I do not really consider lawyers to be part of the public - sorry
Lawyers aren't the problem. Laws are the problem. Laws come out of legislatures, and legislatures are out of control, have been for decades. Speaking of the US, as a US citizen. Not familiar with other systems. Entirely too familiar with ours.
No. It isn't. Risks and unknowns become a problem only when you are thinking they don't exist. If you can see enough of a problem to evaluate it in your own life, then you should be free to do so. Problems and solutions are not evaluated on unknowns, they are evaluated on knowns. For instance, when you take an aspirin, there is an unknown chance that you will exhibit a side effect. You assume it is small (because the odds are small) but that may not be the case for you.
You are who the founding fathers feared; that person who presumes he can dictate actions to others based upon what he thinks is benevolence, when it is really dictatorial evil.
But not to worry. You're in control. Goodnight, mommy.
...knowing the millionaire who invented the weave in ace bandages...
I have a funny story about that guy.
I was working for a company that was doing measured pouring from an intelligent (relatively speaking) bottle cap for use in a bar. In case you don't know, the bar industry considers "over-pouring" to be a huge source of monetary losses. I did the electronics for the cap and the remote RF sensing stuff. Fun. Anyway, the ace bandage guy (Lenny) was one of the investors in the company. Another guy, a mechanical engineer named Joe, had this idea for a perpetual motion / energy creation machine. Joe physically designed the cap, its gears and valves, etc.; he sat next to me.
In short, his idea went like this: You have a tank of water. At the bottom, you feed in a series of little bubbles of air. Atmospheric pressure on the top of the tank would subsequently force the bubble to rise; the bubble was caught in what amounted to an upside-down cup, and this was attached to levers and gears which turned things and which you could tap for energy. He (Joe) thought that the energy in the system was coming from the broad surface of the water, and that squeezing the air into the bottom of the vessel would cost less energy than the rising force would generate because... well, it's not entirely clear to me why, as that was the crux of our arguments.
So, I argued my face off both to Joe and to Lenny that this would not work. I really did. I did the math. I showed them the math. All to no avail. They spent hundreds of thousands of dollars building a BIG prototype. And of course, it didn't work. At all. Neither one of them thanked me for trying to warn them of this outcome. Ungrateful wretches.:)
Just goes to show you that even if your imagination can come up with something really cool like the ace weave, it doesn't mean you're competent to do anything else...
So, for you and me, it is time to put the argument to bed. I will continue along my chosen path, although unlike Lenny, I'm doing well with my choices -- my net worth increases consistently.:) You can continue to champion the patent system, and encourage those changes to come about. My feeling is that no changes will occur, because the system is controlled right now by the people it is designed to benefit the most. Unless you can wrest control from them, you won't be able to implement any changes at all -- not yours, and not mine.
Again, I enjoyed the conversation and appreciate your time and commentary.
I along with other agnostics have declared we don't believe, but we are willing to believe or disbelieve when we are given proof, or at least strong evidence either way.
As far as the atheist community is concerned, based on that statement, you are a declared atheist. Of course you'd believe if someone proved it to your individual satisfaction. So would anyone else, including me and every hard line atheist on the planet. The alternative is belief based upon faith, and that, of course, is what theism is. You specifically don't believe in god. That's what makes you atheist. You can, of course, call yourself anything you want.
The issue is the likelihood of such proof being shown. You -- I guess, correct me if I'm wrong -- think that it is just as likely that you'll be shown such proof as it is that you will not, hence you feel the need to attempt to straddle a line squarely placed between evidence and no evidence. Me, I observe the complete and utter failure of any religious person to come up with any evidence over all the thousands of years of human history, and I see no need, or even hint, that such straddling is called for. I'm not sitting here, waiting for evidence. I don't expect any, based upon past performance (that is to say, none.) I've very, very high confidence that superstition is that form of storytelling where the storyteller accepts the story despite a complete disconnect from reality, and I'm not particularly concerned with the rationalizations that underlie such a choice, and that stands regardless of the number of people who are so taken with the story as to believe it is true.
