Exiting new Firefox feature in the latest nightly build
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@davedavenotdavemaybedave said:
If you use Tivo anyway, and the ad avoidance is incidental, I would say it's OK.
It's actually a bit more complex in this case as well, because Tivo does track what programs and ads you watch and sell that data to broadcasters. It's still not the level of analytics we get on the web, but it's significantly more valuable than the crap broadcasters come up with on their own.
Because of this, Tivo viewers are more valuable to broadcasters than non-Tivo viewers. (You'll notice broadcasters stopped complaining about Tivo ad-skipping pretty much the exact instant Tivo started selling them data.)
Of course, since you're probably in super-nerd-geek-Slashdot-mode, you're probably using something like a Xbox Media Center or MythTV instead of a branded Tivo, in which case dave's answer applies more.
But it's still a grey area in any case; at some point you're going to have to make up your own mind, weighing your convenience with your desire to see the content you enjoy funded. You can't rely on us to make all your decisions for you-- again, all I ask is that the decision you make be an informed one.
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Re: Skipping or Blocking Ad's on Web Sites--
If it were not for the number of web ad's serving drive by malware, or certain ad's that crash my browser because they deserve their own articles on this site, I'd say blocking ad's was unethical. However that's not the case. I spent an hour cleaning out malware dumped onto my daughter's laptop by an ad.
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@blakeyrat said:
@Jaime said:
There is no deal. Advertisers roll the dice every time they sponsor content. You can't simply sponsor content and then expect the rest of the world to treat it as a contract with society. This sounds like classic RIAA "please don't kill my business model" thinking, only the RIAA at least has a written contract with society called copyright law. The day I actually get a choice to either pay or view ads for a majority of media, then I'll begin to consider that a deal might be in place.For example, why should I feel morally obligated to watch a commercial for a weight loss product when the FTC data shows that many weight loss products are scams and the scams are scarily effective.
Are you viewing the content that the ad is sponsoring? I would argue that that morally obligates you.If you don't want to view the ad, fine... but also don't view the content. That's how the deal works.
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@Jaime said:
What about the idea that we're in an arms race?
It's completely wrong?
Here's a little secret: CMOs are generally so technically clueless that they have no idea ad blocking is even possible. Analytics products don't distinguish between users who block ads and users who block cookies (since that's technically very tricky), and so they get lumped into the same bunch... along with Safari users, generally, due to Safari's goofy cookie handling.
There's no arms race. Other than a small minority of publishers (Disney sites are obnoxious), ads are much smaller, slimmer, and less distracting than ever before-- because honestly those types of ads work just as well or better than the noisy ones. Advertising on the web is significantly better than it was 5 years ago, so if there is a "war" than the "other side" is already retreating.
@Jaime said:
dvertisers are doing as much as possible to make their ads as effective as possible, they see no moral barriers to using any type of manipulation.
Also completely wrong.
@Jaime said:
Every time a rational person sees a Pepsi or Nike ad, we all think "Why do they pay for this crap, it isn't even selling anything". But, the joke's on us, the Nike and Pepsi ads are very effective.
It's called "brand advertising" and it's well-known. There's no trick involved, in fact, it's been well-studied psychologically.
@Jaime said:
I reality, advertising decisions take reality into account, so a person using no filtering technology is actually exposed to more advertising than they bargained for because the ad companies are running more ads
Wrong. Unless you can point to a place where it's been done; I mean it's technically possible.
@Jaime said:
(and doing more product placement)
Do you object to product placement?
@Jaime said:
The natural end to all of this is that the advertising will eventually be entirely embedded in content. Let's just skip the next ten years of pointing fingers at each other and get to it.
That's what our company is working towards. Go to Fark.com and enter the Konami code* and see if that's the type of marketing that appeals to you. It's fun, it's engaging, it has secret prizes, and while it's themed around the product, there's no hard sell. Or even Call To Action, really. Try it and tell me what you think.
* Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A. If you need it spelled out.
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@Medezark said:
If it were not for the number of web ad's serving drive by malware, or certain ad's that crash my browser because they deserve their own articles on this site, I'd say blocking ad's was unethical. However that's not the case. I spent an hour cleaning out malware dumped onto my daughter's laptop by an ad.
