Property rights are a human invention to minimize negative externalities. If I own property I can prevent others from using it to dump their waste, or from farming it and leaving me with the cost of maintaining it, etc. My property right protects my exclusive use of my property from the negative externalities that others may put upon it. At the same time, they prevent me from putting negative externalities on others.
I don't buy into this use of the language... Property rights are simply a form of contract (given sanction through government). The goal of property rights is to secure exclusive use, not to effect externalities. Now, there are externalities to the securing of property rights if property is shifting from public to private ownership, but not if property is shifting from private to private ownership.
There are externalities associated with certain actions (let's say, dumping waste on your own property) that we do carve legal exceptions for. But those are essentially mandated limitations to the concept of property itself.
That is to say, we don't create property rights to deal with externalities, but sometimes we limit property rights because certain otherwise legal actions would have negative externalities on people other than the actor.
Semantics, perhaps.
Copyright is a human invention to protect positive externalities. [...] I have created a benefit for you without significant cost to myself. Copyright is a way of trying to protect in law the benefit I have given you, so that I may capture that positive externality in the form of some kind of payment.
I think you should have said: "Copyright is a human invention to capture positive externalities". Excercising IP doesn't "protect positive externalities", it removes them.
But aside from that clarifying remark, I agree with this entirely.
I also agree that absurdity flows from the concept of IP, and that IP needs to be attacked at its definition rather than at its edges, but I don't know how to deal with the perception that the creators of IP deserve supernormal compensation for thier creation- a perception that I share myself.
Despite the fact that the grandparent didn't really need to be called to task for his semantics (I don't think his semantics were sophistry), I really wish we exposed more people to the philosophical nature of the whole "science v. religion" thing, such as serious discussion on materialism and teleology.
Bravo.
I've often thought that we should require one year of philosophy in K12 education, just so people can learn to think and talk about these things rationally.
Ya. In fact, low tech is probably much better because of maintenance costs and the cost of replacement parts. I would bet most noncommercial farmers in Africa would much prefer a 20 year old standard diesel tractor to the latest Deere 7500 just on repair costs alone (I don't know what kind of acrage they would commercially farm. I think its relatively low, but if not, this argument wouldn't hold). My father keeps a old 4020 diesel that is reasonably easy to work on. I would be afraid to work on some of those newer super-tractors.
The trouble with this argument is that capitalism is ultimately self-defeating. All things being equal, a capitalist system with a truly laissez-faire government eventually gives way to monopolies; the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and eventually there is no real capitalism because an elite few have so much of the wealth that the system breaks--innovation gets stifled instead of encouraged, hence trustbusting etc. The same thing happens in all "pure" economic systems--the only economic systems which have shown to be stable in the long-term is a mixture of "socialist" regulations and "capitalist" freedoms.
This is garbage.
.) If Capitalism is it's own goal, then it can't be self defeating without tying it to a regulatory structure. The fact that markets form in a vacuum should be evidence enough of its self sustaining nature. Assuming Capitalisms goal is to maximize utility, then you could say that it may never realize that, but "self defeating"? It doesn't make sense.
.) Capitalism leads to Monopoly, ceterus paribus? Only with strong externalities. Most monopolies are artifacts of constraints on trade (one way or another). Certainly some industries have strong externalities, but not all do. A thin thread to hang the system upon.
.) There are no pure economic systems except perhaps in microcosms. Its not like there are any command economies that you can point to that don't have markets somewhere.
None of this is really to your point, which is that American Capitalism is a far cry from real Capitalism, and unjust at that. But for some reason, your initial claims really rub me the wrong way... I would prefer that the caveats on the benefits of capitalism be spelled out clearly, because they are real and they should be considered by people weighing the merits of economic systems.
Moralisticly, thats a hard claim to make. Thats the equivilent of the Presidents "We do not distinguish between Terrorists and their hairdressers" position.
Some sort of shared responsibility model is needed, but I'm afraid I don't have one ready made to help.
No one bought the "save the children" argument. You can read the dissent to see what they did buy.
Stevens/O'Connor: The court should give deference to historical intent (specificly making a textual argument about the 21st).
