Piracy staying legal in Switzerland - "Pirates still contribute"

[Philip Collin]

Piracy is not the same as conventional stealing.

Stealing definition (from a dictionary):
1. To take (the property of another) without right or permission.
2. To present or use (someone else's words or ideas) as one's own.

Piracy TAKES nothing, it only copies the property of another. Therefore piracy makes no one lose money, only potential sales. Copying a painting for example is perfectly fine, unless you then go on to try to sell that painting (i.e. passing someones ideas off as your own).

Therefore anyone who argues that piracy is bad because stealing is bad has a flawed argument.

In my opinion piracy is fine as long as people don't try to sell it on. I donate money to artists i think are good (and buying their art is a donation). For example i will buy the miracle of sound album even though i can listen to all the songs for free. Why will i do this? Because i want him to keep making songs.

Anyway its impossible to stop piracy. If you track all the torrents people will move to more anonymous networks like freenet. The internet as a whole hates being told what it can and can't do, and therefore there will always be technologies to get around anti-piracy measures. Because of this a better method for dealing with piracy would be to embrace it and see if its possible to make it work for you as an artist, instead of hopelessly fighting it.

 

[DracoSuave]

1 of my friends downloads at least 1 game per week from the internet. He installs it, tries it and deletes it. He never plays it again. But if he finds a game he likes, really likes, he deletes the game and buys the original. Or sometimes finishes the game, waits for a discount and then buys it since he thinks that the game isn't worth the full price.
There are many people who simply delete the game. I would say that over 50% pirates delete and don't play it. If the games had demos, the numbers would be lower.

A sample size of two is not good enough. And unless that number is 100%, piracy is harming sales.

'There exist white-hat pirates' is a fallacious argument; they are outnumbered by 'black-hat pirates' that download a game, don't buy it, will never buy it because there's no economic reason to.

Do some pirates look at pirated software like a shareware/donationware model where they give if they like and it's free otherwise? Yes. But this is HARDLY the way the piracy culture works. MOST people who download don't pay, and most people who share don't encourage others to pay. How naive do pirates think people are to buy that nonsense?

Piracy TAKES nothing, it only copies the property of another.

Except those copies belong to the original owner. Thus by using them you are depriving them of those copies. Thus, it is actually theft. Deprivation of goods.

Or are you going to insist that people don't own their own things, in which case, how do you feel about companies taking YOUR rights to property YOU own?

It works both ways.

 

[raklin]

...Not only will downloading for personal use stay completely legal, but the copyright holders won?t suffer because of it, since people eventually spend the money saved on entertainment products."

...It's tantamount to free advertising; the building of a fan-base who will spend cash on the medium when they can.

Neither one of those statements make any sense at all. If someone can get something for free with absolutely no consequences, what the hell would be the incentive to go spend money on that same something?

To support the developers. Pirates aren't all idiots - they know that not giving back would only bite them in the ass. It's not uncommon in my circle of friends to pirate a game, and if it's not garbage, pay for it and get the legit copy, which is usually worth it so that they can play together/support the devs. If the game is shit, then it doesn't stay on the hard drive.

And then you have the people who already have legit copies who have to go pirate another copy because of retarded DRM (Looking at you, Ubisoft /glare)

Also, I'm really not sure how you don't see the free advertising?

EDIT: As for the whole black-hat pirates, I remind you a large majority of those are kids who have no means to get the game anyways. Not all, but a majority. As for the ones who can afford to buy the game but choose not to, instead solely pirating, Well, that's closer to 30% of the pirates I've encountered, both in person and online. They don't have any moral ground to stand on, not until this whole DRM thing changes in the next decade or so.

 

[DracoSuave]

To support the developers. Pirates aren't all idiots - they know that not giving back would only bite them in the ass. It's not uncommon in my circle of friends to pirate a game, and if it's not garbage, pay for it and get the legit copy, which is usually worth it so that they can play together/support the devs. If the game is shit, then it doesn't stay on the hard drive.

Does this happen 100% of the time? No. I'll bet that there's been games you've 'let slip through the cracks.'

But more importantly, what gives you the arrogance to think you have the right to do this? So what if there's no demo!? we live in an age of lets plays and consumer reviews and forums and information. You seriously don't need a demo to see what a game is about. If you're tentative about a purchase, you review it! You ask people!

You're not entitled to a demo of an entertainment product, any more than you're entitled to a demo of food you buy at the supermarket, or a demo of a toy you buy for your kids. It's nice to have them, but you don't have the right to force them to give you one; that's rediculous.