You could just uninstall Java. Or change her to a non-admin account. Or do the hundred of things you should already have done to prevent malware.
If you found an ad on a reputable network, like DoubleClick or Atlas, I'd love to see it. Usually the malware ads are either coming from porn site ad networks, or from a hijacked server elsewhere.
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@Medezark said:
web ad's serving drive by malware,
Oh yeah, people get malware from ads, just like they get STDs from toilet seats. Just conceivably, it's happened very rarely. In practice, it's normally an excuse. I have no idea whether your daughter is making an excuse, but if she was a middle-aged man I'd be willing to bet on it.When I used to do a lot of malware removal for clients, I'd generally give them a tactful talking to about 'sites you might have been using at home,' 'taking matters in hand' etc. Most people (not just men) would sheepishly accept it, although a few would bluster. If they did, I apologised for the assumption, and told them that we'd need to analyse their hidden browser history/cache in that case to find the source. Not one failed to back down at that point, and one of them must have been looking at something he was really ashamed of, because I heard a crash, and then he said 'oops, just knocked the laptop on the floor and it's died, might as well get a new one so no need for you to bother'.
The only significant malware outbreak I can think of which wasn't the result of one-handed surfing was at the company who managed to get a virus on their web-server - at which point, everyone in the company visited the damn page to 'have a look'.
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@blakeyrat said:
If you don't want to view the ad, fine... but also don't view the content. That's how the deal works.
Here is out main disagreement. I don't think at all that's what the deal is.
The deal to me is: "hey, you like our content? Cool! Here's some ads you might like too!"
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@Jaime said:
There is no deal. Advertisers roll the dice every time they sponsor content.
Perhaps I haven't been very clear, then. I agree that advertisers roll the dice, and I think that's fine. I also think, though, that blocking all ads is like letting them pay to play and then taking away the dice.@Jaime said:
This sounds like classic RIAA "please don't kill my business model" thinking, only the RIAA at least has a written contract with society called copyright law.
I think much of my position comes from an opposition to the concept of copyright. I believe we should replace IP with an honour system of acknowledging your moral obligations and making appropriate payments to content producers - old-fashioned patronage brought into the long-tail age. Part of that is the acknowledgement that the basis on which someone provides something is morally important.
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@b-redeker said:
The deal to me is: "hey, you like our content? Cool! Here's some ads you might like too!"
Yes. So if you refuse to allow the ads...?
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@blakeyrat said:
@Jaime said:
I see a contradiction. You suggest that advertisers don't use manipulation, but then point out that "brand advertising" has been well-studied psychologically. What I was trying to say is that the ad industry is very sophisticated and has spent a lot of time and money learning about psychology and is not afraid to use it. The arms race isn't technology-vs-technology, it's technology-vs-psychology. Drug companies regularly "suggest" that people use their pharmaceuticals for off-label purposes, sometimes with disastrous effects. Diet pill companies cause millions of people to abandon traditional, effective treatment and pin their hopes on a product that has a 0.1% chance of helping them. I don't think any of these things are inherently evil, but they do constitute an arms race. If TrimSpa ads are morally acceptable, then ad blocking is too. I can't turn off my built-in susceptibility to psychological manipulation, but I can hide from it.dvertisers are doing as much as possible to make their ads as effective as possible, they see no moral barriers to using any type of manipulation.
Also completely wrong. @Jaime said:Every time a rational person sees a Pepsi or Nike ad, we all think "Why do they pay for this crap, it isn't even selling anything". But, the joke's on us, the Nike and Pepsi ads are very effective.
It's called "brand advertising" and it's well-known. There's no trick involved, in fact, it's been well-studied psychologically.BTW, I don't do any web advertisement blocking, but I haven't intentionally watched a commercial in the ten years since I went DVR. I also have no problem with product placement, I think it's the future of advertising. This is an example of where I was going with the "reality" comment. Since DVRs have come out, a lot of advertisers have moved some of their budget to embedded ads such as product placement. Your company is proof of this transition.
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@blakeyrat said:
That's what our company is working towards. Go to Fark.com and enter the Konami code* and see if that's the type of marketing that appeals to you. It's fun, it's engaging, it has secret prizes, and while it's themed around the product, there's no hard sell. Or even Call To Action, really. Try it and tell me what you think.
