Uzi battled Nissan motor company because the company thought they had the right to take the domain from a man who had registered it because it's his surname. Nissan Motors should have been slapped with a massive punitive fine for that, but instead they continued to bleed Mr. Uzi Nissan of his resources by suing him repeatedly.
Memo to Nissan Motor Company: it was because of this act of lawfare that I personally renounced ever buying a Nissan again (even though the Altima and Maxima were excellent cars). You deserve to be punished for your actions. I regret that refusing to give you my business isn't worth more.
If you look at his site, when it was a computer shop, fine. Then he started running ads (really trying to profit off nissan motor's brand) related to cars. Then he got taken to court. He played off like a victim forever.
Did he have a legitimate reason to buy the domain originally? Absolutely.
Did he infringe on Nissan's trademark? Almost surely, which is why he was forced to stop.
No real good guy in this story.
What's my background on this? I helped build the most comprehensive database for domain name legal cases (https://udrp.tools) and tend to be involved in areas regarding domain name registrant rights. IP lobby is already way too strong, picking something like Nissan.com as the rallying call really isn't the right move. There is going to be some balance.
The french government intervened in a case and took france.com from the owner claiming sole right to using 'France'
That is bullshit. ICANN is also trying to take away domain name holder's rights to even go to court at all, in case it's an IGO (https://freespeech.com/2022/05/18/icann-igo-working-group-ch...). IGO thinks your domain infringes on your rights? You have zero recourse, and they want to grant immunity from the legal system.
There are some real fucking injustices happening in the domain world that nobody is paying attention too. Nissan.com isn't one of them.
What's wrong with running cars ads on his own websites? Unless he misled his visitors into thinking his site is official nissan motors website, I don't see anything wrong with running some ads on it.
If you owned apple.com and sold apples, all good. If you ran ads for computers and phones, it's a problem and infringing their mark.
Trademarks are supposed to protect a brand in the category they operate in. Using their name and profiting off ads for the same category is cybersquatting. He operated in a somewhat gray area trying to run a computer repair shop with ads and got forced to stop. There is a reasonable argument that running car ads on nissan.com, one of the largest known car brands could cause brand confusion.
I agree with you but honestly if it was another person named Toyota who purchased toyota.com, they would definitely be pursued/sued by Toyota as well. Large Corporations are powerful and will do everything they can to get what they want. It just happens to be Nissan in this case. So I wouldn't treat them any different than the others to be honest.
> Large Corporations are powerful and will do everything they can to
get what they want.
In the scheme of ethical philosophy there is, pretty much by
definition, the most extreme position of "might is right". The
principle text on which is attributed to one "Ragnar Redbeard" [1].
The philosophy is simple. I may rob you, rape you, vandalise, ransack,
lie, pillage and kill, for the one simple reason that I am stronger
and you are the weaker. And the "rule of law" (insofar as it can
exist) must recognise that as my legitimate right. It is obviously an
infantile fantasy. Yet I see it echoed in various forms within these
pages.
First of all, it is something that nobody of sound mind believes,
other than as a pose. It is an anchor point, a strawman from which to
develop real ethical positions.
But most of all, it's a fantasy we occasionally wish as true, because
if it were, these so-called "powerful corporations" would be reduced
to dust and ruin within days by those the real powers in this world
who exercise patient restraint.
Hear hear. A much better worded explanation than my soul would allow.
I’m dumbfounded when the observation is made. On the one hand, if it’s just common sense that large corporations will do what they want to anyone at any time, isn’t our need to fight them on it similarly common? The second part is always left out. Probably rarely on purpose, but always to the benefit of the aggressor.
> if it’s just common sense that large corporations will do what they want to anyone at any time, isn’t our need to fight them on it similarly common?
Of course and "we" do fight them as a matter of routine, and "we" win frequently too.
If that weren't the case, the EPA wouldn't exist, OSHA wouldn't exist, the FDA wouldn't exist, the FAA wouldn't exist, the 40 hour work week wouldn't exist, automobiles wouldn't have a vast number of legally mandated safety requirements, building codes wouldn't exist, and so on and so forth.
It's worth pointing out that the recent Supreme Court case [1] may have changed this back to what large corporations and Republicans have wanted; the precendent that the case sets may then enable Republicans to dismantle the rest of the agencies you mentioned [2]
The few wins we managed to secure decades ago pale in comparisons to the thousands of legislative and judicial victories corporations have won and continue to win since. Even your EPA example was just whittled down by the Supreme Court
It’s not comparable, we rarely win. I’m not sure why you surround “we” in quotes, because the people benefiting from this arrangement represent an extremely small number and it’s unlikely you’re among them.
I am not sure why you are downvoted, because you are dead right. "Might makes right" is exactly the 'philosophy' of the dictators of both countries. Human rights and related concepts are for them nonsense and signs of the weak. The clash between Hitler and Stalin was a clash of two very like minded people.
Some horrid people defend the massacring by Putin by defending the might makes right mindset. They even might think of themselves as independent or critical thinkers. They are not. Might makes right is the doctrine of fascism, and it is good you call out this type of thinking when you see it.