As for the latter, there are plenty of people who DO believe there's no god, so what do you call them if not atheist?
The term those people use within the atheist community is "hard atheist." They in turn call the rest of us "soft atheists." We often call them "naive atheists", mostly as wry commentary on their falling into the trap of using faith to attempt to refute a faith-based idea.
Atheism (just like theism) has room for many divergent outlooks beyond the basic idea of being without belief in a god or gods. In other words, just as Christians are reasonably likely to want to dunk you in water, and Muslims are not, some atheists actively disbelieve, and some do not.
It is important to realize that the argument for what atheism means isn't "my" argument. It is the argument of the atheist community in general. And just as you would probably think that taking a Christian's word for what Christianity means is more reasonable than taking an atheist's word for the same, I submit to you that you're better off taking the atheist's word for what atheism means than you are taking anyone else's.
Do I believe in god? No. Not even a little bit, not a shred. That is what puts me squarely in the atheist camp. I am not "agnostic", that is "undecided" based upon lack of knowledge; I am without belief and there is no doubt of it. The cup of evidence is completely empty, just as it is for dragons, fairies, Santa, Harry Potter, pink unicorns and the spaghetti monster. The fact that humans can imagine something has long been associated with the idea that such things need have no counterpart in reality; the fact that large numbers of people believe in something likewise has long been known to have absolutely no correlation with the truth or falsehood of that belief. I consider the claim of "no knowledge" to be the same claim as "no belief", technically speaking. At that point, it is more interesting to observe why such a claim might be made. If I ask, do you believe, and you answer, "I don't know", what are you saying? Are you saying you don't know if you believe? In such a case, is your mind made up of fog? Or are you saying, I don't know if there is a god or gods? In that case, I remind you, I asked about belief, not about knowledge. People believe with and without knowledge, therefore the issue of what you know is irrelevant. I just asked what you believe, and this is based on the same "it takes faith" argument the religionists make. So I can ask "do you have any faith there is a god or gods?", it is really the same question. If you have any at all, you're a theist. If you don't, you're atheist by the atheist community's definition. In the end, you can call yourself anything you want. But there are really only two major camps, and they split over the issue of belief in god(s), or the lack thereof.
Stop doing your research in Christian publications (yes, most dictionaries meet that standard... especially English dictionaries.) Do your research in the atheist community. The definitions of Christians applied to atheists are inherently invalid and biased.
Now, instead of the little "sound bites" you get from these dictionaries, do some real work: A good starting point would be if you read George H. Smith's scholarly "Atheism - The case against God", 340 plus-pages of actual research, exposition and background. And of course, this work includes the correct definition of atheism (on page 7.)
Or here, or here, or here (though as usual, in Wikipedia, this article is badly tainted by the opinions and errors of non-atheists... it still lays out the idea and a close approximation of the boundaries), or here, or here, or here, or here, or here. And in tons more, just go google it. On the one hand, you will find the atheist community, repeatedly explaining what the situation actually is. On the other, you will find religionists (and many agnostics), trying to apply a set of outlooks to a set of people who do not agree that they hold said outlook.
You'll note that these sources pretty much all treat the subject in some detail, explaining not only what is, but why. These sources come from the atheist community, and when an atheist tells you what they stand for, you're a lot better off taking them at their word and intent than you are trying to fit some religionist's preconceptions on top of what they actually think. But it is, after all, your call. You certainly won't be alone; religionists (and again, many "agnostics") try really hard to misconstrue the atheist position. it is pretty obvious why they do so. In the case of the religionists, they want to apply the idea of faith to the entire set of atheists, when this only applies to the hard atheist subset. They do this in order to try and demonstrate that "faith" is "required" to take the atheist view, when the actual situation is that this argument only applies to the hard athiests — of whom, by the way, I have met very few. In the case of agnostics, they do this so as to try to stake out an imaginary middle ground between belief and lack of belief. There is no such middle ground, and agnostics are upset by this idea because, I think, they're trying to avoid the issue. This can always be resolved by a simple question: Do you believe in a god or gods, or not? The answer is "I do" or "I don't", and the answer clearly defines one who embraces theism (theist) and one who does not embrace theism (atheist.)
