s.petry

I did not mention IP except that it was wrong, I mentioned very specific concepts that we had before IP. If you disagree with the concept of a Copyright and Patent that I gave I think you should read a bit of history on them. Read for example the Wiki.org information for patent law. The oldest[dubious – discuss] form of a patent was seen in Medieval times. Medieval rulers would grant an exclusive right to a "monopoly." This was sometimes an attempt to raise funds without taxing, although taxes were still imposed.[1] In England such grants took the form of “letters patent”, issued by the sovereign to inventors who petitioned and were approved: a grant of 1331 to John Kempe and his Company is the earliest authenticated instance of a royal grant made with the avowed purpose of instructing the English in a new industry.[2][3] What I stated was that "IP" is immoral and does not fit in with these concepts. Whether it was allowed to happen legally or not is not at question and does not make them moral or correct. There are plenty of arguments and debates which match my opinion. My point is not abstract or arbitrary. Read Groklaw.net and the whole of the SCO vs. IBM trial for commentary from Lawyers, Judges, and of course Philosophers on the subject. The thought that someone can own an Idea is simply preposterous, and detrimental to a functioning society. It serves only those that can afford to buy into the system. The same can be said for allowing corporations to own patents and copyrights as opposed to individuals, but that was not the question originally proposed.

When I was a couple (*caugh*) years younger and attending College I had an incredible Professor for my 2nd term of Philosophy. I was lucky enough to maintain the same Professor for Ethics and Logic as well as the remainder of my Philosophy classes. We (the class) had to argue both sides of the argument. Faking it was not allowed, though in some instances it was difficult. If you learn all of the counter arguments you become much more grounded in your own beliefs and opinions. This would be the advice I give to anyone. Debate with someone else, and change from the "thesis" to the "anti-thesis" at a different date. The most difficult part of this is to find someone that likes Philosophy enough to debate you on both sides.

What you seem to be expressing by "theft out of ignorance" does not change the law. I'll try to stick to Law and Justice by Socrates' definitions. If you intentionally broke the rules, you would be a criminal. If you did not intentionally break the law, you would not be a criminal. The degree of negligence or intent only comes in to play during the punishment for a crime. If you intentionally broke the law, then the degree of intention does not matter. "I saw the phone on the table and took it" is the same as "I took it and only planned to borrow it for a while" is the same as "I saw it on the street and took it for my own". You knowingly broke the rules of society in all three cases. If you unintentionally broke the law, it also does not matter. "It looked just like mine and I put it in my pocket" is the same as "It must have fallen into my luck sack because I noticed it when I went to lunch". Where you may be included to argue is that a person could tell an untrue story regarding the crime to get out of the punishment. Even if you told such an untrue statement, you would still be a criminal. The difference is only that other members of society may not also see you as a criminal. Because of people having the ability to lie, many legal systems use a peer jury to determine the validity of your case. If you were caught drunk driving and plead innocent, your peers that know you drink heavily at times should be able to turn away the untrue statements. The US system has been devoid of fairness for some time, but the premise was originally there. Going back to your first point where the person requested you not be punished. In that instance, your guilt or innocence does not change. Only the punishement for commiting the crime would be changed. In our current legal system, this may require the person "drop charges". In no way does that make you not a criminal, it just means that our society has an unfair mechanism in place where a victim has no sway on the punisment phase of criminality. My use of "you" in this post is a generalization for ease in communication and not a personal attack or assumption that _you_ have done anything wrong.