And then you have the people who already have legit copies who have to go pirate another copy because of retarded DRM (Looking at you, Ubisoft /glare)

Cracking != piracy, tho one is a step in the actions of the other.

 

[Duol]

Snip

Your response is that of a classic hard liner. Use our power that we have worked hard to build up so that we can get what we want. The reason you don't is not because of 'morals' or other wishy washy crap. It's because it doesn't make economic sense, you would lose more than you gain.

Okay let's say that the US ends all ties with Europe, or even just Switzerland, complete trade embargo because they refuse to accept US copyright laws. Wait a second. All those media corps who were going to profit massively from less piracy in Europe just lost the BIGGEST economic block in the world as a market to sell their content... Oops

Of course the repercussions for Europe would be massive too, but fundamentally the global economy thrives off of free trade and relations between states, particularly between the US, Europe and China. Without free trade, they all suffer, including the US.

You seem to be under the impression that the US manufactures everything it needs in house, and that only the US has real IP. I think a lot of Swiss pharma companies would be interested in that. Or German engineering companies, Italian design etc. Destroying relations over something as minor as copyright laws (especially when they are your NATO allies and ultimately want to protect IP just as much as the US does)is just childish.

Every example you use is either blown out of proportion or irrelevant. The wheat example, as said by another poster, is just outdated, not to mention irrelevant to Europe, which has massive quantities of agriculture to support itself. Don't forget it is exactly the state subsidized agricultural produce of Europe (mainly) and the US that is keeping the third world in poverty, so don't label it as some handout.

I already talked about how pointless the military argument is. I do not question the US's military dominance. What I do say is that using it to influence IP laws is ridiculous, impossible and ineffectual. We already talk of the world economy slipping into recession if the Euro collapses. I wonder what would happen if you carpet bombed some of Europe.

 

[Therumancer]

While I tend to focus on the military on the internet, to be honest I think the US would probably do better right now to start leveraging policies like this through people's stomachs. The root of US power is actually not it's military, despite being tops there, but the fact that it controls most of the civilized world's food supply through it's production of wheat. Very, very few nations domestically produce enough food to feed their populations with their own resources. When this has been suggested the US morality has dictated a policy of "we will not use food as a weapon". While it may or may not work well on Switzerland in paticular, I think we could sway a lot of nations by simply refusing to provide food for
them at all if they don't step into line. Our policy of NOT using our wheat to leverage people has caused a lot of the world to forget that aspect of why we're a global super
power and how much they need the US. Evem Asia (which is largely based on Rice) is having some problems and is seeing trade for US Wheat.

Erm... China and India all produce more wheat than the US. Australia, Canada and Russia while making less still make quite a lot of wheat... the US does not have any form of stranglehold on the global wheat economy by any sense of the meaning. While India and China and Russia all have large population, Australia and Canada do not.

If the US started doing what you suggest, I have a suspicion that those other top 4 countries would step up to cover the imbalance and then the US would be in a lot of crap as I'm sure other countries would start withholding stuff the US desperately needs... uranium, rare earth metals, oil, natural gas, precision parts for military and industrial techs...

Other nations only produce more wheat than the US because we hold back our production to cause a glut, we have actually paid farmers NOT to produce wheat for that reason. What's more China and India have huge populations and have trouble meeting the demands of their population to begin with, never mind export to feed the rest of the world. The other nations mentioned just don't have the abillity to produce the amount needed... even if Austrlia and Canada decided to immediatly oppose the US and start giving Wheat away to whomever we were leveraging. See, it's a huge assumption that the US acting in it's own interests would nessicarly cause any paticular nation to oppose us, especially those traditionally allied with us. Especially when you consider some of those nations like Austrlia and Canada, for all of their back and forth with us occasionally, do have vested interests in the US's success. I think a lot of politics nowadays revolve around the US's lack of action and "turn the other cheek" mentality with nations operating under the assumption that we aren't going to do anything and basing their rhetoric and public politics on that, but if our policies change and we become more active a lot of these same nations would probably be saying "about time".

For example, despite what you might think if we WERE to start leveraging nations over things like piracy, things like the UK would probably come down on our side, as would France, and some other nations. It might not seem like it, but all of these nations have huge investments in the media industry internationally, and set policy based based on their relative capabilities. See France might be a world power (as opposed to a super power) but it couldn't leverage another nation like the US can, it's not that powerful, it takes more for them and is harder. Their policies are based off of this. If the US on the other hand steps in to do the heavy lifting... I think you'd be shocked how many nations would be backing us.