I read Fark via RSS, so the likelihood of me experiencing embedded marketing there is very low. I didn't know anyone actually went to the web site. Anyways, I gave it a shot and it was OK. I certainly won't be going into it regularly.* Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A. If you need it spelled out.
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@b-redeker said:
@blakeyrat said:
If you don't want to view the ad, fine... but also don't view the content. That's how the deal works.
Here is out main disagreement. I don't think at all that's what the deal is.
The deal to me is: "hey, you like our content? Cool! Here's some ads you might like too!"
Well, ok, but if you have AdBlock Plus on, you never see the ads. You never even are aware the site has ads. You have no way of knowing if the site is saying "here's some ads you might like!"
So if you truly believe that, you don't use AdBlock Plus... right?
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@Jaime said:
I see a contradiction. You suggest that advertisers don't use manipulation, but then point out that "brand advertising" has been well-studied psychologically. What I was trying to say is that the ad industry is very sophisticated and has spent a lot of time and money learning about psychology and is not afraid to use it.
And?
I'm sorry, is psychology some kind of ancient horrible destructive secret weapon from beyond the stars? I thought it was a scientific discipline, excuse my ignorance.
@Jaime said:
Drug companies regularly "suggest" that people use their pharmaceuticals for off-label purposes, sometimes with disastrous effects.
Do you have a cite?
@Jaime said:
I can't turn off my built-in susceptibility to psychological manipulation,
Sure you can. If you know the trick, it no longer works. Placebo effect goes away if the patient is told he's taking a placebo.
@Jaime said:
Since DVRs have come out, a lot of advertisers have moved some of their budget to embedded ads such as product placement. Your company is proof of this transition.
Not really; we only do web stuff. Our pitch is that all our marketing services are based on analytics. You don't get good analytics from any channel except the web right now, so we don't really use any channel except the web.
But if we *did* do TV marketing, yes, we would focus on non-ad marketing.
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@Jaime said:
I read Fark via RSS, so the likelihood of me experiencing embedded marketing there is very low. I didn't know anyone actually went to the web site.
I think most people go to the website because their RSS feed is so spammy and useless.
@Jaime said:
Anyways, I gave it a shot and it was OK.
Did you play the trivia game? If your favorite websites were sponsored by things like that instead of traditional banner ads, would you be more likely to visit them?
@Jaime said:
I certainly won't be going into it regularly.
Uh, it's a temporary campaign. It's not a permanent feature of Fark.
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@davedavenotdavemaybedave said:
@b-redeker said:
The deal to me is: "hey, you like our content? Cool! Here's some ads you might like too!"
Yes. So if you refuse to allow the ads...?Then they rolled the dice and hey, no dice. Fair game. When I watch TV, I go to the kitchen during commercials; when I am at a sporting event I watch the action on the field (and not the banners); when I'm on the road I watch the road (and not the billboards). When I surf for content, _I_ am the one who chooses whether I want to see ads, and this is neither immoral to the advertisers, nor to the content providers. Both roll the dice.
I think we can make a distinction between the advertisers and the content providers. For advertisers, me blocking their ads is a calculated risk. The content providers, that's a bit different. But if my content provider (for instance my favorite news site) shows me porn ads (night time in their time zone) to pay for my free content (they do, and it pisses me off) then who is morally wrong if I block their ads?
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@b-redeker said:
But if my content provider (for instance my favorite news site) shows me porn ads (night time in their time zone) to pay for my free content (they do, and it pisses me off) then who is morally wrong if I block their ads?
You are.
But seriously, a news site showing porn ads? ... you're way off in crazy-land. Or you live in Pornopia and it's local news, maybe. I dunno.
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@blakeyrat said:
If you know the trick, it no longer works. Placebo effect goes away if the patient is told he's taking a placebo.
I have to disagree with that. One of the more bizarre parts of the placebo effect is that you can tell people it's a placebo and it still works to some extent. With ads, you can know that the brand-name is being repeated frequently just so you think of it when you look at the supermarket shelf, for example, but that won't prevent it being the brand-name you know best.
