore, sliderider is not the only person making "false assumptions" as you put it. You've said a number of bare assertions yourself:

"The point is: it is utterly ridiculous to justify a corporate greed in the name of its employee." -- Why? If it weren't for corporate greed, there may not be as many jobs to go around.

"there is no moral justification for it either" -- Why? Who made you the boss of what can and cannot be justified morally?

Not to mention you've linked to RationalWiki and to one of Ayn Rand's pieces of narcissistic poison. There's little doubt that you have a very clear and specific mindset and agenda to push.

Nothing wrong with that, each to their own, but don't be surprised if you're not taken seriously in this case.

SquallStrife wrote:

Not to mention you've linked to RationalWiki and to one of Ayn Rand's pieces of narcissistic poison. There's little doubt that you have a very clear and specific mindset and agenda to push.

Association fallacy much? (oooh, look - I linked to Wikipedia, ergo I must supoort Jimbo Wales' agenda and consider WP policies perfect and without reproach.)

VileRancour wrote:

SquallStrife wrote:

Not to mention you've linked to RationalWiki and to one of Ayn Rand's pieces of narcissistic poison. There's little doubt that you have a very clear and specific mindset and agenda to push.

Association fallacy much? (oooh, look - I linked to Wikipedia, ergo I must supoort Jimbo Wales' agenda and consider WP policies perfect and without reproach.)

Mhm.

That'd be right, IF I used that as the sole reason for my conclusion.

SquallStrife wrote:

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

Ahem. 😉

Rationalwiki... good thing I didn't click that.

Ahem again. 😉

SquallStrife wrote:

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

The definition of appeal to emotion fallacy is uses emotive language rather than valid logic. I use emotive language and valid logic. Sliderider, on the other hand, using emotive language and false assumption fallacy.

You made an appeal to emotion. Whether or not you used other forms of argument alongside, you used one form which is, as you were quick to point out, fallacious.

Wrong, check again.
Appeal to emotion or argumentum ad passiones is a logical fallacy which uses the manipulation of the recipient's emotions, rather than valid logic, to win an argument.

SquallStrife wrote:

Practice what you preach.

Furthermore, sliderider is not the only person making "false assumptions" as you put it. You've said a number of bare assertions yourself:

"The point is: it is utterly ridiculous to justify a corporate greed in the name of its employee." -- Why? If it weren't for corporate greed, there may not be as many jobs to go around.

You are the one who is forcing an assumption - the assumption that corporate greed is required for many jobs around.

As for my claim, that it is utterly ridiculous to justify a corporate's greed in the name of its employee, I have logically proven it by showing a case where corporation can still treat its employee like shit despite the profit it rakes. And it doesn't only happen in gaming industry. Ever heard of Wal Mart?

In fact, underpaying your employee is a way to maximize profit.

SquallStrife wrote:

"there is no moral justification for it either" -- Why? Who made you the boss of what can and cannot be justified morally?

Then kindly show me the moral justification part in profit maximization, because I'm still looking.

Profit maximization is a subject of economic science, the same way evolution theory being a subject of biological science. And subject of science is exactly what it is: mere description of certain phenomenon, whether natural or social. There is nothing inherently good or bad about it, it's only description of the said phenomenon, and nothing in the description says it's morally good or bad.

Did Darwin ever say in his theory that creatures evolve because it is a moral thing to do?

SquallStrife wrote:

Not to mention you've linked to RationalWiki and to one of Ayn Rand's pieces of crap. There's little doubt that you have a very clear and specific mindset and agenda to push.

Nothing wrong with that, each to their own, but don't be surprised if you're not taken seriously in this case.

Agree, Ayn Rand stuff is crap, and what annoys me is her way of treating billionaires like champions of humanity.

Like I said, there is nothing inherently right or wrong of wanting to be rich in itself. Being rich can have beneficial side effect when you use it to help people, but it can also be harmful when you achieve it by screwing others or screwing your consumers. My problem with Rand is that she treated those people like heroes, while being rich doesn't necessarily make you a hero.

However, just because Rand is crap does not mean that RationalWiki must be wrong. Randians could be full of shit, but if they said fire is hot or water is wet, does being Randian make their claim wrong? The RationalWiki definition of style over substance fallacy is consistent with that of other sites (such as this), despite the site is one of the Randian crap.

double post.

SquallStrife wrote:

VileRancour wrote:

SquallStrife wrote:

Not to mention you've linked to RationalWiki and to one of Ayn Rand's pieces of narcissistic poison. There's little doubt that you have a very clear and specific mindset and agenda to push.

Association fallacy much? (oooh, look - I linked to Wikipedia, ergo I must supoort Jimbo Wales' agenda and consider WP policies perfect and without reproach.)

Mhm.

That'd be right, IF I used that as the sole reason for my conclusion.

And what are the other reasons for your conclusion?

Sorry, I'm not going to use the quote tags this time, it was getting messy. 😀

Agree, Ayn Rand stuff is crap

Phew. OK. You're not one of those people. Unfortunate lining-up of circumstances there. 😀

Appeal to emotion or argumentum ad passiones is a logical fallacy which uses the manipulation of the recipient's emotions, rather than valid logic, to win an argument.

An appeal to emotion alongside a fact-based argument is still an appeal to emotion. OK, perhaps, for soliciting donations to a childrens' hospital. Not for discussing the economics of piracy.

You are the one who is forcing an assumption - the assumption that corporate greed is required for many jobs around.

It depends on what you mean by "corporate greed". A corporation is inherently greedy. It's nothing if not greedy.

