Yes, my little hypothetical dialogue was meant to address exactly this part of Anonymous Brave Guy's argument. Just how long — 20 or 75 years — I am not sure.
But I would not object to it being perpetual, actually — tangible property has no expiration date, why should intellectual property be different?
There is no natural right to intellectual property
There is no natural right to physical property either. It is an abstraction some societies maintain in some shape or form. In properly Socialist countries, for example — such as USSR — an individual could not possibly own means of production. (Which, BTW, follows immediately from the very definition of "Socialism".)
So the children will have to work, so what? The children of every non-inventor (or copyright holder) have to work as well.
Non-inventors can leave their kids some tangible property. Inventors may little other than intellectual legacy.
If we want to encourage inventions, we ought to consider the latter to be no less valuable. Allowing it to survive the creator's demise is crucial to that.
That exception and the associated rules are being repealed.
The shitty write-up omitted this crucial bit...
And of course there is the usual logical argument about how copyright is supposed to incentivise the creation and sharing of new works, so retrospectively extending it to works several decades old so the rights will last longer than an entire human lifetime is surely going to be an effective incentive for the long-dead creators of many of those works to create more.
- Dear, you got to stop messing with that contraption of yours and find a real job!!
- But, honey, when I'm done, my invention will bring billions!
- I know, but you and I are 50 years old already and our kids will be paying off your debts for decades, while everybody will get your patent for free after you die.
- Did they really pass that stupid law ending intellectual property, when the inventor dies?
- Yes! And, had you paid attention to things happening around you, you would've known that. And you would have also noticed that strange van parked right outside too...
you can escalate them and ultimately have the dog removed
That would've been fine in my book — assuming, you try to talk the offender first, and only "go G" if he flips you off.
But the GP didn't do that — he, in his own words: "created an incessant flow of legal documents from local council, police, neighbors, etc". Such abuse of legal process makes one an arsehole in one's own right.
extends the copyright of artistic objects like designer chairs from 25 years after they were first marketed to 70 years after the creator's death
So, they sky must've fallen already — if the write-up and the title are to be believed, it was already illegal to photograph those objects in many circumstances...
Indeed. It'll be interesting to see how our anti-government types turn this into something bad.
Relax. Operating street traffic-devices is accepted as the government's responsibility by almost all Libertarians. As long as running a wire to each light made sense for that purpose, over-provisioning a little bit for a proper conduit is fine.
When Hitler attacked the Soviet Union, they weren't prepared
They weren't prepared to defend — because they were themselves preparing for an assault. Exactly when it was going to happen and whether Hitler knew about it remains an argument among historians, but they are all in agreement, that USSR was preparing for attack.
An attack-posture favors different weapons and training: faster and lighter vehicles rather than heavier dug-in equipment, materiel-depots as well as artillery and bombers positioned very close to border (to bomb the enemy's defenders on his side), rather than further back (to bomb the advancing invader on your own land), etc. Hitler surprised Stalin and was able to overrun all of those positions and hardware.
If, instead, Stalin helped the Poland's significant military, Hitler's efforts would've ended there — if he'd even tried it at all. See the other fork of this thread for more links to citations.
But, at any rate, Hitler and Stalin were allies, when WW2 was starting — both share responsibility for it.
Well, just like the British would have stopped Hitler after bringing Austria home into the Reich.
No, not "just like" — for British to stop Hitler, they would've had to fight. For Stalin to stop him, he just had to abolish his own imperialistic designs — on Baltic republics, Finland, and Eastern Poland.
Taking an expensive and bloody action vs. not taking one. That's not at all "just like"...
Not sure, I kind of like my couch... I think, I'd start with becoming the nice and round 3 (or, maybe, 4) — to make it simpler computer square footage.
I doubt, a Reason-contributing Libertarian would be adding new laws. Though, technically, abolition of an existing law is itself a law, we may be better off asking, what Mr. Godwin would start with dropping.
German forces entering the Soviet Union saw no signs of a planned offensive.
