tasmlab

Follow up: My neighbor, a young kind of punk mother, has a "We the People" tatoo done in the iconic calligraphy of the constitution. I asked her about it and she gave me some lines about how she loves the rights of a free people, and then said she was going to get the seals of the four branches of the military on the other. I then corrected her, as there are five branches of the military but she said she didn't count the Coast Guard, which, sadly, is the only branch that could be described as slightly legitimate to our defense. I ended the conversation politely saying that I studied political theory as a hobby and there was some stuff I liked in the constitution. Said goodbye. Walked back inside. Realized I had probably just lied.

The US Constitution is held up as this great symbol for limiting power. This is taught to us in school and anybody of any political leaning understands this if they were paying attention. This said, the constitution's biggest advocates are often libertarians (using the term most inclusively to include the Paleos, rEVOLution, Cosmotarians, tea baggers, objectivists, god-n-guns chicken farmers, etc.) And, we largely know now that it is pretty ineffective in limiting power, that the paper shield failed, and is a political prop more than anything. But just looking at it plainly as a symbol, like if you were stupid or liked the obvious or came from space, wouldn't it the prime symbol for ESTABLISHING government power? Its main form just explaining the mechanics by which we will be ruled, and then a bill of rights that gives us various permissions, with perhaps the most preposterous being the right to free speech. Oh we are allowed to talk? Why, Thanks! In that line of thinking they could've put in rights like "you can choose when to go to the bathroom" and "It's OK to pick out your own breakfast." So as I convince myself that this is true, I guess as good libertarians we should probably shriek away from the constitution instead of accepting people saying it's a good thing. Thoughts? (Sorry if this is an old topic)

I agree with this. In the end, this is pretty trivial stuff. It's sort of like wondering if using the bathroom at McDonalds without buying anything is immoral. If someone without a lot of money needs to go through the inconvienence of finding a hacked movie, it's not really harming much. I mostly don't do this because I just buy Netflix and cable and watch the movies on my big plasma. It should be noted that Robin (the OP) chooses to pay the highest premium for FDR content.

No. It's actually as if the hot dog vendor said "I wish you to pay me, if you make your own hot dog to the same recipe." For sure, the hot dog company wishes to have me as a customer. But I don't feel bad about making hot dogs at home. And the hairdresser also wishes to have me as a customer, yet I don't feel that I've cheated them if I cut my own hair, even if it's to the same design that they would have used. Today I drove into town, and I followed the same route that the cab drivers take. I'm sure the cab company wishes to have me as a customer and would prefer that I don't copy their route. But I don't feel bad about doing so. Last year, I built a chair with four legs. I don't know who first decided to build a chair with four legs, but I'm sure that person would have liked to collect a payment every time someone else built a chair with four legs. But I don't feel bad that I built a four-legged chair. More examples: I bootleg a copy of Halo and play it on my XBox. I've recreated the $130MM capital investment and the years of development time by doing so. I download "Kill Bill Vol 1" and watch it, I'm filming a movie in the same style as Tarantino. I download a PDF of Atlas Shrugged, it's like I've spent 13 years writing a novel. They don't seem categorically the same. In your examples you do the work yourself (making the hot dog, cutting your hair), in mine there is no work done. It's probably economically utilitarian to treat content as rivalrous goods (to take the other gentleman's term). Even if the digital content knows no scarity, the orginators time does. And the process resembles creating physical goods too (time, capital, labor). If we presume not to pay, then the content will become scarce. It's just the sequencing that is backwards from innately rivalrous goods. The original poster's question was on 'morality'. Someone might be able to make an elaborate case that it isn't immoral to grab a movie, a video game, photoshop, etc., but it is certainlly douchey.

I'm curious, is determinism a fashionable thing to teach at university or something? I've never come across it until reading Sam Harris' book on free will an then seeing it everywhere on FDR. Is it a popular concept or does it just have a few very vocal advocates?

Ha ha, I've long suspected this myself too and it does put a rather interesting slant on the question. However, I'm assuming you know the obvious problem with this of course. That it's mere speculation and just an assertion. It's not something one can particularly hang their moral hat on. Agreed!