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@blakeyrat said:
@b-redeker said:
Well, ok, but if you have AdBlock Plus on, you never see the ads. You never even are aware the site has ads. You have no way of knowing if the site is saying "here's some ads you might like!"The deal to me is: "hey, you like our content? Cool! Here's some ads you might like too!"
So if you truly believe that, you don't use AdBlock Plus... right?
I don't see the logic in your thinking. They offer ads; I refuse. Whether I do that by choosing not to look or not to see them at all or just telling them "piss off" is irrelevant.
As it so happens, I don't use AdBlock right now, but I have in the past (default settings). Right now, I don't care enough one way or the other. Which is also a point I'd like to make; to you this is understandably a big deal, because it's your livelyhood. For me, ads are not a basic need; not even secondary or tertiairy - it's a fact of life, like mosquito's. I try to ignore them; when they get too annoying, I zap them. I don't do this to thwart your job - don't take it personally. The mosquito's certainly don't :-)
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@b-redeker said:
No, the dice rolling is in whether or not you notice the ad. By blocking it, you're stopping them rolling the dice. Fair game? Really?@davedavenotdavemaybedave said:
@b-redeker said:
The deal to me is: "hey, you like our content? Cool! Here's some ads you might like too!"
Yes. So if you refuse to allow the ads...?Then they rolled the dice and hey, no dice. Fair game.
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@blakeyrat said:
you're way off in crazy-land. Or you live in Pornopia and it's local news, maybe. I dunno.
If that place exist outside the internet, I want to visit (imagination takes flight, start to drool, going into lewd mode)
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@b-redeker said:
They offer ads; I refuse.
That's a mis-statement. They offer ads, you refuse to entertain their offer.@b-redeker said:
As it so happens, I don't use AdBlock right now
OK, or not :)
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@davedavenotdavemaybedave said:
No, the dice rolling is in whether or not you notice the ad. By blocking it, you're stopping them rolling the dice. Fair game? Really?
Yes, because I didn't notice it.
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@davedavenotdavemaybedave said:
@b-redeker said:
They offer ads; I refuse.
That's a mis-statement. They offer ads, you refuse to entertain their offer.Oooh, selective snipping FTW. The full quote was:
@b-redeker said:
They offer ads; I refuse. Whether I do that by choosing not to look or not to see them at all or just telling them "piss off" is irrelevant.
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@blakeyrat said:
But seriously, a news site showing porn ads? ... you're way off in crazy-land. Or you live in Pornopia and it's local news, maybe. I dunno.
It's on http://m.nu.nl/pda/, the PDA version of a Dutch news site. I think they start showing the porn ads after 10 PM Dutch time, which is 1 PM Seattle. I'll check later and make a screenshot (unless I can only see it on my Blackberry, then I'll use a wooden table).
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@blakeyrat said:
Yeah, I never said that at all.
FYI: Filters work as the explanation in the bolded "I" detailed.
(The bolded I is where I explained it with the most clarity/verbosity.)@blakeyrat said:
Damnit, I said Ling wasn't going to drag me into this yet again, and now he did. If you're trolling, well, you fucking win, ok? If you're just being stupid, then we've all lost.
Fair enough, I'm done playing Sam-I-Am.
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@b-redeker said:
Which is also a point I'd like to make; to you this is understandably a big deal, because it's your livelyhood.
No it's not. What is wrong with you people? I've already said as much a couple times.
@b-redeker said:
I don't do this to thwart your job - don't take it personally.
My job is website usability consulting. It has nothing to do with advertising. I just happen to work at an ad agency.
Do you even read these threads? Or just skim enough to get talking points together?
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@b-redeker said:
@blakeyrat said:
But seriously, a news site showing porn ads? ... you're way off in crazy-land. Or you live in Pornopia and it's local news, maybe. I dunno.
It's on http://m.nu.nl/pda/, the PDA version of a Dutch news site. I think they start showing the porn ads after 10 PM Dutch time, which is 1 PM Seattle. I'll check later and make a screenshot (unless I can only see it on my Blackberry, then I'll use a wooden table).
... why don't you just go to another news site?
Also what the hell is wrong with the Dutch?
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@Lingerance said:
@blakeyrat said:
Yeah, I never said that at all.
FYI: Filters work as the explanation in the bolded "I" detailed.
