Mister Mister

Is lying immoral?

The problem with intellectual property rights is they have to be supported with claims on pieces of paper and enforced with a system of laws. If one caveman discovers fire, does he have the right to extract a fine from all other cavemen who discover fire? History is full of people coming up with similar ideas at similar ideas in very different places. The story of Tesla and Marconi both racing to patent the radio, or Graham Bell and someone else with the telephone comes to mind. It is ludicrous to think that because Marconi got to the patent office first, Tesla should not have been able to manufacture and sell his invention legally. Because they can get a drawing on a piece of paper declared their "intellectual property" by the men with guns, no one can benefit from a similar idea without their permission. This has been used to hold back technological progress, GE and many other companies are just sitting on patents that would threaten their fuel monopolies.

The interesting thing is that most people in the game show would not switch. I read a book where they compared this to a real life scenario: Say you bought a ticket to a concert you really want to go to, but the night of the concert, there is a blizzard, and you know it will take 2 1/2 hours to get there, and another 2 1/2 back. You cannot refund your ticket. Will you still go? What if you don't have tickets but your friend calls and says he is not going, and offers you a free ticket. Will you brave the blizzard this time? Most people will go in the first scenario, paying the added costs (5 hours of driving in a blizzard) of a product they have already invested in. Most people will not bother in the second scenario, they feel they have no stake in it and will not invest the costs, even though the demand, or desire to see the concert may be equal. From a logical standpoint, however, they are the same. Does that make sense?

Water, Food, Shelter, Electric Power, Transportation, Information/Communication/Education That sums it up for me. As there are more and more exciting advances in these technologies so is there a rush to centralize and control them.

Great topic. Yes IP requires a container, but when I copy that information into a container I own, is that theft? Not by normal definitions, because I am not taking anything from you by force or otherwise. I think it also speaks to the concept that human creativity multiplies wealth. If a caveman has some tinder, it is not useful until he discovers he can burn it. Of course he can keep this secret and charge everyone to cook their meat for them, but it is actually in his interests to teach the secret of fire to everyone, in that it multiplies the wealth of all society and uplifts everyone. To this end, I hope we are looking at a paradigm-change in this sort of thing. Open source software and technology is a great example. As a musician I am particularly interested in this. Technology is really changing the music industry, like many industries. You all remember the controversy over Napster a few years ago. Most of that has died down because . While Metallica and Jay-Z might have gotten upset over it, the huge majority of musicians think this is great. Instead of signing of the "rights" to all their creative output to a company for a record contract, which is basically a loan for the capital that used to be required to record and distribute an album; the average recording artist can do it all with some good microphones (which can even be rented nowadays) and a laptop, distribute it for free on the internet, and build up a nationwide fan base that will sponsor them on a tour. Anyways I think information technology is really reframing this debate.

Just thought this was funny and well done.