I don´t think so, even more so in absence of any evidence. And I am not from the US.
The US had the biggest power the past decades and have used it to uphold a rule based world order. Be careful what you wish for.
Make no mistake, I have lots of critical things to say about the US. The war on terror was a stupid reaction on the rise of terrorism and extremism, for example. But the US has in general been a real good force for the world.
Wait till you learn what might makes right really means, you will soon regret armchair snarks.
This is low effort, and misguided. They are specifically not instances of might makes right.
Perhaps you have been reading some Kremlin troll factory created and amplified content, that could take root in an already suspicious ground.
The Gulf War[b] was an armed campaign waged by a United States-led coalition of 35 countries against Iraq in response to the Iraqi invasion and annexation of Kuwait.
«The Iraqi military invaded the neighbouring State of Kuwait on 2 August 1990 and fully occupied the country within two days. Different speculations have been made regarding the true intents behind the invasion, including Iraq's inability to pay Kuwait the more than US$14 billion that it had borrowed to finance its military efforts during the Iran–Iraq War, and Kuwait's surge in petroleum production levels which kept revenues down for Iraq.[28] Throughout much of the 1980s, Kuwait's oil production was above its mandatory OPEC quota, which kept international oil prices down.[29] Iraq interpreted Kuwait's refusal to decrease its oil production as an act of aggression towards the Iraqi economy.[30] The invasion of Kuwait was met with international condemnation, and economic sanctions against Iraq were immediately imposed by the United Nations Security Council in response.»
So it was Saddam Hussein who invaded his neighboring country. Also note that the affected countries asked the UN to set things straight here. The US did, in concert with 34 other countries.
With Saddam still in power after that, there was an agreement that Iraq should destroy its stockpile of weapons of mass destruction. In the build up of the war, Iraq did not comply:
«The inspections were carried out by the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM). UNSCOM, in cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, worked to ensure that Iraq destroyed its chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons and facilities.[85] In the decade following the Gulf War, the United Nations passed 16 Security Council resolutions calling for the complete elimination of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Member states communicated their frustration over the years that Iraq was impeding the work of the special commission and failing to take seriously its disarmament obligations. Iraqi officials harassed the inspectors and obstructed their work,[85] and in August 1998 the Iraqi government suspended cooperation with the inspectors completely, alleging that the inspectors were spying for the US.[86] The spying allegations were later substantiated.[87]»
Bush decided to get rid of him on the basis of false suspicions (weapons of mass destruction and involvement with 9/11):
«The United States based its rationale for the invasion on claims that Iraq had a weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program[68] and posed a threat to the United States and its allies.[69][70] Additionally, some US officials falsely accused Saddam of harbouring and supporting al-Qaeda.[71] In 2004, the 9/11 Commission concluded there was no evidence of any relationship between Saddam's regime and al-Qaeda.[72] No stockpiles of WMDs or active WMD program were ever found in Iraq.[73] Bush administration officials made numerous claims about a purported Saddam–al-Qaeda relationship and WMDs that were based on sketchy evidence rejected by intelligence officials.[73][74] The rationale for war faced heavy criticism both domestically and internationally.[75] Kofi Annan, then the Secretary-General of the United Nations, called the invasion illegal under international law, as it violated the UN Charter.[76] The 2016 Chilcot Report, a British inquiry into the United Kingdom's decision to go to war, concluded that not every peaceful alternative had been examined, that the UK and US had undermined the United Nations Security Council in the process of declaring war, that the process of identification for a legal basis of war was "far from satisfactory", and that, taken together, the war was unnecessary.[77][78][79] When interrogated by the FBI, Saddam Hussein confirmed that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction prior to the US invasion.[80]»
Like I said somewhere else, the war on terror was a horrible brain-dead response from Bush. It really has tainted the image of the US, and the misjudgement here has traumatized the US so much that the average Joe wants no foreign policy anymore and hide under his blanket.
However, the background of the war has nothing to do with the theories you will find on twitter. The US made the wrong call here, it was not a selfish move to make a profit from as you will find in "might makes right".
-----------------------------
*Afghanistan*
Bin Laden was leader of the Taliban, which was de facto the government of Afghanistan. By attacking the US on 9/11 the Taliban made an enormous risky move as they opened war with the US. Still, the response of the US was reasonable: extradite Bin Laden. Afghanistan did not comply.
You can rightly question whether the US response was smart here. But you cannot deny that the Taliban opened the conflict with the act of war on the US.
-----------------------------
*Syria*
Are you serious? It's dictator kills the people for asking democracy. Remember the Arab Spring? Young people in the middle east were fed up with severe (religious) oppression, no social mobility and the rule of dictators, they asked for democracy. Putin quickly came to the rescue of said dictators to make sure democracy would not win.
You rather should accuse the US for not taking responsibility, the red line of Obama turned out to be not so red. Here the US has shown to be too tired of war and too confused to fulfill its role.
I recommend to read the article here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_civil_war
And if there’s anyone wondering if this is hyperbolic… don’t take anyone’s word for it here on HN, the nazis were quite clear that they took inspiration from the US.