Thomas/Renquist/Stevens/O'Connor: Past legislative acts immunize the states from the commerce clause vis a vis alcohol regulation. This is something that congress has the power to do, if it in fact did in this case. The 21st Amendment is consistance with the reading of previous legislative acts.
In international waters, they won't have to pay for waste disposal.
But I think this is a load of bunk anyway... The US claims an "exclusive economic zone" out 200 miles. That seems like plenty of justification for the government to reach out and do what it wants with these guys if they decide to.
You can get EF-FD converters for Canon Lenses. These are apparently problematic wide open, but are fine stopped down. (I know, I know- when do you ever get perfect light?)
Anyway, I'm happy with my EF lenses. If I have any complaint about Canon, its the EF-S mount type. I don't want to have to buy up to a 20D to get a reasonably priced wide-angle zoom lens. Grrr.
"Seriously, can you point to any large-scale flight to safety from US treasuries to other currencies or assets? It just isn't realistically happening."
I think that your argument represents a realistic potential interpretation of current economic indicators (I'm not sure I'm on board with you, but its hard to know anything about the 'now'). Anyway, in terms of the quoted statement, there is realistic evidence that dollar prices are causing currency flight. Not just in statements by Asian central banks, but in Fed Flow of Funds data. Check out the Z1 release for 2004... you'll see significant declines in growth of foreign ownership of dollar denominated debt. (just google for "fed funds Z1", and enjoy the.gov hits).
Without an inflection point, the data could lead us into trouble in 2005.
meh. I think the metaphore is very apt. Parks aren't "free" by any stretch of the imagination, even if you discount the opportunity cost of the land usage.
Don't get me wrong, I have NO idea about what responsibilities the cities bear for use of their wire, any more than I know about their liabilities regarding public places (I know that they exist, but they certainly can be limited- even by the city itself)...
I've always been leery of taking a translational issue and using it as a justification to end life. Actually, leery is too weak a word. When the religeous start playing lawyerball with the ten commandments, I usually take that as an opportunity to leave the conversation. It scares me.
Certainly "those unwilling to supply ID" is not a protected class. I don't think this is a discrimination issue at all- rather, a law exists to prevent airlines from allowing ID-less flight. Without that, the airlines WOULD be free to require (or not require) ID at their own discression.
More and more, redistricting is used to guarentee seats to incumbents to the point where turnover is now higher in the senate than it is in the house (the opposite of the original plan).
> insistance on unconditional victory...only going to result in eventual loss by attrition.
I don't see this as a singular outcome at all. There are historical precedence for the successul resistance to technologies which limit consumer choice/freedom/etc. DivX comes to mind, or MS Passport.
I don't mean to attack all DRM, but there are some things which _I_ will only consume unencumbered, and if that is true for me, then it is probably true for others.
As long as open alternatives exist or as long as a significant proportion of people choose to not accept encumbered media, then there will be media produced to serve that market (though such offerings may not be equivilent to DRMed offerings). It is not a fait accompli.
Generally speaking, "The Bush Doctrine" refers to the preemptive use of force against potential threat. More specificly, its generally outlined in the 2002 "National Security Strategy" document which broadly outlines aggressive use of American power in the world.
Its like normal preemption, but without regard to intelligence.
VS2003 works really damn well with C#, but I still prefer VC6 for C++ devel. The IDE has really become much harder to navigate, and the only thing that mitigates that cost is that when intellisense works, it is truly a thing of beauty.
And intellisense always works with C# (or as nearly always as I can tell).
But I'm dissappointed with C++.NET (though it looks like this will be mitigated with VS2005), and I'm dissappointed at how keyboard navigation became harder. OH, and I'm REALLY dissapointed about the drop of support for Win9x. Remote debugging is a pain.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't buy into this use of the language... Property rights are simply a form of contract (given sanction through government). The goal of property rights is to secure exclusive use, not to effect externalities. Now, there are externalities to the securing of property rights if property is shifting from public to private ownership, but not if property is shifting from private to private ownership.