The US also has a lot of things you mention, like oil, we also produce our parts overseas largely for diplomatic and cost related reasons. Unlike most nations the US is entirely self sufficient.

See, one big criticism of the US in The Middle East is that we are engaged in a long term energy strategy where we buy most of our oil overseas because it's a finite resource that is eventually going to be depleted. We use their oil, and then when it runs out we've still got our domestic oil production. Nations that have to compete with the US for oil on the market don't care for this since we keep the prices high and take so much from the production a lot of them are left scrambling. Not to mention that as the peace at any price movements will point out, we could use our domestic oil reserves and avoid the entire mess. Truthfully the way we conserve domestic resources is one of the few things we do more or less right as far as our own interests go. Pretty much everything we buy, we have in the US or it's territories.

The bottom line is that whether you like it or not, I don't care for nations basically legalizing theft from other nations and companies for their own economic benefit. We probably won't agree on the capabilities of the US, but I think your mostly argueing because of the hardcore tactics I'm talking about, no matter who they are directed at. Still, I'm curious how you'd go about making someone change a policy like that and stop robbing you. I mean your not willing to leverage through the trade of needed goods, your not willing to use the military to make them stop, your at this point because you've already tried to ask them and they said 'no'. Really there are only so many options. In the end you might be cool with a policy like this, but well.... I'm not.

 

[Philip Collin]

Piracy TAKES nothing, it only copies the property of another.

Except those copies belong to the original owner. Thus by using them you are depriving them of those copies. Thus, it is actually theft. Deprivation of goods.

Or are you going to insist that people don't own their own things, in which case, how do you feel about companies taking YOUR rights to property YOU own?

It works both ways.

If companies only copied things that i own, i lose nothing.

Now if they copied something i own then sold it on, that is illegal (i think pirates selling illegal copies is wrong and should be stamped out)

If they stole something i own then i would lose out.

Piracy only involves option 1.

Also the copies do not remove from the total the creator owns. The creator owns infinite copies, and infinity minus 1 is still infinity.

Anyway this entire discussion is pointless, piracy cannot be stopped. There are no ways that piracy can be stopped, short of full scale monitoring and censoring of the entire internet. And that is a dictatorship.

 

[tzimize]

Another piracy thread.

"One in three people in Switzerland download unauthorized music, movies and games from the Internet and since last year the government has been wondering what to do about it. This week their response was published and it was crystal clear. Not only will downloading for personal use stay completely legal, but the copyright holders won?t suffer because of it, since people eventually spend the money saved on entertainment products."

https://torrentfreak.com/swiss-govt-downloading-movies-and-music-will-stay-legal-111202/

Rather a contrast to the USA's approach and the absurd 'Stop Online Piracy Act'.

Moral absolutes aside (stealing is wrong & developers should be supported), this seems to makes logical sense. It's tantamount to free advertising; the building of a fan-base who will spend cash on the medium when they can.

Yep, it doesn't excuse people who pirate on principle or despite having plenty of money, and it's very difficult to draw the line between 'habitual pirating jerk' and 'well-meaning pirate that gives back'. But the big picture is what's important here.

Great summation of the article:

Anti-piracy advocates claim that piracy impacts their bottom line. The Swiss government decided to test this. What they found was that about 1/3 of the sample surveyed had pirated media in the past, and they found that this 1/3, on average, contributed just as much, if not more, than the 2/3 who did not pirate (again, on average) on any given metric (Such as amount of cash spent and number of products purchased).

The conclusion was that since pirates don't appear to be spending any less money on CDs, games, movies, etc. as non-pirates, the argument that piracy saps money away from the entertainment industry doesn't hold up, and the Swiss government decided that their copyright laws do not have to be tightened in an effort to fight an unproven villain.

:O

What the hell is this fairytale of a country?!!!! They have politicians that think!!! Quick protect them before someone assassinates them or they just go up in smoke!!!!

Piracy TAKES nothing, it only copies the property of another.

Except those copies belong to the original owner. Thus by using them you are depriving them of those copies. Thus, it is actually theft. Deprivation of goods.

Or are you going to insist that people don't own their own things, in which case, how do you feel about companies taking YOUR rights to property YOU own?

It works both ways.

If companies only copied things that i own, i lose nothing.

