1. You’re less likely to be robbed, raped, beaten or shot.

Generally speaking, other developed nations have lower crime rates than we do, according to UN crime rate statistics. The United Kingdom, Denmark, and Finland are exceptions (as well as a host of crappy undeveloped nations) – these countries do have higher crime rates than the United States. Don’t worry, though, there’s still plenty of places that offer a safe alternative – most of the EU, for instance, or Canada, our friendly neighbors to the north. Hell, you could even move to Yemen or Russia if you’re just looking for a lower crime rate.

2. You won’t feel the gas crunch nearly as much.

I’ve already discussed in previous posts how other countries are not affected nearly as much as we are by the rising cost of gasoline. Sure, they pay even higher prices than we do at the pump; that’s why the first thing you do when you move is sell the damn car! Though there are big parts of Canada where this doesn’t hold true, chances are if you head across the big lake to Europe, you’ll find you don’t even need a car. In fact, in many cases, it’s a bigger inconvenience than it is a boon. It’s easier to take the incredibly efficient public transit, or even hop on a bicycle for the scenic route. Most countries in Europe are scooter-friendly, too, so you can look dorky but save a ton of money on gas by putting around on a Vespa. Imagine all the cash you could save right now if you could just stop taking your car to work – personally, I’d pocket an extra $160 a month, and I live within five miles of my job. Unfortunately, it’s only a dream for many living outside the major metropolises in the United States.

3. You won’t face the burden of listening to people talk about their faith.

Alright, so this is more of a personal benefit for rational atheists like myself. Being an atheist in Europe is pretty nice. Very rarely will a European confront you about faith. You won’t have some Bible-beater blaring a megaphone in your ear while you’re having a beer at Oktoberfest in Munich. Ask the Naked Cowboy if you can say the same about Bourbon Street.

However, the benefits of a secular state don’t just affect nonbelievers. Our very own founding fathers knew the wisdom of keeping church and state separate, though in practice they did not do a perfect job of implementing it. It prevents discrimination against both believers and nonbelievers; it does not allow the rights of one group of believers to take precedence over another group. Unfortunately, faith has become a major factor in U.S. elections. It’s doubtful a presidential candidate who did not profess Christianity could win any time in the foreseeable future.

Ironically, many EU nations to which you might expatriate do not have the same clause about separation of church and state which we follow in the United States. They’ve just managed to collectively not give a shit about religion for long enough that the same religious apathy has leaked into their public policy making.

4. Castles kick ass.

Let’s face it: the scenery matters. This is the reason I’m thinking Europe > Canada, assuming this whole Russo-Georgian conflict dies down in the near future. Castles seriously rock, and it would behoove you to live near one so you can see how awesome they are.

Ronneburg Castle, Hessen, Germany. It has a catapult on the other side, just in case you question how much ass it kicks.

5. You’ll live longer.

As if castles and a lower crime rate aren’t awesome enough reasons to leave America, there’s the higher life expectancy the United Nations report in many other countries. Canada, the UK, the EU – all have higher life expectancies. Meanwhile, the United States falls at number 38 on the list – just below Cuba and just above the bustling nation of Portugal. Seriously, people, Cuba does better than us on keeping people alive?

We can argue about the benefits of socialized medicine all we want to, rehashing every argument Michael Moore or Ronald Reagan could drum up for or against it, but the fact remains that folks tend to live longer in all those evil socialist countries to which conservatives so fervently wish to ship all us libs. Even if every perceived evil of socialized medicine is true, they’re still doing their job better than we are, if you consider that job keeping folks’ tickers ticking for longer.

Conclusion

Originally, I’d intended to keep this list down to five good reasons. Unfortunately for any American nationalists reading this, I came up with a lot more than five reasons, so we’ll save the next five for next week. Let’s just hope the Bush croneys don’t ship me off to Gitmo before I get around to posting them.

The Record Industry Association of America (RIAA) wants you to believe that unauthorized music downloads are responsible for the music industry’s recent decrease in sales and profits. It has two primary arguments (and since they made The War on Bullshit Blog, you can probably guess what I think of them…)

Individual Downloads

Its first argument runs as follows:

1. “The U.S. music industry loses more than $300 million per year to street piracy alone” (http://www.riaa.com/faq.php)
2. Peer-to-peer (P2P) downloading is way bigger than street piracy (http://www.riaa.com/faq.php)
3. Therefore, the U.S. music industry loses way more than $300 million per year to peer-to-peer downloading.

Whether this makes sense depends on how you calculate a loss. If, every time someone downloads a song, you write that up as a $1 loss, then the RIAA has a point… wait… something smells like bullshit!

A peer-to-peer download only represents a loss to the music industry if, were that download unavailable, the downloader would have made a music purchase. Furthermore, even if the downloader were to buy the song on iTunes for, say, $1, that doesn’t imply $1 profit for the music industry. Profit = Revenue – Expenses. A peer-to-peer download does not create any expenses for the music industry. Recording, manufacturing and marketing a CD does.

The RIAA is trying to hoodwink the public and lawmakers into thinking that it’s being victimized by downloading – that downloaders are stealing millions upon millions of dollars from the music industry each year. But it’s all bullshit. They can’t establish that P2P file sharing is causing their decrease in profits. This causal relationship constitutes a theory, one that can be studied scientifically. And guess what?

There is no scientifically defensible evidence that an individual P2P download affects the profits of the music industry.

At this point, individual downloaders are off the hook as far as tort law is concerned. If the RIAA cannot establish that the individual accused had the accused effect, and they can’t, there is no basis for a lawsuit. End of story. (I sure hope a few judges read this…)

File Sharing as a Social Phenomenon

However, it could be argued that while an individual downloader is not responsible for the music industry’s losses, the social phenomenon of P2P file sharing is. This could still form a basis to outlaw this fine pastime.

The argument the RIAA can draw on goes as follows:

1. Before P2P file sharing caught on, CD sales (or profits, or revenues, or whatever) were rising
2. After P2P file sharing caught on, CD sales (or profits, or revenues, or whatever) have been falling.
3. Therefore, P2P file sharing caused the fall of CD sales.

This isn’t really bullshit, it’s just false. More specifically, this is a classical logical fallacy called post hoc ergo propter hoc, a Latin phrase meaning, “after this, therefore because of this.” This is akin to saying, ‘I drank green tea before that big earthquake, therefore, drinking green tea causes earthquakes.’

There is no scientifically defensible evidence that P2P downloading as a social phenomena affects the profits of the music industry.

In fact, there is significant evidence to the contrary.

Economic study on the effect of music downloads

According to this new study: “the estimated effect of file sharing on sales is not statistically distinguishable from zero,” (p. 3). This is a formal way of saying that the authors found no causal link between P2P file sharing and industry losses.

To make this claim, the authors construct a variety of mathematical models to estimate the effect of downloading on music sales. They conclude: “Using detailed records of transfers of digital music files, we find that file sharing has had no statistically significant effect on purchases of the average album in our sample,” (p. 38) If you read the full paper, you will find that the authors cannot wholly reject a relationship between downloading and sales. This is a limitation of statistical reasoning – statistically, you can fail to find evidence of a relationship, but it’s much harder (potentially impossible) to show definitively that two variables are completely unrelated. Thus, conservatively speaking, this study indicates that, if there is an effect at all, it must be very small.

Thus, in the absence of scientifically defensible evidence to the contrary, the RIAA’s claim that music downloading is diminishing the music industry’s profits are bullshit.

On to Part 2 –>