While the US has its share of might-makes-right neofascists, like any country today, this is definitely not the guiding philosophy behind US foreign policy. The neocons who launched those pointless wars in the Middle East thought they were nation building—helping the populous get rid of petty tyrants and build democratic governments. The policy wanks behind the Vietnam and Korean wars thought they were saving the world from communism. That’s a different thing than Hitler/Stalin/Putin style might-makes-right Social Darwinism.
We're not talking about the behind-the-scenes puppeteering that may or may not have contrived global conflicts. We're talking about the ethos and philosophy of the nation, and what the soldiers on the ground believed they were doing.
Read up on what the German army did in Belgium in WW1, or occupied France & Eastern Europe in WW2. What Japan did in China. What King Leopold did in the Congo, or what the Russian army is currently doing in Ukraine.
There were atrocities committed by the US in the Middle East, yes, but nowhere near the level of barbarism in the conflicts mentioned above, and typically not conducted as a matter of official policy.
Most of Europe believed might makes right until post WW2. Hell, Spain was still a dictatorship until 1975 and a large part of Eastern Europe was still de facto enslaved until the fall of the USSR. Even now you've got a looming dictatorship in Hungary, a dictatorship in Belarus, a dictatorship in Russia, and a dictatorship in Turkey (a quasi European state).
Germany's evil ideology of conquest and might makes right, which was rife in their culture throughout the 18th, 19th and part of the 20th century, was definitely not limited to the first half of the 20th century (not that you were necessarily claiming such). The Nazi ideology was entirely ripped off from existing cultural beliefs that were common in Germany and the greater region at that time and had been for centuries. Hitler was about as non-original as you could get, he simply took common ideas from the culture and swirled them together. Bismarck and Hindenberg were also monsters, Hitler was just worse and was the natural end of their failed, vile culture during those centuries.
It took thousands of years for the Europeans to figure out they needed to banish might makes right.
Just to be clear, a dictatorship isn’t necessarily might-makes-right. Actual might-makes-right philosophy is so much worse than just having a thug in power. It’s the difference between Hitler and the Saudis.
Both are bad, but might-makes-right culture of imperialism is waaay worse in its downstream effects. E.g. the Holocaust and Japanese war crimes in China.
> In the scheme of ethical philosophy there is, pretty much by definition, the most extreme position of "might is right".
I've occasionally wondered, is that not reality for all of us? Even us living in democratic nations? Is democracy at its core not a "might" (through a greater cardinality) makes right of sorts?
> I've occasionally wondered, is that not reality for all of us? Even
us living in democratic nations? Is democracy at its core not a
"might" (through a greater cardinality) makes right of sorts?
The tyranny of the majority? Absolutely. The trajectory along which
many ethical arguments about power roll is to start with the
'Redbeard' straw-man and then offer up increasingly diluted forms,
social contracts and so on, until an acceptable proxy is found for
universalisable systematic violence [1] in kind.
[1] This may not be a literal violence at all. The point at which it
passes under an acceptable threshold, as sublimated power, says a lot
about each culture. For example, acceptance of brutal inequality may
be taken as such a sublime violence - the measure of a civilisation is
how it treats its weakest members.
Democracy is the enemy of the might makes right. Might makes right selects the stronger clan, and selects its strongest leader: that is, the one who follows this doctrine the most brutally and successfully. Because if you don´t, someone else will be more ruthless.
So in a democracy we protect minority interests and curb the powers of commercial entities. And we have the Trias Politica.
You might wonder if we do enough, for example making sure commercial entities are kept under control. Democracy is work, it is not a guarantee you will keep having it. You can lose it, and many entities are fine with destroying it too further their own self interest.
You don´t have it because of how exceptional you think you are. So take an active role to protect it.
Democracy isn't the enemy of might makes right at all.
In actual democratic systems, the stronger great majority (eg the 75% or 90%) can do anything they want to with a weak minority. There are many prominent examples of democratic systems being used to implement might makes right via majority abuse of the minority.
You have to intentionally neuter democratic systems with strict constitutions that protect individual rights, to prevent might makes right from always taking over democratic systems. You have to put very strong constraints in place to prevent the stronger majority from harming the weaker minority; you have to put the democratic majority in a straight-jacket that limits their possible actions for the protection of the minority.
I don´t agree with your wording. You sound like that especially in a democracy the minorities get crushed. But its the democracies that build upon the core idea of alienable human rights, that gives you voting power but also guarantees as an individual. It is no wonder that you will find such constitutions in democracies.
Thats why I said trias politica.
I encourage you to think critically and at the same time ask you to cherish what you have. It is you duty to defend democracy and keep it functioning, or else you will lose it. I am not saying that do you do that personally, but I see a lot of spoiled people in the west that shit on their own chair, by dismissing democracy, even sometimes equaling it with autocratic regimes. Those don´t know what they ask for.
The notion of inalienable human rights is, specifically, opposed to democracy. Democracy needs to be subordinated to that more fundamental principle.
They are often associated only because places where democracy is strong also tend to acknowledge human rights, at least in the abstract. (Obviously autocrats will not acknowledge it.) But it was, and is, often not so. Ask any Jim Crow victim. Or widow of a police violence victim.
