Enjoy the circus, Intellectual Property

**poopman** · 02-04-2011 01:36 AM

What interesting times we live in. I am not a religious person at all, but think we are living in times that will be remembered. Do not think you can change anything, do not stress out about things when tshtf. Crack open a beer and watch. Enjoy the ride as we go through whatever is coming. Prepare accordingly but do not fool yourself by thinking you can avoid it. Like a sunset, enjoy it. Good luck.

For those who would like a discussion, the topic of this thread has been changed to Intellectual Property pros and cons - Xaq

**Drokens** · 02-04-2011 02:13 AM

Uh, what?

**Michael** · 02-04-2011 02:15 AM

You lost me at circus. But yes, I will crack open a beer.

**SpecialInterests** · 02-04-2011 03:32 AM

Originally Posted by poopman

Do not think you can change anything

That's the spirit.

**Drokens** · 02-04-2011 03:44 AM

Yeah fuck it, let's not make any effort to do anything at all.

**Spartiate** · 02-04-2011 04:34 AM

Beer at the circus is like 5 bucks fuck that.

**DrunkenArse** · 02-04-2011 08:41 AM

That's why all the cool kids wear baggy pants

**no-Name** · 02-05-2011 04:18 AM

THANK YOU FOR BEING YOURSELF, POOPMAN

Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

That's why all the cool kids wear baggy pants

and make-up

**Invader** · 02-05-2011 08:39 AM

Do not think you can change anything

Do not think it. Know it. I wholeheartedly agree. We can change anything we want to.

**Alric** · 02-05-2011 08:49 AM

You can change a great many things, if you really try. A lot of things have changed in the world because of a single person.

**poopman** · 02-23-2011 07:41 PM

i am just saying don't be foolish and start to protest and get too involved in the political process. its too late. all i am saying is this is a time of preparations. buy food. wish that you would have bought gold. get a source of fresh water you can count on for a bit. get rid of your excess savings and buy food NOW. guns and bullets are probably a good idea too. it has started.

**Xei** · 02-23-2011 07:45 PM

I think buying land and seeds would be a bit smarter, if you think about it.

**poopman** · 02-23-2011 07:53 PM

Originally Posted by Xei

I think buying land and seeds would be a bit smarter, if you think about it.

i agree with you.

**Spartiate** · 02-23-2011 07:46 PM

Pff, some last stand. I'm putting all my money into a helicopter gunship.

**Alric** · 02-23-2011 11:32 PM

Helicopter gunships are probably legal to own in the US. You just need to make sure you know how to repair it and do regular maintenance.

As for buying and stocking up on food, that is a no brainier. Food is usually cheaper if you buy in bulk, and you will always need food to live. So if something bad happens then you are prepared. If nothing happens, then you just saved a little on food by getting it ahead of time. Stocking food is a win win situation, there is no downside. And besides economic crash or the end of the world situation, floods, blizzards and other natural disasters can occur that make food shortages as well. So it pays to be prepared, and there isn't a single reason not to.

As for buying seeds, make sure you get normal seeds and not hybrid seeds. Hybrid seeds will produce a crop that doesn't give usable seeds. So you can't replant them after you grow them once.

**DrunkenArse** · 02-23-2011 11:46 PM

Originally Posted by Alric

As for buying seeds, make sure you get normal seeds and not hybrid seeds. Hybrid seeds will produce a crop that doesn't give usable seeds. So you can't replant them after you grow them once.

Yes and fortunately Monsanto won't be around to sue you for patent infringement after one of their genetically engineered crops pollinates one of your plants and you plant a seed with one of "their" genes in it.

**Xei** · 02-23-2011 11:53 PM

Yes, that is one of most absurd, stupid, disgusting things I recall ever hearing actually.

New pet project: go back in time 10,000 years, collect dude who came up with the agricultural revolution thing, come back to present, give him Monsanto.

**Descensus** · 02-24-2011 02:12 AM

Yet another reason to get rid of IP.

**DrunkenArse** · 02-24-2011 02:16 AM

Holy fuck Blueline! We just agreed about something vaguely connected to economics. Maybe there's something to this 2012 thing after all...

**Descensus** · 02-24-2011 02:50 AM

Originally Posted by PhilosopherStoned

Holy fuck Blueline! We just agreed about something vaguely connected to economics. Maybe there's something to this 2012 thing after all...

If you're interested, Stephan Kinsella has written a book called Against Intellectual Property, available here. It's fairly short (73 pages). I needs to get around to reading it some day.

I would like to point out that he looks at IP from a libertarian perspective, so you might have some issues with that.

There's also Against Intellectual Monopoly by Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine, available here.

**Xei** · 02-24-2011 02:19 AM

Getting rid of IP seems like an epic overreaction to be honest... there's a reason nobody else bought those cars from the USSR.

**Spartiate** · 02-24-2011 02:40 AM

Originally Posted by Xei

Getting rid of IP seems like an epic overreaction to be honest... there's a reason nobody else bought those cars from the USSR.

Are you dissing Ladas???

**DrunkenArse** · 02-24-2011 02:26 AM

Well the fundamental problem with IP is that it corrupts the definition of theft. Any notion of theft has to be based on a concrete notion of deprivation. That is, you concretely had something and then I deprived you of it. Now I have it and you don't. This works great for physical objects. It can be extended into non-physical concepts but not uniformly as our IP laws try to do.

If you have a private journal on a computer and I make a copy of it then prior to my act you had your privacy and after my act, you don't. I've not deprived you of your journal (you still have it) but of your privacy. The same goes for social security numbers and things of that nature.

On the other hand, if you have a program and thousands of other people have that program, then I've deprived you of nothing when I make a copy of it. It's being publicly circulated and I just grabbed myself a copy of it. You still have it, the person that wrote it still has it and nobody's been concretely deprived of anything.

The original author can't definitively claim to have been deprived of anything because I may have paid for the program, I may not have. There's nothing that we can concretely say the author lost.

**Xei** · 02-24-2011 02:31 AM

But nobody would ever make anything because not only would there be no incentive but they would get into debt...

**DrunkenArse** · 02-24-2011 02:51 AM

Originally Posted by Xei

But nobody would ever make anything because not only would there be no incentive but they would get into debt...

First off, I wouldn't consider that particularly compelling if it was true.

Second it's not true. The computer I'm using right now has software that is mostly licensed under the GPL (copy-lefted instead of copywrited. get it?) I can download it for free, use it how I see fit and modify it any way I want so long as I don't deny others the same rights when I distribute it. I can even sell it. This site probably runs on a MySQL server which is similar. Money gets made by charging for support if you're not 1337 enough to RTFM.

Why do people make this software? Because they like making software. And open source software tends to be better anyways because it's made by people that enjoy doing it and has more eyes on it.

Let's look at physical goods. Let's say cars.

Suppose that there was no patents on cars or the pieces that they're made out of. Then anybody could start a company to build any model of car. They could compete on the price with which they build it but they could also compete on customizations which they make. So one company makes a tweak to the design of the Accord. It's a popular change and that company makes some money doing it. Then other companies start copying that change. Another company comes up with a similar tweak. etc.

The point is that it allows the ideas behind the products to evolve in a much more organic manner than is currently allowed by granting monopolies to the first person that happens to think of an idea. BTW, priority should definitely be preserved. If you come up with an idea and I steal it from you in the sense that I pretend that I thought of it first, then I have definitely deprived you of something. But just because you come up with the idea first doesn't mean that I should be disallowed from using it to the full potential that I can think of.