(The bolded I is where I explained it with the most clarity/verbosity.)See the linked word "that". I already explained why they aren't even close to the same thing. You, of course, didn't read it because you're just here trolling us.
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@b-redeker said:
Oooh, selective snipping FTW. The full quote was:
@b-redeker said:
They offer ads; I refuse. Whether I do that by choosing not to look or not to see them at all or just telling them "piss off" is irrelevant.
OK.
@Me said:That's a mis-statement. They offer ads, you refuse to entertain their offer.
The answer hasn't changed.
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Re: Existing new Firefox feature in the latest nightly build
@blakeyrat said:
Also what the hell is wrong with the Dutch?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_coffee_shop
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@blakeyrat said:
Do you even read these threads? Or just skim enough to get talking points together?
Whatever it takes to keep the Blakeyrant going ;)
About nu.nl: I've been reading that site for about 5 years; contentwise it's one of the better ones. They only started showing these ads recently, and I expect them to stop soon. If not, I'll have to make a choice. For now, I'm ignoring it. I'm not necessarily anti-porn, I just don't like those ads.
And yes, some would argue that to all intent and purposes, the Netherlands are the fabled lands of Pornopia.
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@blakeyrat said:
@Jaime said:
Nope. Advertisers are not morons, they are very good at what they do. This all started because AdBlock Plus was being portrayed as a tool to steal (not my word) revenue from poor helpless web advertisers. I'm simply stating that advertisers have their own arsenal of weapons, and they are free to use them.... as long as they stop bitching and moaning about what the other side is doing.I see a contradiction. You suggest that advertisers don't use manipulation, but then point out that "brand advertising" has been well-studied psychologically. What I was trying to say is that the ad industry is very sophisticated and has spent a lot of time and money learning about psychology and is not afraid to use it.
And?I'm sorry, is psychology some kind of ancient horrible destructive secret weapon from beyond the stars? I thought it was a scientific discipline, excuse my ignorance.
@blakeyrat said:
@Jaime said:
[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabapentin#Relevant_Legal_Actions]Here[/url] and [url=http://bipolar.about.com/cs/neurontin/a/neurontin_suit.htm]here[/url] and [url=http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/09/business/09botox.html]here[/url] and [url=http://www.mddionline.com/article/how-avoid-label-device-promotion]here[/url]. Those are just the people who have been fined for it recently.Drug companies regularly "suggest" that people use their pharmaceuticals for off-label purposes, sometimes with disastrous effects.
Do you have a cite?
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@davedavenotdavemaybedave said:
@Jaime said:
Unfortunately, you can't both view the ads to decide if you want to see them and make the choice to not see them. As I said, there is no deal. Anything that happens is fair game. Eventually the amount of free content will decline to the point where people are willing to tolerate ads, or the ads will migrate into the content. Either way, the advertising industry will survive this just fine.There is no deal. Advertisers roll the dice every time they sponsor content.
Perhaps I haven't been very clear, then. I agree that advertisers roll the dice, and I think that's fine. I also think, though, that blocking all ads is like letting them pay to play and then taking away the dice.
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@blakeyrat said:
Did you play the trivia game? If your favorite websites were sponsored by things like that instead of traditional banner ads, would you be more likely to visit them?
I'm not quite sure how does that sponsor the site.
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@Spectre said:
@blakeyrat said:
The trivia game featured a character from a movie that is currently in the theaters.Did you play the trivia game? If your favorite websites were sponsored by things like that instead of traditional banner ads, would you be more likely to visit them?
I'm not quite sure how does that sponsor the site.
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@Spectre said:
@blakeyrat said:
Did you play the trivia game? If your favorite websites were sponsored by things like that instead of traditional banner ads, would you be more likely to visit them?
I'm not quite sure how does that sponsor the site.
It's a campaign for Scott Pilgrim on DVD... the company putting out the DVD is getting Fark to promote it by making a fun quiz game and installing it on their site behind a bunch of secret codes (the first of which is the Konami code.)
WTF did you see when you entered it?
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@Jaime said:
Unfortunately, you can't both view the ads to decide if you want to see them and make the choice to not see them.
Only if you view each ad view as a separate event, surely?
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@blakeyrat said:
WTF did you see when you entered it?