They did, actually — and I linked to evidence earlier.
Most of the army was on the border, which makes sense for defence
Not at all — the exact opposite is true! If you prepare for defence, you do not place materiel depots on the very border. You don't place your bombers and artillery there either — because an enemy can overrun those in a quick attack, which is exactly, what happened in 1941 and became such an awful problem for the USSR.
No, if you are truly preparing for defence, you position such long-range weaponry as bombers and artillery away from the border — where they'll be able to hit the advancing invader without themselves being an easy target for his weapons, which still need to be set up on the newly-captured territory.
Polish Army [...] been beaten and had no hope of victory
We'll never know for sure now, would we? They didn't have tanks or airforce, but they had plenty of highly-motivated soldiers and officers with perfectly functional rifles, and ample artillery. Having a secure back, they could've dug in for defensive operations, while those slow-moving allies of theirs (Britain, France) made up their sorry minds about helping. Heck, Stalin himself could've helped them — thus preventing an invasion of his own country two years later — but instead he stabbed them in the back.
with large numbers of Poles taken prisoner
This is not very important to this argument, but I'm not aware of any significant number of Polish military taken prisoner by Germans in 1939. Can you cite something?
Stalin would not have attacked Poland without the initial German invasion
And Hitler would not have attacked them without securing Stalin's cooperation either — both wurdulacs are responsible...
So neither the annexation of the Sudetenland by Germany
I doubt, Hitler would've gone further without securing either British or Soviet support or, at the least, "neutrality" first.
invasion in China by the Japanese
Yes, some of the blame for starting WW2 is on the Japanese too. That said, I would not even consider the American-Japanese war to be part of WW2 — the conflict was (almost) purely between these two countries, and neither one coordinated its actions with nor received much support from its allies.
Or the first two weeks where Germany alone invaded Poland
That happened because of the secret agreement with Stalin — when (and whether) Soviet troops began participating is unimportant. Stalin bears responsibility because he promised Hitler his cooperation.
If we shock and awe 30,000 people based on bad information, are we better than a society which kills a few hundred people to eat?
Yes, we are. But the above quote is so awesome, I'll bookmark it for the next time I argue with an America-hating zealot — not all of you would be willing to admit to holding an opinion, America is worse than cannibals.
Although you would not answer my question, you no longer have to, because you've already admitted, that some cultures are worse than others. We remain in disagreement, over just who is better, but we agree, that not cultures are equally good — and that was my point from the beginning.
Now that we've established that, why is it automatically bad ("bigoted", "narrow-minded", "racist" even) of representatives of one culture to view representatives of another as others, to, perhaps, not want to associate with them too much, and resent seeing more and more of them as neighbours?
Perhaps, you think, American culture is so bad, it can be improved by being diluted with as many of those cannibals, as can be persuaded to come over here? And, if not enough willing cannibals can be found in the world, folks who cut off girls' clitorises and who stone people to death over adultery should be used instead?
jackass [...] punk [...] another pile of insults
I have never insulted you, asshole. But not any more, crotch-stink. By calling me names, you not only handed me a victory in this debate (as if anyone had any doubts), you've proven yourself — even to observers most partial to your line of "reasoning" — incapable of participating in an argument. Get off my Slashdot for a few months and scrub those sorry wits of yours daily — they are entirely too dim for you to even turn a TV on without adult supervision.
Maybe. The point was, while each individual Italian was, probably, a reasonably nice person, by importing too many at once, America imported Italy's Mafia-problem with them. Those Italians didn't become Americans — they corrupted America with their old-world habits instead — today, decades later, the country is still not quite clean of them.
It is perfectly reasonable to be concerned, that America is now repeating a similar mistake by importing too many Muslims at once.
Yeah, how much of that health care cost is profit for insurance companies?
As opposite to the researchers' swimming pools? Whenever you spend money, somebody is making profit — nothing wrong about that.
I was talking about saving lives with medical research at the NIH
NIH is not in the Constitution — and should not exist. Weapons are the government's responsibility. You could have argued, we are spending too much on them, but you lost that line of reasoning before even starting it by making the silly contrast with something, that should not exist at all.