Now if they copied something i own then sold it on, that is illegal (i think pirates selling illegal copies is wrong and should be stamped out)

If they stole something i own then i would lose out.

Piracy only involves option 1.

Also the copies do not remove from the total the creator owns. The creator owns infinite copies, and infinity minus 1 is still infinity.

Anyway this entire discussion is pointless, piracy cannot be stopped. There are no ways that piracy can be stopped, short of full scale monitoring and censoring of the entire internet. And that is a dictatorship.

You make a scary amount of sense. Are you swiss?

 

[Philip Collin]

-snip

Nopes, half English, half German

 

[Xaio30]

If you can't fight it, adapt to it. Because piracy can't be stopped.

 

[Therumancer]

Snip

Your response is that of a classic hard liner. Use our power that we have worked hard to build up so that we can get what we want. The reason you don't is not because of 'morals' or other wishy washy crap. It's because it doesn't make economic sense, you would lose more than you gain.

Okay let's say that the US ends all ties with Europe, or even just Switzerland, complete trade embargo because they refuse to accept US copyright laws. Wait a second. All those media corps who were going to profit massively from less piracy in Europe just lost the BIGGEST economic block in the world as a market to sell their content... Oops

Of course the repercussions for Europe would be massive too, but fundamentally the global economy thrives off of free trade and relations between states, particularly between the US, Europe and China. Without free trade, they all suffer, including the US.

You seem to be under the impression that the US manufactures everything it needs in house, and that only the US has real IP. I think a lot of Swiss pharma companies would be interested in that. Or German engineering companies, Italian design etc. Destroying relations over something as minor as copyright laws (especially when they are your NATO allies and ultimately want to protect IP just as much as the US does)is just childish.

Every example you use is either blown out of proportion or irrelevant. The wheat example, as said by another poster, is just outdated, not to mention irrelevant to Europe, which has massive quantities of agriculture to support itself. Don't forget it is exactly the state subsidized agricultural produce of Europe (mainly) and the US that is keeping the third world in poverty, so don't label it as some handout.

I already talked about how pointless the military argument is. I do not question the US's military dominance. What I do say is that using it to influence IP laws is ridiculous, impossible and ineffectual. We already talk of the world economy slipping into recession if the Euro collapses. I wonder what would happen if you carpet bombed some of Europe.

No, it's because of morality.

See, your correct that the US is not the only country that has IP problems, and that's why I think your arguement is flawed. A lot of these nations that people assume would oppose the US or come to the aid of whomever we decided to make an example out of, would probably wind up backing us.

The thing with the Pharma companies and such is that it comes down to PATENT laws which is something a little differant. Basically it amounts to people manufacturing and stealing an actual product, as opposed to say someone's video games, TV shows, movies, or whatever. I don't believe the law we're talking about here makes it okay to steal those things that the Swiss have major investments in... but since they don't manufacture much in the way of media compared to nations like the US, UK, France, etc... they feel it's okay to steal that as opposed to paying for it and sending money outside of their economy.

Truthfully I'm going off about the Swiss because of this paticular thread and article, I really don't care where we drop the hammer, maybe it wouldn't be the best group to make an example out of. The bottom line is we need to drop it and hard on someone (or enough someones) to bring people into line with this.

See, I don't agree with you that there are no economic benefits to it. Perhaps there aren't when viewed through the lens of bringing one country into line, but the point is to bring the world into line.

I am also kind of looking at China here, and thinking that this kind of thing might help defuse that situation to some extent. One of China's big defenses on it's own violations is that a lot of the allies of the US and other nations don't carry a uniform policy. While the swiss probably oppose China on terms of patent violations, it's hard to argue the point when they allow certain forms of piracy and theft themselves. China can also point to the US and take a hardline and say "well yeah, but your allies do this, why can't we".

See, I don't see myself as a classic "hard liner" because I'm not talking about strongarming someone just for the lulz or to steal stuff from them. I'm talking about doing it to protect our own interests and prevent ourselves from being robbed... and to me at least there is a differance.

I wouldn't support say waltzing into a country that is an ally or has done nothing to us, bombing it, and then saying "give us trillions or we kill you all". But I do support smacking them around when they are stealing from you... and that is an important distinction. Even if the Swiss don't take it as far as China does, and only violates some things, I can't maintain my stance there while saying it's okay for the Swiss to do this and that they should be allowed to get away with it.