I saw "ab" pop up in my find-as-you-type bar, and then I lost interest.
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@blakeyrat said:
@Spectre said:
@blakeyrat said:
Did you play the trivia game? If your favorite websites were sponsored by things like that instead of traditional banner ads, would you be more likely to visit them?
I'm not quite sure how does that sponsor the site.
It's a campaign for Scott Pilgrim on DVD... the company putting out the DVD is getting Fark to promote it by making a fun quiz game and installing it on their site behind a bunch of secret codes (the first of which is the Konami code.)
WTF did you see when you entered it?
Well, now that I know who were all those people, I understand.
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@davedavenotdavemaybedave said:
@DaveK said:
I don't think we need trust estimations of stupidity from someone who, by his own admission, can't figure out how to use a pretty ordinary browser.You need to take things less seriously; I find your stupidity merely tedious and disappointing, rather than painful.
True stupidity hurts. QED.@davedavenotdavemaybedave said:
@DaveK said:
See, there's nothing stupid about me pointing out that debating your intellectually dishonest so-called "point" is not possible as long as you are going to shift your ground whenever an objection is raised; it's you who is engaging in semantics. Let's recap the conversation, shall we? This time with subtitles:You need to take things less seriously; I find your stupidity merely tedious and disappointing, rather than painful. We are talking about the validity of your calling the use of adblockers "stealing". Everything else you have mentioned since then is an attempt at diversion.
@DaveK said:No, that's your (irrelevant straw-man) point. Mine is that it is not stealing to block ads. You are making the Humpty-Dumpty argument that "stealing" means whatever you say it means.
You're the one debating a semantic point and ignoring the salient one. You can call it sheep-buggering for all I care; it's still morally wrong, whatever arbitrary combination of sounds you choose to represent it.
[quote user="davedavenotdavemaybedave"]On the slightly different subject of adblock and similar, am I alone in
thinking it's not quite right to block ads? If that's how a site gets
some money, should I be blocking them? Isn't that akin to saying that
since you can smash a window and get in, it's fine to burgle a house?[/quote]1- "Blocking ads is like breaking into someone's house and burgling it."
[quote user="davedavenotdavemaybedave"]OK, but it's still stealing.[/quote]
2- "Blocking ads is stealing."
So you're saying that it was a mistake on my part to infer that your point in 1 was that blocking ads is like burglary because it is another kind of stealing?
[quote user="davedavenotdavemaybedave"]Ooh look, someone who doesn't know the difference between illegal and
immoral. There's no law against many things that are wrong, but that
doesn't make them right. Not to get all Godwin on you, but the Nazi
death camps were legal in Nazi Germany. Stalin's purges were legal in Soviet Russia. Closer to home, it's legal to lie, or to cheat on your wife. Does that affect the morality of those things?[/quote]3- "Stealing is bad, blocking ads is bad, therefore it was reasonable for me to say that blocking ads is stealing."
See, we weren't discussing whether blocking ads is immoral; that was the first time you brought that into it. We were discussing whether it was stealing. Not whether it has some abstract quality in common with stealing.
[quote user="davedavenotdavemaybedave"]You're the one debating a semantic point and ignoring the salient one.
You can call it sheep-buggering for all I care; it's still morally
wrong, whatever arbitrary combination of sounds you choose to represent
it.[/quote]And now you're going to change your mind and claim you only meant in 2 that it was like stealing, not that it actually was stealing?
So, finally you've come all the way down to just saying that it's some sort of generic moral wrong, and therefore your comparisons to other moral wrongs are valid. I'd love to debate your supposed salient point, but since you keep changing your position, I am not convinced that you have one. Arguing against it is like trying to nail jelly to the ceiling.
Now, if you want to argue that blocking ads is morally bad, go right ahead and do so. But you can't do it by pointing to the moral badness of stealing and attempting to transfer it to the nature of adblocking through overstretched analogies and invalid metaphorical comparisons. You need to say why it's bad, and "Because stealing is also bad" is just a logical nonsense.
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We've done this bit already. You can call it whatever you like. If you don't think that's what stealing means, call it something else. I call what I'm talking about stealing, since it is by my broad, morally-based definition - but if you want to get hung up on exact technical definitions, go for it. Let's stipulate that, indeed, by your narrow legalistic definition it is not stealing, and move onto whatever it was we were talking about now that might be of some vague interest to an intellect bigger than that of an amoeba.