I think your outrage over specific transgressions got the better of you, turning you to black-white thinking. It's a fallacy.
If someones right got trampled, that is something to take to the court. The law is there to protect the single man or minority from 'the terror of the majority'.
That's why we mean with democracy not just the ability to vote, but also the rule of law . We also mean the trias politica: law making powers, executive power, and judiciary power al separated.
No one said that in a democracy everything will be perfect. It requires work. It at least gives you the tools to improve it. It is a living system.
Ask Emmett Till about that. Well, you can't, because he's dead. His (admitted -- boasted, really) murderer was acquitted in a trial by a jury of his peers. The murderer's. None of Emmett's, of course.
So, no. Democracy or something like is generally a prerequisite for the notion of rights to even have meaning. But it absolutely does not demand them. Each has to be fought for over many generations. You have to hope your democracy lasts long enough for that. Often enough a neighboring autocrat crushes it.
> You have to put very strong constraints in place to prevent the stronger majority from harming the weaker minority; you have to put the democratic majority in a straight-jacket that limits their possible actions for the protection of the minority.
in a democracy aren't all voices (votes) equal?
if i have more money and power than you, at the ballot it doesn't matter, you and your weaker friends can overrule me no matter how much money i had
Democracy is also two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner. Remember that Hitler was democratically elected and the head of a coalition government, before taking indefinite emergency powers.
Protecting rights is more a consequence of the rule of law, and equality under the law.
power will succeed, but that is very different than believing anything a greater power is capable of enforcing must be accepted as morally correct just because they are stronger
> The philosophy is simple. I may rob you, rape you, vandalise, ransack, lie, pillage and kill, for the one simple reason that I am stronger and you are the weaker. And the "rule of law" (insofar as it can exist) must recognise that as my legitimate right. It is obviously an infantile fantasy. Yet I see it echoed in various forms within these pages.
No, it's an observation that's almost tautological; if you can't do what you want, you're not mighty.
If you require reality to conform to your innate sense of justice, you'll distort your perceptions of the world and react to things ineffectively.
> if you can't do what you want, you're not mighty.
I have to disagree. There are many mighty and powerful people who do
not want to rob, rape, vandalise, ransack, lie, pillage and kill.
> If you require reality to conform to your innate sense of justice,
you'll distort your perceptions of the world and react to things
ineffectively.
Natural Law has its merits, however, innate or otherwise that's
precisely what justice is. All governance modes of societies have
criminal justice systems which in addition to incarceration and
rehabilitation aim to deter/prevent. Yes, that requires a fair
society, but to the extent that exists people do not want or need to
rob, rape, vandalise, ransack, lie, pillage and kill. They are
powerful, benevolent and satisfied.
The only distortion of reality I see is supposing a zero-sum world of
schadenfreude and jealousy in which only relative power counts and
you can't feel good about your power unless it comes at someone else's
expense.
Is there no ethical argument to be made that the domain would better serve the car company? Domain names are a limited resource, is it more ethical to practice "first is right" ethics?
Your question relies on multiple assumptions that not everyone, including me, may agree with:
- domain names should be distributed based on some measurement of "utility"
- the Nissan company is bigger than the Nissan person, therefore they have a higher utility
- domain names control should be changed outside of one's control
There is no perfect way to assign domain names. As you say, first come first serve has its downsides. But I don't like the idea of big capitalistic companies taking over domain names just because more people know them; in fact that's yet another demonstration of capitalism accumulating even more resources at the expense of someone less.
Well, if they believe in markets that's basically what money is for: you think something is worth more to you than to somebody else, then just pay the other party for it.
There's plenty of cases where this kind of reasoning fails, because it doesn't care about ethics, but in this exact situation there no ethical question at stakes, especially since Uzi Nissan bought this domain name in good faith. It's just a matter of how much the two companies value their respective utility for this scarce resource.
(+ insert rant here about how all capitalists love is crony capitalism and how much they hate markets)
It's interesting to ask oneself, I think, how many person-hours of lawyer labor Nissan paid for, and whether less money than that could have been consolidated into one lump-sum payment to Mr. Nissan of "a quantity that immediately bumps one individual up to nouveau-riche class," such that whether he had a domain name from which to do business was irrelevant because he didn't have to work.
Of course, that assumes Mr. Nissan would have been willing to trade at all. Some people aren't motivated by money, which certainly increases the complexity of the "markets solve all things" hypothesis.
They tried to strong-arm him, he resisted and they ended-up both stuck is a dollar auction game[1], a typical game-theory situation where both players end up losing way more than expected gain at the beginning.
If they start paying for stuff like this without any resistance they will lose deterrent of having enough lawyers to bombard you with lawsuits to the end of your life. Now I will think twice if I want to cross any corporation. This is a chilling effect the are aiming for. Shut up or else.
As someone who owns myname.com for 15 years but also shares their name with a minor celebrity who emerged in the last 10, I'm pretty happy that domain names aren't taken away based on someone more well known occuring with the same name.