So then, what right is being violated? There is no right to 'get what you wish for', you know. I'm not sure I follow your point. I'm merely saying that the company is offering the content with the intent of a commercial relationship, no differently than a hot dog vendor would say "I wish you to pay if you'd like to consume this hot dog." It's not the wishing that produces the right, but the ownership of the saleable good. I'm not sure 'right' is the correct word either. I'm more trying to call this stealing.

Poor Peter Schiff! I was a frequent listener and the day after Stef guest hosted I completely stopped listening to Peter and now just feast on FDR podcasts. Peter probably never should've let Stef on. I still pay my $6 sub to Schiff and am still a fan. The day is just too short for both shows.

One more (a digression) If you ever bother to read the notice at the beginning of the DVD, it states that the punishment for showing it to a group of people, even without charging, is like $250,000. Meaning that if I invite a few of my neighbor's kids over and show "Wall-E" in my back yard it could cost me a quarter of a million dollars. The average American would have to work about 8 years (after taxes) to pay that fee. Isn't that just insanity? What psychopath in the government negotiated that penalty for showing a DVD? and how many people does my rental or say Netflix sub allow me to share it with? It's understood that all five members of my family can watch it while just paying once, but at what point is my circle of sharing too large?

Just for fun/sake of this analysis, let's say that in the hollywood marketing boardroom that they really want a segment of hip, internet-savvy influencers to download their movies in hopes that they'll chat them up on discussion boards, knowing that these market-makers will help sell their product to paying masses. They don't disclose this to the public though and make some perfunctory finger wagging against piracy. Is downloading moral now? There's a popular brand of design software that costs as much as a new Mac computer to buy. A huge population of its users are college students and freelance designers who barely have two nickels to rub together. It's extremely easy to pirate. But, these college students become professionals later and insist that their corporate employers buy it for them at the super-premium price. The freelancers using it also forces their corporate clients to buy the expensive liscenses for themselves for compatability. It's not too much of a stretch to say that piracy is how they secure their adoption, which later gets them their premium from cost-insensitive corporate clients. (Compare with buying MS Office, which is hard to steal but cheap to buy. Or a Iphone app for a $1 - nobody pirates these) Is participating in the design software's business model immoral? I.e., is it wrong for the college student to pirate in this case? All official documentation says they are not too.

I don't think business model is really part of this analysis of whether the downloader is moral or not. All businesses assume some cash loss/bad debt. The existence of shoplifters doesn't invalidate having a store. Or, in your Everest Rock store, the badness of the business model doesn't make it right for people to take your rocks. And I do think the seller's intention and desire is probably worth considering in the 'is this moral?' mix. If Mr. Hooper puts out produce in front of his store on the sidewalk, his intention isn't for people to pick it up without paying even though they can easily do so. To others' arguements about the product being copied and not stolen: that media has this feature of being easily copied unlike a physical good probably doesn't change the morality of taking it without paying. Or let's get folksy and apply the golden rule. If you produced a movie (or let's say "video tax accounting lessons" to take the romance out of the art) at great expense to yourself and wanted to charge people to watch it, would you mind if they skirted that intent and just took it? What would you think if your neighbor downloaded from somebody who ripped it and tells you "Hey, I downloaded your tax lessons online for free and found them pretty valuable. Sure glad I didn't have to pay you. But don't get mad, I have this long philosophical justification for its morality I can share with you."

There was a gaming trend a few years ago with Fable and Knights of the Old Republic where your character was given moral choices and that would shape the outcome of the game and whether your character became good or evil. In the later, it would determine whether you became Jedi or Sith. Kind of a neat concept. (I tried to play KOTOR but found it tedious, despite it being universally highly rated and investing no less than 20 hours in it) Besides the cost-per-amusement-hour differential, the games have some wild benefits over movies, particularly playing them with my children. Instead of just being passively doled out information, we have to figure out puzzles, perform economic transactions, and are actively invested in the outcomes, even if they are pre-determined*. Eventually we will banish Ganondorf, restore peace to Hyrule, and maybe get to kiss Zelda. The amount of reading my seven year old has to do is pretty impressive. And we kill a lot of things too and die a lot. I imagine I have some parenting clean up to do in that respect. * Uh, uh, I meant free will. er, compatiblism. um, fatalism. oh drat....

