Topic: Intellectual Property - In All Fairness! - page 94. (Read 105893 times)

It doesn't work like that. How about some storytelling? I'll go first.

Once there was small village on the alpine tundra. Everyone lived in huts made from the hides of animals. Freddo was a young man coming of age, and although truculent at times, was generally a well liked lad. Imango was another young man of the tribe, and he discovered the property of leverage one day, and soon learned how to apply it to pulley systems, thus enabling any fellow to be able to hoist heavy weights high overhead. One day, Freddo was in a particularly cantankerous mood, and most everyone avoided him, except for his friend Bitkish. Feeling industrious, they built a sort of gantry made from tree limbs over the village's tribal tent. Then, using a pulley system and some frayed ropes, they hoisted the heaviest boulder they could find (rolled down from the hill above), until it hung very high above the tribal tent.

Ayoo, the tribal leader, cast his eyes upon the threatening and rickety structure and asked, "What is this?" Freddo, so proud of his accomplishment, said he devised it as protection from the shaman leaders, who demand that he spend each day either hunting or tilling the land. Ayoo, wise in his ways, called for Freddo to lower the boulder immediately. Freddo, getting ever more pugnacious, said he would do no such thing, indicating that there was no reason to, as nobody was injured, and unless someone was injured, why should there be any reason to lower the boulder? Bitkish, hunkered down behind some animal hides hung out to cure, snickered as he listened in.

Just as Ayoo was turning to discover who was skulking behind the animal skins, the frayed rope broke, and the heavy boulder crashed into the tribal tent, then tumbled down the slope, rolling onto Bitkish. Freddo shrieked, not believing what he was witnessing. Ayoo ran into the remains of the tribal tent, and discovered two injured shamans, one the blood father of Freddo, although Freddo did not know this, as he was raised by Thescripto.

Ayoo banished Freddo from the land, sending him on his way with nothing but all his worldly possessions, which were a spear, a leather skin to hold water, and the animal furs he wore. All the while, a hawk, perched upon the highest point of the gantry looked on, seemingly wise and all knowing.

More people will die if immature kids who fancy themselves as boy racers are allowed to drive 100 miles per hour down the freeway weaving in and out of traffic. To which you would reply: "Damn the consequences, it's wrong to restrict the rights of someone who wants to drive down the freeway at 100 miles per hour weaving in and out of traffic."

And my reply to that is: "You're too immature to be much of a judge of the consequences, and thus lack the wisdom to deeply discuss the finer details of how society should address such details."

So I'm curious what the ratio would be for you. Do you sacrifice 1 man for every 10, 1:100, 1:1000... etc?

Living in a black/white world must make things so much easier.

Consequences matter, very much so.  However, they aren't the ONLY thing that matters.

It's quite telling that you you leave out the most important part of that quote. Here's the full quote:


I reject consequentialism and all such types of arguments. To paraphrase one of my favorite songs, "If consequences dictate my course of action then it doesn't matter what's right. It's only wrong if I get caught." There's nothing logically necessary about "not doing X has bad consequences therefore we should do X". I can give you dozens of examples. Here's one, the universe will be destroyed unless we torture a child until she dies. Damn the consequences, torture is wrong.

Fail.  You confuse a material item (the Sun) with ethics.   You also try to escape your agreement that society is entitled to the way makes it best nuclear weapons are prevented from being used -for unprovoked aggression and threats thereto- where best means the way that has lowest probability of failure. 

Try again.  Next time, try being logically consistent.  You know what http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_consequences is so try to stick to logical arguments.

Well its logic.  You don't have to like it   As the wiki page you suggested says "an appeal to consequences is valid in ethics, and in fact such arguments are the cornerstones of many moral theories" and in this case, the consequences of what you propose are bad so unless you have something better, you lose.

Arguments like this only reinforce my libertarian views. If someone could make a decent argument that actually made sense and gave me pause for thought, I'd be a lot more skeptical. The fact that every argument put forth against libertarianism is so ham-fisted just makes me think I'm right more and more.