I don't agree that there can be a third paradigm, because you are dealing with a very two sided issue. Do we allow monopolization of something, or not? I also don't agree that Copyrights, Trademarks, and Patents can be treated as rudeness like you suggest. Each of these mechanisms is designed for a society allowed monopolization. Copyrights are designed for the protection of the author, ensuring compensation for their work Patentes are designed to compensate inventors for inventions that benefit society Trademarks are designed to ensure that society can recognize an entity by a logo. The system in the US needed reform long before the first patent laws allowing monopolization of ideas. There is a constant battle by people trying to extend the duration of copyrights, patents, and trademarks. I have read court proceedings from the 1600s which deal with copyrights that are exactly the same as we have today. Rich guy or Corporation buys Copyrights from an Author and tries to extend them to increase their profits. Prior to telecommunications and computerization, it took a very long time to publish a book. If the book ran out of stock, it took a very long time and considerable expense to produce more books. With advances in technology, the duration of a copyright and invention should have gone down and not up. Having instant access to an authors thoughts today is quite different from even fifty years ago where a book may take a year to reach you, or wait for a speech giver to visit your town, or wait weeks for mail to arrive from overseas. Instead of these things moving down in duration because the time it takes to make something has gone down, protections have moved in the other direction. This does not benefit society, but benefits owners of the protection. In almost all cases, the owners of this protection today are corporations and not people.

I made another post regarding my position on the theory as a whole, but enjoy reading some of the conversation. That said, I'd like to interject two points. The first point is that the question of whether a creator is needed to have a Universe is still as valid today as it was 3,000 or so years ago when we started investigating Philosophy. The second point is that the first point has nothing to do with Theology. Philosophy started originally down the first line of thinking. In a very short time, Theology took hold and became a tool of controlling knowledge and guiding people not think very much at all. In this manner, we should use standard method and reduce the problem. Is theology the problem, or are power craved people the problem? I can ask the same question as people push atheism in a similar fashion. Are people taught to avoid certain questions and believe what they are told to believe over trusting the scientific method and their own critical thinking abilities (or lack thereof). I see ample evidence of this being true. From the people in power perspective, why not control both sides so that I can pit you against each other and keep you from seeing what I do? Manipulation in this fashion was known back in ancient Greece and recorded by Plato. People as a whole have not changed. We still have people that crave and do anything for power, and unfortunately they have advanced their skills with manipulation just as the rest of society has advanced their skills with science.

Intellectual property is immoral, because it is ownership of a thought and not a physical good. At a certain point, ownership of even physical goods can be immoral. Why do we have "ownership" of "things"? While there is certainly an amount of "things" we need to live, raise a family, and be secure ownership of "things" always leaves that boundary and become a tool used for control. We are not talking about copyright or trademarks when discussing "IP" in the business sense, you are discussing owning the idea itself. Go back in history and look at one of the first cases of IP law in a civil court. A company applied for and received an IP Patent for a shopping cart icon displayed on a web page which linked to their point of sale. For doing nothing more than translating something we use every time we visit a store to a graphical representation, this company was allowed to force people to pay them to use the icon, if they allowed it at all. They further used the patent to extort more money so that people could not have any icon that immediately linked them to the point of sale. That last statement is exactly what the concept of IP is about, which is legal extortion. It does not benefit consumers or average members of society at all, it benefits the select few who can get approval by the Government for their "idea". Even if I can make a better icon, or come up with a way of producing widgets faster and cheaper, or simply make much better widgets, IP and patent law prevent me from doing so.

I very much disagree with the premise that belief is a problem, because we all believe in things. A much longer converstation to have philosophically is whether or not the Universe requires a creator (not to be confused with Theology). No matter what you believe about the cause of the Universe, it's a belief. So the question should be "Does Theology cause harm"? To that, I answer "no", but it also depends. To understand why I would answer that way, you must explore and understand what Socrates defined as "The Noble Lie". If you take the term out of context with the rest of "The Republic" the requirement for society to have "The Noble Lie" loses at least some of it's purpose. Socrates also stated that members of society must be educated in Philosophy, which indicates that later in life they would understand the Noble Lie. Earlier in life, people lack the wisdom required and need something as a touch stone. An easy trap for us to fall into is believing that others are as intelligent as we are, and understand Philosophy like we do. Average people don't, and quite frankly I have learned over time that they have no desire to learn. For example, I can try and teach someone what an appeal to emotion argument is, and immediatly use an appeal to emotion to change their opinion. Not because they can't learn, but rather that learning requires a desire to learn. If one day Philosophers ruled the world, perhaps people would be educated globally on Philosophy. It's possible for that day to come, but it's not today or even tomorrow.