The outrage here is not that the tax-monies are spent on weapons — Constitution explicitly makes such appropriations the responsibility of the Federal Government. The outrage is that even a penny of tax-monies is spent on healthcare — which is decidedly not in the Constitution, and is best handled by the free markets.
Slashdot Mirror
That may very well be so, yes.
But anybody, who'd use an "incessant flow of legal documents" as a weapon, is himself an asshole — independent of whether his victim is such or not.
Yes, my little hypothetical dialogue was meant to address exactly this part of Anonymous Brave Guy's argument. Just how long — 20 or 75 years — I am not sure.
But I would not object to it being perpetual, actually — tangible property has no expiration date, why should intellectual property be different?
There is no natural right to physical property either. It is an abstraction some societies maintain in some shape or form. In properly Socialist countries, for example — such as USSR — an individual could not possibly own means of production. (Which, BTW, follows immediately from the very definition of "Socialism".)
Non-inventors can leave their kids some tangible property. Inventors may little other than intellectual legacy.
If we want to encourage inventions, we ought to consider the latter to be no less valuable. Allowing it to survive the creator's demise is crucial to that.
The shitty write-up omitted this crucial bit...
That would've been fine in my book — assuming, you try to talk the offender first, and only "go G" if he flips you off.
But the GP didn't do that — he, in his own words: "created an incessant flow of legal documents from local council, police, neighbors, etc". Such abuse of legal process makes one an arsehole in one's own right.
So, they sky must've fallen already — if the write-up and the title are to be believed, it was already illegal to photograph those objects in many circumstances...
Relax. Operating street traffic-devices is accepted as the government's responsibility by almost all Libertarians. As long as running a wire to each light made sense for that purpose, over-provisioning a little bit for a proper conduit is fine.
Sounds like you are not only messy, you are also fond of abusing the legal process...
They weren't prepared to defend — because they were themselves preparing for an assault . Exactly when it was going to happen and whether Hitler knew about it remains an argument among historians, but they are all in agreement, that USSR was preparing for attack.
An attack-posture favors different weapons and training: faster and lighter vehicles rather than heavier dug-in equipment, materiel-depots as well as artillery and bombers positioned very close to border (to bomb the enemy's defenders on his side), rather than further back (to bomb the advancing invader on your own land), etc. Hitler surprised Stalin and was able to overrun all of those positions and hardware.
If, instead, Stalin helped the Poland's significant military, Hitler's efforts would've ended there — if he'd even tried it at all. See the other fork of this thread for more links to citations.
But, at any rate, Hitler and Stalin were allies, when WW2 was starting — both share responsibility for it.
No, not "just like" — for British to stop Hitler, they would've had to fight. For Stalin to stop him, he just had to abolish his own imperialistic designs — on Baltic republics, Finland, and Eastern Poland.
Taking an expensive and bloody action vs. not taking one. That's not at all "just like"...
Darn... Slashdot quietly ate the pi I had there... Unicode, anyone? Hello?
Not sure, I kind of like my couch... I think, I'd start with becoming the nice and round 3 (or, maybe, 4) — to make it simpler computer square footage.
Yes :) He was also a vegetarian, a war hero (WWI) an aquarellist, and loved children — very suspect traits all of them.
How would you judge the progress, Libertarianism is making in the US? Do you consider it rising, flat, or, perhaps, diminishing as a philosophy?
I doubt, a Reason-contributing Libertarian would be adding new laws. Though, technically, abolition of an existing law is itself a law, we may be better off asking, what Mr. Godwin would start with dropping.
They did, actually — and I linked to evidence earlier.
Not at all — the exact opposite is true! If you prepare for defence, you do not place materiel depots on the very border. You don't place your bombers and artillery there either — because an enemy can overrun those in a quick attack, which is exactly, what happened in 1941 and became such an awful problem for the USSR.