Everyone is doing a lot of gymnastics about what is stealing or not here. Obviously the maker of the content wishes you to pay to consume it, would stop you if they could, and base their livliehood and investments on people paying to consume it. And, if you were to just outright pay for it on the terms from the manufacturer, you wouldn't have an elaborate conversation about theft vs. copying vs. IP vs. intended contracts, etc., You'd just be plain ole, unequivocally in the moral clear. Not paying elicits a drawn out and dicey moral puzzle. Paying for it is simply and unquestionably right. Subjectively, I say the easy choice is probably right. (disclosure: I download stuff too without paying)

And the other insistence is that it needs to be 'interpretted'. My big favorite is when they just make stuff up that's not even in scripture. My religous sister was explaining to me how God created evolution and guided man's development through the process. Sounds good enough, but it's just not in the book or in any other formal cannon. The beleivers are really in a crappy trap with the Bible being so long and bad and inconsistent. If they could admit that they were lying to themselves for like 10 minutes, they could agree to write a new book of what God beleives are good ethics and behaviors and worship that. You could probably fit it on a pamphlet and it would so superior that even us atheists wouldn't bother debating it. (I know what I'm writing is wholesale preposterous given how christianity works)

I think the video game market is probably like any other media (movies, books, music, etc.) Most of what comes out is crap and you have to search for the small portion that is really well done. Like hollywood and pop music, they keep churning out "Captain America" which is big on explosions and slick images and isn't really that interesting. I don't know how this fares for the market in general. My mother tries to buy my family games without putting in the hours of research I usually do. A game is too long to pick out something lousy! It's like you get triple punished: you lost your money, you lose your time, and you don't get the fun you wanted. Me, my five-year old boy and seven-year-old girl play an hour of Legend of Zelda (currently Skyward Sword) every night and just feast on it. It's great fun.

I'm really enjoying the 470's. Nice job Stef! You are cracking me up whilst I learn (No material feedback, just appreciation)

Hi Joaor, Goodness man, do you LOVE her? If you are looking to get divorced because of this hobby we call anarchism, than maybe your heart isn't into to it to begin with. I'm so bonkers in love with my wife of 15 years that I couldn't even imagine typing what you did. Now I love my three kids too. How tyrannical is she being? Is she just giving him bad ideas about god and the state or is she hitting him? The former is easily survived (most of us went through it) and you'll be super-ahead of the curve in reversing those ideas. Your kid will be a mental giant if you can step in early and often. If she's physically abusive then you have something to work out! And while I bet Stef could (or maybe wouldn't) make a compelling case that abuse and the acceptance of state/religion could be tightly causal, you can certainly treat them as separate problems. So I think I just gave you no advice, but that you are even bringing up divorce is probably an indication that you want to do it. (Here's my Junior Varsity Psych advice based on a 200 character post from a stranger - preposterous!) But in my experience, somebody who loves their wife doesn't talk like you are. Peace!

I would just get out there and try some different things out. One incredibly massive short-change of school is how little they let you know about the diversity of jobs there are. Do think about time (how many hours you put in) and money. Too many people, in my opinion, conflate the activity of paying bills with what they like to do. A lot of times it makes sense to find a job that produces a lot of money and free time and then use that free time to pursue your interests. Particularly if your interests are miles away from anything that produces income, like art, music, philosophy, studying politics, etc. The ideal job is, if there is one at all, is to be an entrapraneur and start your own business. Bosses suck and salary is one of the least effective ways to earn money. You should still probably work for others for a while, though, as school has probably left you wholesale ignorant of commerce (no offense, it's just the most common outcome). It can be hard to imagine at your age, but you may very desire a wife and children some time. This can be expensive, esp if you want to do it on a single income (highly recommended). On the oil business: It's a very lucrative sector overall. Part of the reason, though, why the salaries are high is because you often have to locate somewhere very remote (think North Sea, West Austrailia, middle east, south america) and you often work these bizzaro work schedules where, even as an engineer, you spend three weeks on the rig then get one week to live at home. I have a friend who does this and it's impossible for him to date, have a girlfriend, and marriage/family is completely off the table.