There are externalities associated with certain actions (let's say, dumping waste on your own property) that we do carve legal exceptions for. But those are essentially mandated limitations to the concept of property itself.
That is to say, we don't create property rights to deal with externalities, but sometimes we limit property rights because certain otherwise legal actions would have negative externalities on people other than the actor.
Semantics, perhaps.
I think you should have said: "Copyright is a human invention to capture positive externalities". Excercising IP doesn't "protect positive externalities", it removes them.
But aside from that clarifying remark, I agree with this entirely.
I also agree that absurdity flows from the concept of IP, and that IP needs to be attacked at its definition rather than at its edges, but I don't know how to deal with the perception that the creators of IP deserve supernormal compensation for thier creation- a perception that I share myself.
Despite the fact that the grandparent didn't really need to be called to task for his semantics (I don't think his semantics were sophistry), I really wish we exposed more people to the philosophical nature of the whole "science v. religion" thing, such as serious discussion on materialism and teleology.
Bravo.
I've often thought that we should require one year of philosophy in K12 education, just so people can learn to think and talk about these things rationally.
I guess maybe it works for those 1000 folks. :)
Ya. In fact, low tech is probably much better because of maintenance costs and the cost of replacement parts. I would bet most noncommercial farmers in Africa would much prefer a 20 year old standard diesel tractor to the latest Deere 7500 just on repair costs alone (I don't know what kind of acrage they would commercially farm. I think its relatively low, but if not, this argument wouldn't hold). My father keeps a old 4020 diesel that is reasonably easy to work on. I would be afraid to work on some of those newer super-tractors.
Or less, depending. $220 gets you a nice 3 bedroom in a nice suburb in MI.
This is garbage.
.) If Capitalism is it's own goal, then it can't be self defeating without tying it to a regulatory structure. The fact that markets form in a vacuum should be evidence enough of its self sustaining nature. Assuming Capitalisms goal is to maximize utility, then you could say that it may never realize that, but "self defeating"? It doesn't make sense.
.) Capitalism leads to Monopoly, ceterus paribus? Only with strong externalities. Most monopolies are artifacts of constraints on trade (one way or another). Certainly some industries have strong externalities, but not all do. A thin thread to hang the system upon.
.) There are no pure economic systems except perhaps in microcosms. Its not like there are any command economies that you can point to that don't have markets somewhere.
None of this is really to your point, which is that American Capitalism is a far cry from real Capitalism, and unjust at that. But for some reason, your initial claims really rub me the wrong way... I would prefer that the caveats on the benefits of capitalism be spelled out clearly, because they are real and they should be considered by people weighing the merits of economic systems.
Moralisticly, thats a hard claim to make. Thats the equivilent of the Presidents "We do not distinguish between Terrorists and their hairdressers" position.
Some sort of shared responsibility model is needed, but I'm afraid I don't have one ready made to help.
No one bought the "save the children" argument. You can read the dissent to see what they did buy.
Stevens/O'Connor: The court should give deference to historical intent (specificly making a textual argument about the 21st).
Thomas/Renquist/Stevens/O'Connor: Past legislative acts immunize the states from the commerce clause vis a vis alcohol regulation. This is something that congress has the power to do, if it in fact did in this case. The 21st Amendment is consistance with the reading of previous legislative acts.
Thats my 1 penny summary at least.
In international waters, they won't have to pay for waste disposal.
But I think this is a load of bunk anyway... The US claims an "exclusive economic zone" out 200 miles. That seems like plenty of justification for the government to reach out and do what it wants with these guys if they decide to.
You can get EF-FD converters for Canon Lenses. These are apparently problematic wide open, but are fine stopped down. (I know, I know- when do you ever get perfect light?)
_ id=00Bdi1
(pictures)
http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg
Anyway, I'm happy with my EF lenses. If I have any complaint about Canon, its the EF-S mount type. I don't want to have to buy up to a 20D to get a reasonably priced wide-angle zoom lens. Grrr.
"What modern peripherals company does not offer drivers online?"
Pinnacle Systems.
Getting a win2k driver for my DC10+, while theoreticly possible, proved to be beyond my googling abilities.
