Posted by Peter 'Rattacresh' Backes on October 21, 192001 at 13:13:01: In Reply to: Re: Sharing Files like Video and Music Files posted by Savant on October 21, 192001 at 01:08:21:
: I guess it comes with my heritage. In Canada we are often
: compared to the United States in terms of our 'freedoms'.
: The United States is seen as being one of the 'most free'
: countries in the world.
Here in Germany we sometimes laugh about what America calls
freedom. Here you can run drinking vodka and talking trash
trough the streets, and as long as you don't get aggressive,
probably noone will stop you. Drug consumption is tolerated most
of the time, not as openly as in Holland, but soft drugs have
become quite common among youths in the age between 14 and
20. Further, we don't have so harsh laws against cryptography
export and hacking in general. As long as you don't destroy
other persons' data or to to get access data private to some
person or organization, almost anything involving bits and
bytes is tolerated.
: However there are marked differences
: between them and us. Here's a comparison:
: [...]
: That subtle difference will prevent a person in Canada
: from being allowed to take a liberty at the expense of
: someone else's liberty.
It might be more fireproof, but at the cost of the
more interesting freedoms.
: Until this year (#3), the United Nations Human Development
: Index had ranked Canada as the best country in the world
: in which to live for seven years straight. (in case
: you're wondering, this year the United States was #6 and
: Germany was #17)
Yup, as long as you like living a very normal life, lucky all
the time, with a family, no big conflicts, no problems,
no fun.
But if you sometimes like to do some real science (have
you read Brave New World?), want to live the exciting life
at the Electronic frontier, want to know the feeling to
be balancing on the edge, experience of real risk, then
such statistics are not the right thing to listen to.
: Even though our freedoms aren't as 'extreme' as other
: countries, that moderation serves the greater good and
: enhances our quality of life.
I have no problem loosing a bit of what you call the 'quality
of life' if I can have other qualities for that. It might
be a bit more dangerous and risky to have so much freedom,
but it's fun, yeah.
I just see, some hours ago, we have cracked MS-DRM. Yeehaw.
Freedom always finds it's paths even in the darkest places.
: Hehehehe, yeah we do have these enjoyable little
: debates on occasion now don't we?
It has become a tradition, right.