Arguably, we should. Henry George claimed that a more just society could be achieved with a near-100% land-value tax. If your house sat on valuable land, you would very quickly get pushed out by being unable to pay the land-value tax. Georgists (of which I am one) believe this results in a society that is better overall than the one we live in today.
eminent domain is used in this way, and I don't really agree with the rule, but there is an argument to be made for my land being taken over because it serves some other purpose better than it serves me.
You are also paid "fair market value" in emminent domain takings, they don't just seize your property.
IDK what Nissan Motors offered Mr. Nissan for the domain but I'm guessing it must have been a case of "it's not for sale" because they probably would have paid nearly anything he asked if he'd been willing to name a price.
I've never heard about this Ragnar Redbeard before, but I find it pretty funny because this book was published approximately one century after Jean Jacques Rousseau published a refutation of this exact same theory in Du contrat social (which kind of shows how unoriginal Redbeard thought was).
There is codified in the Constitution of the United States recognition that some will always seek to subjugate others. And an enshrined recognition that this is morally wrong is the Second Amendment: the right to bear arms. Many of the founding fathers of the United States made statements to the affect that a well armed citizenry was the only method by which true tyranny could be removed.
And true tyranny is the living example of "might makes right".
The appeal to "something better" than our base instinct to crush our enemies and hear the lamentations of their women is distinct to Christian morality. No other religion or political ideology makes this appeal.
This is why the United States -- with its distinctly Christian moral foundation -- is unique in the world. The founders recognized first the right of association and speech, and second the right to personal autonomy; to bear arms and kill those who would subjugate or kill you.
I can't tell if this is unhinged xenophobia or satire.
In case of the former: the crusades, any of the millions of athiest or non-christian pacifists, and... I can't believe this needs stating, but shooting someone in the face with an assault rifle is an exercise of "might".
Considering their history of using Gab, you can safely assume the former.
Their complete misunderstanding of the history of both this country's founding and Christianity really help cement that assumption as accurate, though.
It's unfortunate to see that the US education system has regressed so poorly.
Using a social media platform specifically built as a harbor for racists, xenophobes, misogynists, homophobes, and fascists is simply a data point supporting an assertion about your beliefs.
> If my understanding is inaccurate, I welcome correction
You're similarly free to redirect that welcoming attitude toward doing your own due diligence about the topics on which you speak publicly. The US was not founded upon Christian morals [0]; further, Christian morals are objectively shit - any religion with a deity that advocates for slavery has no place in civilized society.
"The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."
-John Adams
That article states plainly that just the Declaration of Independence refers to God four times. I'm confused. The same article earlier asserts that there are no mentions of God in the four founding documents.
If your intent is to ever convince someone who you disagree with I recommend more consistent scholarship that is less hostile and more bent to the truth. I acknowledge that in our fractured time, finding such scholarship is difficult at best.
Thank you for both sidestepping the claims related to Gab and then directly misquoting the article!
To clear up the reading comprehension bit, the article states:
"Not one time is the word "god" mentioned in our founding document." I don't know where that 'f' snuck in, but that statement is referencing the Constitution.
Further, the First Amendment - particularly the Free Exercise and Establishment clauses - perfectly counters your notion of Christianity being embedded into this nation's founding.
If your intent is to ever convince someone with whom you disagree, I also recommend more consistent scholarship. You're certainly right that it can be difficult, especially when even reading an article causes significant confusion.
This world has no place for fascists, period. Good luck with things.
> Thank you for both sidestepping the claims related to Gab
I need not reply to generalizations and libel about my character.
> Further, the First Amendment - particularly the Free Exercise and Establishment clauses - perfectly counters your notion of Christianity being embedded into this nation's founding.
No, it doesn't. It clearly enunciates an individual's right to choose. The ability to choose is, in itself, a Christian idea. According to the Bible, faith in God is not coerced, rather it is a choice to be freely made by everyone. Christ Himself said He came to help those who need Him, literally "When Jesus heard this, he told them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.""
> If your intent is to ever convince someone with whom you disagree, I also recommend more consistent scholarship.
You provided the article as some kind of proof. There are glaring problems with that article.
> This world has no place for fascists, period. Good luck with things.
I argue for self-sovereignty in the form of the first and second amendments. First the rights to free speech, practice of religion, association; and second, the right to protect yourself if someone comes for you or your loved ones.
I want you to have your speech, your religion, and your guns. To speak your mind freely, and to be able to protect yourself and the ones you love when the real fascists come for you. I swore an oath to protect the Constitution and the citizens of this country. I will stand by that til I die.
How is that fascism? I'm deeply confused now.
As for misquoting the article:
> The facts of our history are easy enough to verify. Anybody who ignorantly insists that our nation is founded on Christian ideals need only look at the four most important documents from our early history -- the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Federalist Papers and the Constitution -- to disprove that ridiculous religious bias. All four documents unambiguously prove our secular origins.
Emphasis mine.
In the very next section on the Declaration of Independence the article clearly states:
> Only four times is there any reference at all to higher powers -- "Laws of Nature and of Nature's God," "Supreme Judge of the world," "their Creator," and "divine Providence" -- and in all four cases the references to a higher power appeal to the idea of inherent human dignity, never implying a role for a god in government.