No, if you are truly preparing for defence, you position such long-range weaponry as bombers and artillery away from the border — where they'll be able to hit the advancing invader without themselves being an easy target for his weapons, which still need to be set up on the newly-captured territory.
We'll never know for sure now, would we? They didn't have tanks or airforce, but they had plenty of highly-motivated soldiers and officers with perfectly functional rifles, and ample artillery. Having a secure back, they could've dug in for defensive operations, while those slow-moving allies of theirs (Britain, France) made up their sorry minds about helping. Heck, Stalin himself could've helped them — thus preventing an invasion of his own country two years later — but instead he stabbed them in the back.
This is not very important to this argument, but I'm not aware of any significant number of Polish military taken prisoner by Germans in 1939. Can you cite something?
And Hitler would not have attacked them without securing Stalin's cooperation either — both wurdulacs are responsible...
I doubt, Hitler would've gone further without securing either British or Soviet support or, at the least, "neutrality" first.
Yes, some of the blame for starting WW2 is on the Japanese too. That said, I would not even consider the American-Japanese war to be part of WW2 — the conflict was (almost) purely between these two countries, and neither one coordinated its actions with nor received much support from its allies.
That happened because of the secret agreement with Stalin — when (and whether) Soviet troops began participating is unimportant. Stalin bears responsibility because he promised Hitler his cooperation.
Yes, we are. But the above quote is so awesome, I'll bookmark it for the next time I argue with an America-hating zealot — not all of you would be willing to admit to holding an opinion, America is worse than cannibals.
Although you would not answer my question, you no longer have to, because you've already admitted, that some cultures are worse than others. We remain in disagreement, over just who is better, but we agree, that not cultures are equally good — and that was my point from the beginning.
Now that we've established that, why is it automatically bad ("bigoted", "narrow-minded", "racist" even) of representatives of one culture to view representatives of another as others, to, perhaps, not want to associate with them too much, and resent seeing more and more of them as neighbours?
Perhaps, you think, American culture is so bad, it can be improved by being diluted with as many of those cannibals, as can be persuaded to come over here? And, if not enough willing cannibals can be found in the world, folks who cut off girls' clitorises and who stone people to death over adultery should be used instead?
I have never insulted you, asshole. But not any more, crotch-stink. By calling me names, you not only handed me a victory in this debate (as if anyone had any doubts), you've proven yourself — even to observers most partial to your line of "reasoning" — incapable of participating in an argument. Get off my Slashdot for a few months and scrub those sorry wits of yours daily — they are entirely too dim for you to even turn a TV on without adult supervision.
Maybe. The point was, while each individual Italian was, probably, a reasonably nice person, by importing too many at once, America imported Italy's Mafia-problem with them. Those Italians didn't become Americans — they corrupted America with their old-world habits instead — today, decades later, the country is still not quite clean of them.
It is perfectly reasonable to be concerned, that America is now repeating a similar mistake by importing too many Muslims at once.
You lie, boy. I said nothing about our culture here. I asked you to compare a culture which embraces cannibalism with a culture that rejects it.
The question still stands, while you make bombastic proclamations trying to avoid answering.
No idea.
Does not follow.
As opposite to the researchers' swimming pools? Whenever you spend money, somebody is making profit — nothing wrong about that.
NIH is not in the Constitution — and should not exist. Weapons are the government's responsibility. You could have argued, we are spending too much on them, but you lost that line of reasoning before even starting it by making the silly contrast with something, that should not exist at all.
That's false — there simply is no such thing as "market failure", and people telling the impressionable young minds otherwise are selling something.
But the point was, it is not for the Government to do — unlike weapons.
In 2015 the US will Federal Government will spend:
You were saying?..
The outrage here is not that the tax-monies are spent on weapons — Constitution explicitly makes such appropriations the responsibility of the Federal Government. The outrage is that even a penny of tax-monies is spent on healthcare — which is decidedly not in the Constitution, and is best handled by the free markets.
Read the Constitution — maintaining the military is in the Federal Government's job-description. Space-exploration (non-military) is not.