Maybe true of the present nuclear system, but that doesn't mean the future can't change. Besides, I could personally care less how inefficient it is, any more than I care that you take the "scenic route" to your destination in your SUV, is an inefficient use of your fuel consumption.

Unfortunately, your regulations are probably going to make that nigh to impossible to attempt because of the "scare" tactics some nuke haters spout, and then convinced their local politician -who most certainly does not have a nuclear engineering background- made a law for. Ignorance and politics is an extremely dangerous combination.


Quite a leap to IP rights. Not going for that one either. An entire waste of conclusion. It's almost as entertaining if I said that the sun doesn't exist because it's dark at night. Wow.

...and another thing, access and threat of use already violates the premises we both set forth. You're already violating the axioms of our assumptions.

Some chemists say meth can be bad for us so we need to get rid of N-methyl-1-phenylpropan-2-amine. Or regulate them.
Some fire arms experts say bullets can kill people so we need to get rid of bullets and the guns that shoot them. Or regulate them.
Some nuclear engineers say nuclear materials can be used to make bombs so we should get rid of plutonium. Or regulate them.

...and so forth and so on....

None of that speaks to the intent or threat of aggression by one person to another. It speaks of possession only. Possession of a thing vs. the threat to use said possession, is not the same. Can you not get that in your head?

Guns don't kill, people kill. Nuclear weapons don't kill, people who detonate nuclear weapons kill. Big difference. You're just trading one persons possessions with another. You merely changed ownership.

I have a friend who is a nuclear engineer working for EDF, the French generator creators.  He says that the present system of generating nuclear power is hopelessly inefficient compared to allowing people have small nuclear generators on their own property. If that could be done safely, electricity would essentially be free as whole neighbourhoods could share a micro-generator.  He also says that the present systems are too unsafe to deploy this solution as it would be easy for terrorists to make "dirty bombs" out of the micro-generators.

If you were a nuclear engineer, I am sure you would have views that are similarly insightful.  But that only an implementation detail so it doesn't concern me The important issue was that you accept that society can choose the best way to regulate to prevent itself being harmed.

Happily, this covers Intellectual Property as well.  You accepted that property rights are created by society, you accepted that society is capable of creating intellectual property rights and now you accept that if society feels it will be harmed by the abolition of Intellectual Property rights, it can enforce them.  Its nice to come back on topic.

I would be happy to discuss solutions to real problems. Society's (or a government's) decision to prevent individuals from owning nuclear arms is not a problem. Therefore, it really isn't worth discussing.

Like I said, if you want to discuss pressing problems, I'd be more than happy to discuss them.

And you already start assuming things about me and others you have no knowledge of...

Well its progress that you now accept society can use the best way to prevent itself being harmed.  We don't need to waste time on implementation as neither of us are nuclear engineers.  If it turns out that nuclear engineers say allowing anyone and everyone access to nukes is the safest way, I don't mind.  But as they don't we don't need to worry about it as the existing system works.

Like all I've been doing here is frothing at the mouth like a rabid dog, right? As if.

Here I thought we were getting somewhere and you go throw that one at me. Why do I talk to you? What the hell...

Alright, I give, yes. Hit me.

P.S. I've got a feeling that some argumentum ad consequentiam or argumentum ad baculum is going to come back to bite me, but oh well. Here goes nothing.

There are lots of big problems with society and government. I'll be happy to discuss solutions to any of those problems with you, when you decide you wish to do that.

Being killed by a nuclear weapon detonated by someone committing suicide is an injustice.  And so far, you are all for that...

Ever considered the fact that your society might be considered by some to be fringe nutcase behavior? I'm all for solving problems, just not necessarily by following the status quo method, neither am I suggesting the whole "system" is broken.

Many people believe that if you sprinkle a little truth in with the lies, that it's still all truth, or we have to take the bad with the good and just go along to get along. Can we not agree that it's okay to root out all injustice wherever and whenever it rears it ugly head?