As for my claim, that it is utterly ridiculous to justify a corporate's greed in the name of its employee, I have logically proven it by showing a case where corporation can still treat its employee like shit despite the profit it rakes. And it doesn't only happen in gaming industry. Ever heard of Wal Mart?

An insufficiently greedy corporation, wouldn't be able to afford to treat its employees well if it wanted to, and in fact would be doomed to failure. Greed in the name of the employees is justified. It's justified in a bunch of ways.

Then kindly show me the moral justification part in profit maximization, because I'm still looking.

See above. When companies aren't maximising profits, they don't last. When companies fail, they have casualties. Investors and other debtors lose their money, people involved can lose everything and wind up with large amounts of debt, employees lose their jobs. Continuing to exist, of which a component it maximising profit, is arguably the more moral choice.

You yourself said that the sole purpose of a corporation is to maximise profit, but in the process of doing so, they provide all these benefits. If you're not maximising profit, these benefits will dry up.

However, just because Rand is crap does not mean that RationalWiki must be wrong

You're right, but I avoid the site like the plague anyway.

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

And what are the other reasons for your conclusion?

They're right there in that post. Linked to rationalwiki, quoted Ayn Rand (with that "altar of Atlas" diatribe), and calling out people on their fallacies while arguably engaging in them yourself.

The rationalwiki link you've explained now anyway, so that can be disregarded.

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

Man, I feel like I'm this big ball of contradictions. 🤣 It's like I can't decide if I'm with the pirates or the content creators. I will say this though; I don't mind paying for things that I enjoy. I do however mind having to deal with DRM in order to do so. That's why sites like GoG.com are awesome. 😁

Perhaps not quite what you're saying, but rational decision-making need not necessarily give a decision in line with higher morals.

In other words you may rationally decide to pirate despite it being against one of your principles. It just means there are other factors at work that feed into your decision-making.

People like to use the word hypocrisy for this, but in the circumstances I think that's based on appealing to assumptions about how behaviour "should" be determined and how decisions should be made. For example, that your higher principles or morals should dictate the choices from which you make a decision. I'm sure some people act like that, and a clear moral code or even clear and unequivocal laws that we all understand and agree with may help.

But piracy and the definition of crime here is more nebulous to many people [maybe it's too much like a victimless crime], so even if some people have a moral code about some things, and may pay lip service to abiding by copyright principles, in practice they don't. For perfectly rational reasons.

Please take your discussion style discussion somewhere people care about this crap...

SquallStrife wrote:

Sorry, I'm not going to use the quote tags this time, it was getting messy. 😀

Phew. OK. You're not one of those people. Unfortunate lining-up of circumstances there. 😀

Before I joined Vogons, I saw some Randian posts in other forum. I remember debating against one of them; he insists to be an individualist, a rational egotist, and he is totally against 'the evil of government's monopoly'. According to his 'wisdom', police force should be privatized, roads should be privatized, and so on, an so on.

Ironically, when debating about Microsoft, he insisted that Microsoft's monopoly is good for the people. When I pointed that his logic can also be used to justify communism, he really flipped. I'd never seen someone so angry in my life.

That's what bothers me about Randians; they claim to be rational egotist, but when talking about large corporations, they seem to be more interested in the interests of the Atlas instead of their own. What the fuck?

I'm not a Randian, but still, I'm very interested to maximize my own interests, especially when I'm the consumer. And I see absolutely no reason to protect big corporation's interests. They're already more powerful than me, and there is nothing inherently good about them anyway (just because a corporation can be good doesn't mean they're inherently good), so why should I sacrifice my interests for theirs?

SquallStrife wrote:

An appeal to emotion alongside a fact-based argument is still an appeal to emotion. OK, perhaps, for soliciting donations to a childrens' hospital. Not for discussing the economics of piracy.

Um, no, because by its very definition, appeal to emotion fallacy is basically what it is; using emotion as substitute of logic. 😉

SquallStrife wrote:

It depends on what you mean by "corporate greed". A corporation is inherently greedy. It's nothing if not greedy.

Precisely. And my argument stays; it doesn't give a moral justification for a corporate's greed. Carnivores eat meat because it is simply what they are, not because eating meat is a moral thing to do.

SquallStrife wrote:

An insufficiently greedy corporation, wouldn't be able to afford to treat its employees well if it wanted to, and in fact would be doomed to failure. Greed in the name of the employees is justified. It's justified in a bunch of ways.

Capability is not synonymous with willingness, nor is it with commitment. Greed merely makes a company capable to treat its employees well; it doesn't make the said company committed to tread its employees well. In fact, the Wal-Mart example I brought above clearly shows a case where greed makes a company screw its employees.

SquallStrife wrote:

See above. When companies aren't maximising profits, they don't last. When companies fail, they have casualties. Investors and other debtors lose their money, people involved can lose everything and wind up with large amounts of debt, employees lose their jobs. Continuing to exist, of which a component it maximising profit, is arguably the more moral choice.

You yourself said that the sole purpose of a corporation is to maximise profit, but in the process of doing so, they provide all these benefits. If you're not maximising profit, these benefits will dry up.

See above. Capability is not synonymous with willingness, commitment, or real action. Superman's powers make him capable to be a hero, but it is not his powers that make him a hero; it is his actions.

Kreshna my friend, the world is not that complicated. These companies - who make computer games remember - want your money, and my money; they'd probably even accept my mothers money despite her being a low income earner. To get our money they produce a product which they think we'll want to buy.

But - here's the important bit - we don't have to buy it. They can't make us.