That said, your right, I very much doubt anyone is going to put pressure... of any sort... on the Swiss/you guys.

 

[raklin]

To support the developers. Pirates aren't all idiots - they know that not giving back would only bite them in the ass. It's not uncommon in my circle of friends to pirate a game, and if it's not garbage, pay for it and get the legit copy, which is usually worth it so that they can play together/support the devs. If the game is shit, then it doesn't stay on the hard drive.

Does this happen 100% of the time? No. I'll bet that there's been games you've 'let slip through the cracks.'

But more importantly, what gives you the arrogance to think you have the right to do this? So what if there's no demo!? we live in an age of lets plays and consumer reviews and forums and information. You seriously don't need a demo to see what a game is about. If you're tentative about a purchase, you review it! You ask people!

You're not entitled to a demo of an entertainment product, any more than you're entitled to a demo of food you buy at the supermarket, or a demo of a toy you buy for your kids. It's nice to have them, but you don't have the right to force them to give you one; that's rediculous.

And then you have the people who already have legit copies who have to go pirate another copy because of retarded DRM (Looking at you, Ubisoft /glare)

Cracking != piracy, tho one is a step in the actions of the other.

There might have been a few youthful indiscretions, but I'm older now and don't play that game anymore. It's my personal belief that current US Piracy Laws cut into people's personal rights in favor of Corporate Interests. I point you to the legal terrorism preformed by RIAA and MPAA as well-known examples.

Reviews are useful, and I often do buy a game based solely on reviews and reputation/heritage. As for entitlement... Do you really believe that in today's economic environment, that it's entitlement that drives people to test before buying? It's not. Sixty US dollars is a big risk for some of us, and a review doesn't always agree with our personal taste. In my own case, $60 is close to a 6th of my monthly income, not accounting for Rent, Power, Utilities, etc. The rising price makes it hard for people, but I firmly believe that a larger portion that what this community seems to assume of pirates actually do buy the game in the end.

NOTE: I am not advocating blindly going out and pirating because you can - I'm offering an alternative point of view on a notoriously touchy subject

 

[Ashannon Blackthorn]

The US also has a lot of things you mention, like oil, we also produce our parts overseas largely for diplomatic and cost related reasons. Unlike most nations the US is entirely self sufficient.

Therumancer, I agree with most of your points in some way or another but I had ot comment on this on...
the US oil reserves aren't enough to keep your country going for a long time. You get almost all your oil from current OPEC countries and the US is looking northward to Canada for a lot of their future oil needs. The Albertan tars sands and the Grand banks oil deposits. If the US had massive oil reserves they'd be using them now as opposed to the costly tars and and deep sea drills that comprise the Canadian wells. And yes, I know the US has oil. Currently the US has 20,680,000,000 bbl of proven oil. That ranks 13th in the world with a production life of 10 years. And that's from the CIA website... you're own government (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2178rank.html)

So yeah... you're really a self sufficient oil producing country... thank god you have Canada to bail your collectives arses out when the Middle East dries up... I doubt Russia or Venezuela are interested in helping out much...

As for rare earth... China controls about 90% of the worlds available supply. The US has a large amount in California and Nebraska... most of the rest is is Russia and Canada again. rare earth are crucial to military and industry as they form vital computer parts. So yes the US has a lot of them but would cost a lot to make it operational.

Uranimum, same thing. US has some, not enough to make it last...

I guess the point it, yes the US is strong economically. But anyone who thinks they are either self sufficient or able to boss the entire world economically around is delusional.

 

[Something Amyss]

Why do people keep calling piracy "stealing"? It's stupid really.

Because it's easier than having an adult conversation on the subject.

 

[Therumancer]

The US also has a lot of things you mention, like oil, we also produce our parts overseas largely for diplomatic and cost related reasons. Unlike most nations the US is entirely self sufficient.

Therumancer, I agree with most of your points in some way or another but I had ot comment on this on...
the US oil reserves aren't enough to keep your country going for a long time. You get almost all your oil from current OPEC countries and the US is looking northward to Canada for a lot of their future oil needs. The Albertan tars sands and the Grand banks oil deposits. If the US had massive oil reserves they'd be using them now as opposed to the costly tars and and deep sea drills that comprise the Canadian wells. And yes, I know the US has oil. Currently the US has 20,680,000,000 bbl of proven oil. That ranks 13th in the world with a production life of 10 years. And that's from the CIA website... you're own government (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2178rank.html)

So yeah... you're really a self sufficient oil producing country... thank god you have Canada to bail your collectives arses out when the Middle East dries up... I doubt Russia or Venezuela are interested in helping out much...