Now, the Declaration of Independence is not a long document. About 1300 words. For the clarion cry of freedom to appeal the Almighty four times in 1300 words -- over half of which is an enumeration of crimes against human decency -- appears to be (to me at least) to be a lot. A lot more than I would expect an atheistic, godless group of men to do.
All that to say, I didn't misquote the article. Perhaps I paraphrased poorly? My claim that the author is inconsistent stands.
> The appeal to "something better" than our base instinct to crush our enemies and hear the lamentations of their women is distinct to Christian morality. No other religion or political ideology makes this appeal.
> The founders recognized first the right of association and speech, and second the right to personal autonomy; to bear arms and kill those who would subjugate or kill you.
Before they recognized either, they recognized the ownership of human beings as property and specially allocated those human properties as fractional humans.
Appeal to emotion, therefore your point is invalid... Didn't expect to read something this vapid on HN. You may as well have said they owned slaves and therefore their ideas are forever wrong.
I would suggest you actually read about the strategy behind the 3/5ths clause; everyone that invokes that as invective merely signals his/her ignorance of that context.
> The appeal to "something better" than our base instinct to crush our enemies and hear the lamentations of their women is distinct to Christian morality. No other religion or political ideology makes this appeal.
I'm not sure Valve would be considered "large corporation", at least at this point. Last time I checked, they had something like 300 employees. I'm not sure where the line would be for me to consider something a "large corporation", but at least 10000 would be my first guess.
Valve has to be worth way more than a billion dollars. A billion is like medium-stage startup at this point. They have to be worth 10x that easy, as a floor. Much higher (100x) for a strategic acquisition from a company like Microsoft.
"Much higher (100x) for a strategic acquisition from a company like Microsoft" is grossly exaggerated. There were only 171 companies worth more than $88.3bn (<100x a billion) as of December [1], a number that may have even dropped during current market conditions. Activision Blizzard is worth today ~$60bn and Microsoft is buying it at ~$68bn [2]. It's one the largest acquisitions they've made, and the largest publicly known amount by far [3] with LinkedIn (2016) second at $26bn.
Agree that Valve is likely worth at least 10x a billion, though.
Interesting, I've never considered the value/valuation/profits to be a part of what makes a corporation large or not, but mainly focused on just the size of the organization. So a corporation could go from small -> medium -> large without even changing the headcount?
It's about the amount of power and influence you can wield. In a discussion like this, "large corporation" is just a shorthand. When it comes to the legal system everyone should be on equally footing. That they aren't is why these things are so upsetting.
Number of employees is irrelevant here. Revenue, profit, holdings, these are what is relevant to the issue at hand. On those measures, Valve is enormous.
In Germany Nissan Motors would have got the domain.
According to german law
"A private person with that name had priority over someone not called that. A company of that name, or a company with a registered trademark has precedence over a person of that name. A city or municipality has the highest precedence"
It's easy to forget that the com in .com is a shortening 'commercial' - i.e. a commercial enterprise. In Australia, (until relatively recently I think), a .com.au domain was restricted to registered businesses. For individuals, there is (was?) an id.au domain.
If I remember correctly, Uzi Nissan was a consultant practicing under his own name and Nissan.com was registered as a commercial site for his business.
not necessarily at all. A rational company would have offered a sum that to them was minuscule part of advertising budget, but a fortune for a single person.
My understanding was that Nissan hadn't even made an offer before suing him for 10M, at least that is how the story goes. They probably could have just offered him a million, or 10, and everyone is happy. Being they are a "large" corporation and all.
It's customary even for BigCos to make an offer to buy the domain first.
It's entirely possible the registrant of a toyota.com (if Toyota the company didn't get it first) would have been made an offer for the domain that would have been easy to accept. Nissan (the owner of nissan.com) was never made a fair offer for his domain.
For folks who haven't read the whole story, the issue Uzi took with them was that they never even made him an offer to buy it, they jumped straight to litigation. He said he would have sold it to them for a reasonable price had they not chosen litigation as their first approach.
That is not the right way to look at things. You should not be harassed legally because someone with more resources wants what is rightfully yours. They can offer to buy, you can decline.
>Large Corporations are powerful and will do everything they can to get what they want
that may be so, but it doesn't make it a good thing, or something we should accept. corporatism is bleeding the world dry, and nearly everyone seems content to sit back and watch. corporations will be corporations, we lament, but resolutely fail to do anything about
fwiw, you are not the only person who avoided buying Nissan over this lawsuit. While they may never be able to see the impact their decisions have had on their bottom line, it is likely more than most people would guess.
I think he's implying that his boycott imposed a cost on him, and therefore had more meaning, because had they behaved differently, he would have liked to have owned a Nissan.
I understand that, but he regrets that his decision could not be more influential.
Which is severely undermined by the claim that Nissan makes great cars
Especially when considering the person making the claim has an implied incentive to hate the cars. He's making a genuine claim that "I want to hate their cars but I cant"
Nissan/Nisan has apparently been the first month of spring in the Hebrew calendar for millennia. And it was borrowed from the Babylonians/Akkadians/Sumerians so I assume it's considerably older in origin.