Luckly, I'm too poor to have a Nikon DSLR. Canon got my money instead. Not that photoshop is a big part of my workflow since I found RawShooter.
(Canon 10D, 50mm 1.4, 24-135mm 3.5IS)
"Seriously, can you point to any large-scale flight to safety from US treasuries to other currencies or assets? It just isn't realistically happening."
.gov hits).
I think that your argument represents a realistic potential interpretation of current economic indicators (I'm not sure I'm on board with you, but its hard to know anything about the 'now'). Anyway, in terms of the quoted statement, there is realistic evidence that dollar prices are causing currency flight. Not just in statements by Asian central banks, but in Fed Flow of Funds data. Check out the Z1 release for 2004... you'll see significant declines in growth of foreign ownership of dollar denominated debt. (just google for "fed funds Z1", and enjoy the
Without an inflection point, the data could lead us into trouble in 2005.
meh. I think the metaphore is very apt. Parks aren't "free" by any stretch of the imagination, even if you discount the opportunity cost of the land usage.
Don't get me wrong, I have NO idea about what responsibilities the cities bear for use of their wire, any more than I know about their liabilities regarding public places (I know that they exist, but they certainly can be limited- even by the city itself)...
Do radio stations pay license fees to music artists? I didn't think they did. (We sure as hell didn't in college radio.)
I've always been leery of taking a translational issue and using it as a justification to end life. Actually, leery is too weak a word. When the religeous start playing lawyerball with the ten commandments, I usually take that as an opportunity to leave the conversation. It scares me.
Certainly "those unwilling to supply ID" is not a protected class. I don't think this is a discrimination issue at all- rather, a law exists to prevent airlines from allowing ID-less flight. Without that, the airlines WOULD be free to require (or not require) ID at their own discression.
"but it is clear that "price of a good should exceed its marginal cost.""
:)
Unless you make it up in volume.
More and more, redistricting is used to guarentee seats to incumbents to the point where turnover is now higher in the senate than it is in the house (the opposite of the original plan).
Its troubling.
> insistance on unconditional victory...only going to result in eventual loss by attrition.
I don't see this as a singular outcome at all. There are historical precedence for the successul resistance to technologies which limit consumer choice/freedom/etc. DivX comes to mind, or MS Passport.
I don't mean to attack all DRM, but there are some things which _I_ will only consume unencumbered, and if that is true for me, then it is probably true for others.
As long as open alternatives exist or as long as a significant proportion of people choose to not accept encumbered media, then there will be media produced to serve that market (though such offerings may not be equivilent to DRMed offerings). It is not a fait accompli.
The next step?
We outlaw mirrors.
> the value of an option is a fiction
So what... I mean, we are talking about book value here. Accounting is all about fiction. Think about depreciation, or rounding accounts.
I'm not saying you are wrong, but its just an accounting method. It will always be an approximation of reality.
Generally speaking, "The Bush Doctrine" refers to the preemptive use of force against potential threat. More specificly, its generally outlined in the 2002 "National Security Strategy" document which broadly outlines aggressive use of American power in the world.
Its like normal preemption, but without regard to intelligence.
Read on the neuros forums for tips on fixing your FM transmitting problems. A little work with a soldering iron and your problems will go away.
That makes sense because just like chattel, when he downloads that TV show, no one else can see it!
Oh wait. That isn't the way idea's work is it?
*shrug* He is breaking the law, he doesn't care- why should you? (or I?)
IP is a blender of confusion. There are pragmatic reasons for it, but the law doesn't make sense, and the language of IP doesn't really make sense.
It makes it very hard to discuss.
VS2003 works really damn well with C#, but I still prefer VC6 for C++ devel. The IDE has really become much harder to navigate, and the only thing that mitigates that cost is that when intellisense works, it is truly a thing of beauty.
And intellisense always works with C# (or as nearly always as I can tell).
But I'm dissappointed with C++.NET (though it looks like this will be mitigated with VS2005), and I'm dissappointed at how keyboard navigation became harder. OH, and I'm REALLY dissapointed about the drop of support for Win9x. Remote debugging is a pain.