THIS. And in some isolated case of a single man stealing a single meal, we're probably going to let him off the hook because our sense of empathy probably trumps an ethics puzzle. The hazzard is that you know somebody is winding up to make a case for the morality of a galactic-size government and tax burden on the wealthy based on this scenario which probably never actually happens in any Western country. In the US our poor are comically obese. On empathy for hunger: if you even go on a fairly pedestrian weight loss diet, you can feel your sense of reason crumble pretty quickly, and you find yourself making all sorts of justifications because of the discomfort of even just being a little hungry, which is why dieting can be tough (eating small portions of food is simple; dealing with the discomfort is lousy)

I'm pretty sure that's when Will Smith, Bruce Willis, Keneu Reeves, et al throw a flux capacitor into it's brain to save the world.

Great post! Neat thing to think about. If scarcity lessens or disappears via technology the government will have a tough time justifying itself. The question might be how TPTB actually quells technology. Like purposefully create a dark age, sort of like what happened after the Roman Empire collapsed instead of cruising right into the industrial revolution. I guess my other thought is when will people think they have enough? An average poor person in the US has a house, a cell phone, a computer, several televisions, and so many calories that our poor suffer more from obesity than hunger. Could the poor become 10X wealthier due to technology and still everybody is all crapped out with social justice type thoughts?

Just my opinion, but I bet they could execute him and there wouldn't be even a whimper from the general public. I don't think he's well known beyond the liberty movement. For example, I had to explain who he was to my wife.

In one of Stef's very early podcasts he does a nice bit about the fall of the government in that the bad stuff tends to escalate very quickly. Will it sort of look like the swath of govt scandals like we have now? More pronounced? Or are we just seeing a coincidence of bad luck for the US feds? Or maybe the media and TPTB just decided to jazz us a bit? Lew Rockwell posted this nice quip yesterday: "David Axelrod, the former campaign aide, said that the government is far too vast to be controlled by Obama. He was making an excuse, but he's still right. In fact, any president is just a smiley face on the lapel of the oligarchy. Yet we all talk as if he's in control, which is what the regime wants. Because of the predatory nature of the state, especially a global empire, sooner or later the people begin to hate the president, and so the oligarchy changes the smiley face. But sometimes, in these latter days of fascism, it pays the regime to stage an impeachment. It's a great distraction from murderous wars, 1984ish tyranny, plutocratic rip-offs, and poverty-producing Fed crises. While presidents are always eminently hateable, we should always keep our eye on the permanent evil, the presidency, and those who grow rich and powerful from it. What dastardly schemes do they have in mind, or horrific disasters, from which they want us distracted?"

This thread encouraged me to watch it with my seven-year-old daughter yesterday, who really likes the show on her own. I netted out somewhere between 'not my cup of tea' to 'wow, that's creepy that adult men enjoy this' I consume a lot of children's programming ( I have three young children ). I wonder if there are alternate communities for the other hundreds of shows.

Jesse Ventura's book "Don't start the revolution without me" was entertaining, although it wouldn't be on my short list of recommended reading. It's very much like he figured out his libertarianism on his own i.e., he just sat and mulled things and that's where he ended up. He didn't need or choose to read a bunch of Rand or Rothbard or whatever. Which also makes him a little inconsistent. For example, he was really jazzed about his state-funded light rail project when he was governor. What was cool, though, is when he was teaching at Harvard the dean had to ask him to stay away from McNamara (secretary largely responsible for Vietnam war) when he was guest lecturing because Jesse was going to KICK HIS ASS because of the evil and murder McNamara had enabled. I'm a peaceful, non-violence fellow, but BOY would it be unusual and satisfying to see a 70 year old man beat the shit out of another 70 year old man who had sooooo much blood and immorality on his hands.