Does one guy whose name it happens to be really own it more than Nissan Motor Company?
I wonder if Mazda has faced any objections from Zoroastrians.
We justify our actions based on what we've seen others do, not what we believe they would do. That's at least why I wouldn't buy a Nissan, but I'll still buy a different car brand. Until/if that car brand does something equally stupid, then I'll stop buying their cars too.
Should domains be first come first serve though? Why?
Almost 100% of people when they hear "Nissan" think of the car company, so why should that domain direct to some random guy who happened to claim it first?
Why should corporations have more of a claim to property or resources than individuals, just because more people know of them? If they were exercising phishing attacks then fair enough, but if they had a personal website of some sort on there, why the hell should a company get it just because they have the same name?
Because domains pointing to where you'd expect just makes the internet a better place. It reduces dependency on search engines, makes the internet simpler to use, and ideally you could be confident that nissan.com isn't some Joe Blow but a trusted company.
What benefit does "first come first serve" provide? Nothing other than allowing individuals to hijack widespread brands.
Right, but then does McDonalds the burger place get priority, or McDonalds Plumbing, which has been in business longer than the restraunt has existed?
An Even better example is what if Apple Music had registered Apple.com first? At the time, many, many more people had heard of the beatles then computer company in California.
True, but then you can't register a domain under your name because it happens to exist a company with the same name?
I understand trying to prevent people form registering domains they don't have anything to do with just because they're looking to sell them for a high price to somebody that has actually an use for them, but I'm against the idea of extending this to the case of people registering their own name.
When I first heard about this back in High School, I had the same reaction. I hope they put back up the old website or at least a memorial page for him.
Can you please stop posting unsubstantive and/or flamewar comments to HN? You've done this repeatedly, and we end up having to ban such accounts. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for.
I was discussing trademarks and domains with somebody today and tried to show them my favorite long-standing trademark dispute nissan.com but it appears all of the website content has been taken down in May 2022.
The UDRP ("Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy" - the arbitration process all domain name disputes go through - you have little choice as mandated by ICANN for all domain name registrars) has been hopelessly broken in favor of the pursuer for a long time. It's a pursuer pays system; surprise surprise pursuers almost always win. UDRP panels are run by private firms of typically retired judges looking to cash in for easy work, selected by WIPO ("World Intellectual Property Organisation") . WIPO love the UDRP, because for the first time its given them real teeth to enforce something directly. Similarly, if you don't respond to a UDRP notification the case is almost always decided against you and you lose control of the domain, regardless of the merits of the case.
If you want to look up some really terrible UDRP decisions regarding things that can't typically be trademarked under almost all legal systems (place and family names etc), the barcelona.com case is pretty famous. Same too with mcdonalds.com. Nissan.com is just another example sadly.
There have even been UDRP cases where the panel has claimed using WHOIS anonymization was an "act of bad faith" and handed the domain to the pursuer. It's a wild system.
Example of litigating over something that can't typically be trademarked - "Nissan" is a family name. There are plenty of articles online discussing the nissan.com case from the UDRP perspective, which is the typical remedy, and one Nissan can still pursue - you can't escape the UDRP due to the ICANN mandate.
Mr Nissan's hand is rather strengthened when he can show the UDRP panel he won a similar case in a US court of law, which might take the wind out the sails on the Nissan Motors side. For what its worth, the WIPO databases show plenty of other UDRP claims from Nissan Motors.
> I'm not sure what you mean by "can't typically be trademarked".
I mean exactly that - under most trademark law systems, you cant typically trademark a family name. I say typically because like everything there are exceptions.
Uzi Nissan was one of the more interesting people I met as a freelancer in college. He replied to a craigslist ad and we met for coffee. He had some crazy ideas (and conspiracies:) about all the things he wanted to hire a freelancer to do with nissan.com
While the content of the website appears to be down now, according to the whois[1], the website registration itself with it being registered to Nissan Computer Corp. does not expire until 2024.
I'd be up to contribute some funds to have a $5 DO droplet serving the website for some time as well. I'll start by committing to one year of hosting ($60). I'll never buy a Nissan because of their actions against nissan.com, but somehow it doesn't always feel like enough.
Probably not even necessary to do that much. Point it at Cloudflare backed by an S3 bucket with a single "in memorandum" page and host it until the end of technology as we know it for ~$1.
I've learnt my lesson to depend as little as possible on vendors with specific technologies when you want to keep something alive for a long, long time. The less reliance on specific closed-source & cloud technologies, the better.
In this case S3 is just a thing that can serve a static HTML page, which I'm not sure I would consider proprietary in any way, and Cloudflare is just a way to serve it basically for free.
This isn't anything that has proprietary risk of not being supportable/migratable if necessary.
My brother owns (our last name.com). Our great great grandfather started and ran a fairly successful (pre-prohibition) brewery. Someone found out about our last name, trademarked it, and "restarted" the brewery with no relation to anyone in our family. The best part is they feigned ignorance when they "learned" that there were still living descendants in the area...
