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[Asher]

It works on two levels

Berz, hint: Look left.

[Berzerker]

BTW, do you and Berz both own wifebeaters too?

No, I do it myself.

[Berzerker]

Oh, I'm well aware of Aggies ideology. Just pointing out the problem with his selective concern about monopolies.

[Solver]

Good job Asher. Good to see someone computer-literate on the site. You may even be a match to me .

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Asher

If you think monopolies are bad for the consumers, why are you using Apple products?

This is the last time I'll explain this simple point to you.

Every company has a monopoly power over its own product. For example, only Nike makes Nike shoes (let's forget about the pirates for a minute); only Coca-Cola makes Coca-Cola. The reason for this is that if there wasn't some way of exercising property rights over one's own product there would be no market at all.

Apple's monopoly is no worse than if Nike made it's shoes so that they only worked with Nike brand shoelaces. The point is that Nike doing this doesn't stop or disadvantage people who want to buy shoes, but yet don't want to buy Nike. The competitive market for shoes is still an open and realistically contestable market.

Are you suggesting that Coke give up their monopoly on making Coke and give their recipes to other soft drink manufacturers so that they could compete in the Coke market. There wouldn't be any Coke if people did that.

With desktop computers it is different since Microsoft leverages its OS monopoly to squash competition and to extend its dominance to other areas of computing like internet browsing and multimedia. If you don't like Apple's machines or software you can buy another computer or different software. If you don't like Microsoft's software then you are in real trouble because MS has the leverage to crush other competitors by making formerly open standards effectively proprietary.

It's easy to overstate the case. It isn't a complete monopoly, but it has already enabled MS to effectively ruin the browser market as an opportunity for competition. Imagine how much better it would be if there was a real competitive market for browsers in which money could be made. But now the expectation is that they be given away for free, which stifles the market mechanism.

[Asher]

Do they have competence testing for profs at the UofT?

You know, where they give you logic tests and whatnot? Because you manage to twist everything into a little rubber ball, then shove it far up your ass until it spews out your mouth...

[Solver]

You know, where they give you logic tests and whatnot? Because you manage to twist everything into a little rubber ball, then shove it far up your ass until it spews out your mouth...

An example of a... statement!

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Berzerker

Cool, an anarchist? But why aren't you more concerned with the gov't schools?

Nope. In my book State monopolies are acceptable to correct for market failures. I believe that puts me among most economists. Hardly radical thinking though, is it?

However, if some way could be found of preventing market failures in education I'd change my mind. So far it hasn't happened and the results when we tried it were pretty bad.

[Asher]

Apple controls hardware and software.
Microsoft "controls" (to a lesser extent than Apple) software.

Apple is by far a worse monopoly, the difference is Apple is so bad their marketshare is 2% and falling. And the reason why is because they're such a terrible monopoly.

MS has a monopoly on Windows, not on PCs. That's why you buy Macs, why Urban uses Linux, why servers run BSD.

Apple is a worse monopoly than MS, the only difference is Apple's market is pathetically small due to their ineptitude. You can only find so many class-A morons with money to spend on overpriced crap, since they're apt to spend it on gum to fix their muffler.

[Solver]

Apple is by far a worse monopoly, the difference is Apple is so bad their marketshare is 2% and falling. And the reason why is because they're such a terrible monopoly.

Apple is failing because they did nothing to consolidate their wins. In 1993, Macs were better than PCs, and MacOS was far ahead of Windows 3.1.

[Asher]

Apple is failing because Jobs is a crappy businessman, he should be designing male lingerie, not running a business.

[Solver]

Well, seeing how all the way till MacOSX no progress was done, yeah, that's crappy business.

But Jobs still has more money than you probably ever will...

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Asher
Do they have competence testing for profs at the UofT?

You know, where they give you logic tests and whatnot? Because you manage to twist everything into a little rubber ball, then shove it far up your ass until it spews out your mouth...

I passed the logic requirement years ago. I've also taught formal logic and practical logic and contributed material that appears in a recently published critical reasoning textbook. If you want to criticise my logic, good luck. You'd do better if you realised that you most often criticise the truth of premises of an inference rather than its validity, anyway. The former is not, strictly speaking, a logical matter.

Why do you keep calling me a prof? I know that students in NA call everyone that, but it is really only for people who have a tenured job (and then for people my age it is usually associate prof), not people in the last year of their thesis - even if (like me) they teach and lecture. (I hate being called Prof. or Mr. - I prefer students to use my first name).

[Asher]

So do Columbian drug lords.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Invade China, if this is not the reason what are we waiting for!!!

This is just the beginning