As for rare earth... China controls about 90% of the worlds available supply. The US has a large amount in California and Nebraska... most of the rest is is Russia and Canada again. rare earth are crucial to military and industry as they form vital computer parts. So yes the US has a lot of them but would cost a lot to make it operational.

Uranimum, same thing. US has some, not enough to make it last...

I guess the point it, yes the US is strong economically. But anyone who thinks they are either self sufficient or able to boss the entire world economically around is delusional.

We'll apparently have to agree to disagree here. I think your wrong. I think you underestimate the US wheat production and global dependency on it. I also think the figures your looking at when it comes to our oil production consider only what we've currently tapped. The US has a lot of untapped oil that we don't use for various reasons, related to conservation or enviromental concerns (which also shows how we're not really all that desperate).

One issue of political debate for example is how we share a major offshore oil deposit with Cuba that is massive to put it bluntly. We however have these enviromentalist liberals who passed all these laws about what we would and would not do in terms of oil collection to preserve the enviroment and so on. Cuba basically went in there and tapped it with help from China and is selling them the oil, where we can't get involved to take our share of it due to thos elaws despite it already being mined.... I'm not kidding.

That's the kind of thing that I am talking about when I refer to US acting morally as opposed to practically... taking morality to the point of stupidity in many cases.

 

[JoesshittyOs]

This is uh... the most irresponsible thing I've ever heard of.

Wow. There's a point where you have to step in and take the unpopular option. Sure, maybe just kind of avoiding ever giving anyone any repercussions for it is fine. But flat out saying it's fine? If anything, this just means that entertainment products like stereos and TV's will take a huge price hike in Switzerland, and by huge, I mean huge.

I'm not even sure if they can technically get away with this. They basically just told foreign based companies that they're allowing people to steal their products.

SOPA is definitely not in the right, and this is definitely not in the right.

 

[RaffB]

The US also has a lot of things you mention, like oil, we also produce our parts overseas largely for diplomatic and cost related reasons. Unlike most nations the US is entirely self sufficient.

Therumancer, I agree with most of your points in some way or another but I had ot comment on this on...
the US oil reserves aren't enough to keep your country going for a long time. You get almost all your oil from current OPEC countries and the US is looking northward to Canada for a lot of their future oil needs. The Albertan tars sands and the Grand banks oil deposits. If the US had massive oil reserves they'd be using them now as opposed to the costly tars and and deep sea drills that comprise the Canadian wells. And yes, I know the US has oil. Currently the US has 20,680,000,000 bbl of proven oil. That ranks 13th in the world with a production life of 10 years. And that's from the CIA website... you're own government (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2178rank.html)

So yeah... you're really a self sufficient oil producing country... thank god you have Canada to bail your collectives arses out when the Middle East dries up... I doubt Russia or Venezuela are interested in helping out much...

As for rare earth... China controls about 90% of the worlds available supply. The US has a large amount in California and Nebraska... most of the rest is is Russia and Canada again. rare earth are crucial to military and industry as they form vital computer parts. So yes the US has a lot of them but would cost a lot to make it operational.

Uranimum, same thing. US has some, not enough to make it last...

I guess the point it, yes the US is strong economically. But anyone who thinks they are either self sufficient or able to boss the entire world economically around is delusional.

We'll apparently have to agree to disagree here. I think your wrong. I think you underestimate the US wheat production and global dependency on it. I also think the figures your looking at when it comes to our oil production consider only what we've currently tapped. The US has a lot of untapped oil that we don't use for various reasons, related to conservation or enviromental concerns (which also shows how we're not really all that desperate).

One issue of political debate for example is how we share a major offshore oil deposit with Cuba that is massive to put it bluntly. We however have these enviromentalist liberals who passed all these laws about what we would and would not do in terms of oil collection to preserve the enviroment and so on. Cuba basically went in there and tapped it with help from China and is selling them the oil, where we can't get involved to take our share of it due to thos elaws despite it already being mined.... I'm not kidding.

That's the kind of thing that I am talking about when I refer to US acting morally as opposed to practically... taking morality to the point of stupidity in many cases.

..You are arguing about wheat production and using the militairy to threaten other countries over piracy....


What the hell happened to humanity generally being nice, productive and generally not willing to kill unless it was absolutly neccasary...