Good question. We've talked to various lawyers throughout the years. The crappy part is that the people who resurrected it have hundreds of millions in real estate backed ventures (big $$$), so there's really not much we can do aside from pound sand considering we weren't brewing the beer, or enforcing the trademark. The even weirder thing is that they used his name as their contact email for the longest time on their website, made a brew dedicated to my late grandfather (a pediatrician they never met) based on tongue-depresser airplanes he made for his patients, and even had the gall to leave one of their first bottled brews at my great great grandfather's gravesite.
So the only thing I can do is just raise awareness, and tell people who ask me if there is any relation (when they see/hear my last name) to not support them!
> even had the gall to leave one of their first bottled brews at my great great grandfather's gravesite.
That's a weird thing to do. I can see wanting to steal an established brand because people are attracted to legacy, especially in the case of something like brewing.
But leaving a tribute at his grave is, honestly, just bizarre behavior. Are the obsessed or something? Do they think they have some connection to your family?
One of your family should try to work for them, maybe the company will treat them like the second coming. Or human sacrifice. But hey, worth a shot, right?
Yeah, a bit obsessed, I reckon. What irks me the most is my late father collected breweriana from the old brewery (serving trays, tip trays, signs, etc.). From what I've heard, after inheriting some of his collection and attending the bottle/breweriana shows he went to, I found out from a couple of dealers, that one of the guys from the brewery has also been collecting. So now I've got competition with deep pockets in an otherwise esoteric hobby.
Weird folks out there. I’m named for my grandfather, a former MLB player with a World Series win to his name. While back found out there was a man impersonating him after his death, not too far from where we lived at the time.
What a story! Thanks for sharing. I love the bit in there about the lawyer buying the imposter the replica ring. It was written in a pretty unique way. My great great grandfather actually also owned a baseball team named after his signature beer. Random-fact: Abraham Lincoln's granddaughter's husband played for them.
Oh boy, so the story about the ring is it’s own interesting tidbit - my whole life I was told my aunt stole the ring and “traded it for a bag of pot.” Now, my grandfather only had two children so for it to be the exact same story but with my father as the perpetrator makes for an even stranger twist in this whole story.
How did this man have such a similar story? My father lived and worked in the general area of the conman, did their paths cross at a bar? Both my aunt and father were and are substance abusing screw-ups for most of their lives so it could truly go either way!
Unfortunately, I cut ties with my father before leaving for college and so will likely never know. I accidentally found this newspaper article a few years ago while Googling around, wondering if the stolen original ever turned up for auction or something and your comment about searching for merchandise reminded me. I’ve thought about writing to the imposter and or the article’s author but I feel that would sound like a scam unto itself.
According to the proprietor, he claimed that when he went back X days later, the bottle was gone. He took this as a sign that "he liked it". This is a quote from a newspaper.
If every generation since your great great grandfather had 3 children, then you can expect your great great grandfather to have 81 descendants in your generation (most of whom would have a different surname - to a first approximation you only retain the surname if your connection to him is on the father's side at every level).
I'm guessing you wouldn't know all of them, and in the olden days people had more kids so it could easily be a lot higher than that. Isn't it possible that the people running the brewery are also great great grandchildren of your great great grandfather?
Some light googling led me to the brewery in question. On their About page, it would appear the answer is a no. They didn't know who the GG grandfather was until they randomly saw his name on a building, and then decided to name a beer after him.
Say I feel a lot of respect to e.g. Amelia Earhart, so much so that I want to establish an air-exploration company and name it Earhart Air Explorers. Do I need to get an approval from all of her descendants first?
I used to work at a web firm that did Nissan USA's web site. I was in meetings where they discussed ways they would finally get the domain from Uzi. They obviously never succeeded.
I did learn a lot about trademark law despite myself.
That's the thing about corporations: they outlive people. It took Disney 79 years and the trade of a sportscaster's career to get Oswald the Lucky Rabbit back, but they did it.
Uzi was my ISP when I had ADSL in Raleigh and was a pleasure to work with when I had issues with BellSouth's service. I was sorry to hear about his death.
The website was up just the other month, so this is a new development by his family/heirs.
That Nissan Motors didn't immediately grab the domain after his passing may be evidence that domain names are an inheritable asset? Any lawyers have info on this?
No, but seeing as his vehemently anti-Nissan-motors content is gone in entirety from both nissan.com and digest.com I count this as "down" in terms of the website that once was a bastion of internet freedom.
I don't care what happens to NISSAN.COM, as long as it does not fall to Nissan Motors. Ideally, someone should restore it from the last good snapshot and ask for donations to renew the domain on a regular basis. I would be happy to contribute to this effort.
As someone who had no idea who this person was or their legal troubles with Nissan (motor company), I find it strange that this was the battle he chose to fight to define who he was as a person.
Each to his own though. Not a hill I would have chosen to die on.
Perhaps back when his fight with the automaker was going on. But typing "nissan" into Google has returned the automaker as the 1st result for quite a while now (SEO for the win). Someone would have to type the full domain name into their browser to end up at his site.
Memo to Nissan Motor Company: it was because of this act of lawfare that I personally renounced ever buying a Nissan again (even though the Altima and Maxima were excellent cars). You deserve to be punished for your actions. I regret that refusing to give you my business isn't worth more.