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@davedavenotdavemaybedave said:
We've done this bit already. You can call it whatever you like. If you don't think that's what stealing means, call it something else. I call what I'm talking about stealing, since it is by my broad, morally-based definition - but if you want to get hung up on exact technical definitions, go for it. Let's stipulate that, indeed, by your narrow legalistic definition it is not stealing, and move onto whatever it was we were talking about now that might be of some vague interest to an intellect bigger than that of an amoeba.
I propose we call it "dabflurpsing".
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Dave: "officer, someone has stolen my car!"
Officer: "But isn't that your car, right there?"
Dave: "Yes, but someone looked at my car and didn't pay for it. To me, that's morally wrong."
Officer: "It still isn't stealing, sir".
Dave: " You can call it whatever you like. If you don't think that's what stealing means, call it something else. I call what I'm talking about stealing, since it is by my broad, morally-based definition - but if you want to get hung up on exact technical definitions, go for it. Let's stipulate that, indeed, by your narrow legalistic definition it is not stealing, and move onto whatever it was we were talking about now that might be of some vague interest to an intellect bigger than that of an amoeba."
Officer: gets handcuffs.
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Ooh look, another person who can't understand the difference between the legal definition of a specific crime, and the moral crime that lies behind the law. You do realise that in this country we have a specific offense relating to motor vehicles of TWOCing - taking without owners consent - precisely because joy-riding was not considered theft legally speaking since there was no intent to permanently deprive? Laws are just a codification of our moral views, no more. The important part is the moral aspect, not the legal one. As I explained before, many morally abhorrent things have been perfectly legal under abhorrent regimes.
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@davedavenotdavemaybedave said:
Ooh look, *another* person who can't understand the difference between the legal definition of a specific crime, and the moral crime that lies behind the law. You do realise that in this country we have a specific offense relating to motor vehicles of TWOCing - taking without owners consent - precisely because joy-riding was not considered theft legally speaking since there was no intent to permanently deprive? Laws are just a codification of our moral views, no more. The important part is the moral aspect, not the legal one. As I explained before, many morally abhorrent things have been perfectly legal under abhorrent regimes.
And they made up the name "TWOCing" for the act because calling everything "stealing" makes communication difficult.
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@Jaime said:
And they made up the name "TWOCing" for the act because calling everything "stealing" makes communication difficult.
'Stealing' actually has no meaning at all under UK law. We talk about distinct sub-categories such as 'theft' - appropriation with the intent to permanently deprive - and fraud - obtaining goods or services by deception - and so-on. If you were to ask what all these offences have in common, the answer would be 'stealing'. Stealing is not a narrowly defined term, but the exact opposite. It bears the same relation to 'theft' that 'computers' does to 'laptops'.
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@davedavenotdavemaybedave said:
the difference between the legal definition of a specific crime, and the moral crime that lies behind the law.
Objection!
Relevance?
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@b-redeker said:
Dave: "officer, someone has stolen my car!"
Officer: "But isn't that your car, right there?"
Dave: "Yes, but someone looked at my car and didn't pay for it. To me, that's morally wrong."
Officer: "It still isn't stealing, sir".
Dave: " You can call it whatever you like. If you don't think that's what stealing means, call it something else. I call what I'm talking about stealing, since it is by my broad, morally-based definition - but if you want to get hung up on exact technical definitions, go for it. Let's stipulate that, indeed, by your narrow legalistic definition it is not stealing, and move onto whatever it was we were talking about now that might be of some vague interest to an intellect bigger than that of an amoeba."
Officer: gets handcuffs.
Congratulations. That is officially the worst car analogy ever made.
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@dhromed said:
What's the relevance of the legal definition? Unless the (demonstrably dubious) statement that that which is legal is moral, and that which is illegal is immoral is held to be true, legality is entirely irrelevant. There's no suggestion that ad-blocking is a crime, but if you think legality alone makes something morally right, I despair.@davedavenotdavemaybedave said:
the difference between the legal definition of a specific crime, and the moral crime that lies behind the law.
Objection!
Relevance?