I am atheist. I hold absolutely no belief in a god or gods, nor do I ever expect to, nor do I ever expect to run into any evidence to the contrary that would cause me to embrace the idea that the idea of a god or gods rises above the standard of any other fairy tale. Given the complete and utter lack of evidence made available to me to date, my confidence that the idea of a god or gods is a completely human construct is extremely high. None of this is disbelief. It is lack of belief. I find the cup of evidence to be empty. Like any assertion for which no evidence can be found, asking for belief is asking far too much. Is the idea interesting? Certainly. Is it entertaining? Yes, that too. Is it woven throughout history? Yes. Has it affected the course of human lives? Sure. Should I therefore pay attention to it? Indubitably. Might it affect my own life? Yes indeed. Does any of this make t
The fact that there are risks and unknowns do not in any way reduce your ability to make an informed choice. An intelligent adult understands that there are risks and unknowns. You can't be protected from everything, including people who might not care about your particular situation or outcome.
None of that serves as "good reason" to take the right to choose from adults.
As for your outlook on drug companies, fine, whatever. You're entitled to your outlook. That still doesn't give you the right to tell me what to do with my own body.
Did you ever consider that there are cases with some disease processes where people might be very pleased to consider becoming a "guinea pig"?
Not everyone thinks the government should be their mommy. If you need a mommy, then by all means, have some old lady adopt you. For those adults capable of making informed decisions for themselves, why not stay the heck out of their lives? I know, it is just such a radical idea, but even so... adults, making decisions about their own bodies, for themselves... it almost sounds like... liberty.
But we can't have that. That would be... un-American.
I'm interpreting that as "trivial intellectual property doesn't need to be protected", and trivial is defined by the amount of time it takes to reverse engineer.
That's pretty much how I look at it, yes. But you have to keep in mind that if I am producing the "thing" at pretty near cost, and you also have to reverse it, come into a market I've already staked out a claim in, supersede my marketing and customer service and solution-fitting... just reversing it isn't going to buy you much. Reversing only works if a product is put into a market with a huge margin and the cream is being skimmed. Then there is room for competition. If I take a market properly, I won't leave much room for you, yet my idea is still there if you can figure out another way to use it that doesn't put you into competition. Today's model is that Joe invents X, charges WAY more than it is worth until Joe's patent runs out, then retires the idea. My model is that Joe invents X, puts it into the market in such a way as to actually be competitive from day one, and this reduces competition by making it actually difficult to compete based on service, quality, and so forth. If the idea is non-trivial, new, and executed well, it should do fine.
Since when has intellectual property been measured by the amount of time taken to reproduce? Since when has any legal issue been based on such an arbitrary value, like the time it takes some random guy to reproduce an invention?
Wrong questions. I'm not saying this is how it is; I'm saying, this is a much more reasonable way for it to actually be. Also, this is how I'd like it to be. Also, this is a way I've managed to do well, myself, and that's at least one pilot case. No more than that.
Taking your example of Joe and Leroy, how would that apply to music and the copyright system?
It doesn't, really. Copyrights and patents are different beasts. The copyright system has its own problems, and for the most part, they aren't really all that similar. But in broad strokes, recompense for writing a story or a song is reasonable. Bards were always paid with something, even if it was just a bed for the night. Earning millions, or tens of millions, for a story or a song? Is that equitable? I'm not sure it is. If it really takes you years to come up with a song (so that years of income need to account for your work) perhaps you really aren't cut out to be a musician. And mind you, I'm a musician and I own a literary agency, so I'm pretty sensitive to copyrights and what they can earn.
Society has jammed itself into a corner where a very few artists receive wildly large incomes for insane (by my view) terms, and most of the rest simply starve, even though many of them are really very, very good. I don't think that's particularly healthy for our society, and I do think that the main pressure that has caused this is long copyright terms and disproportionate rewards for creative works that really aren't that different from one another. But as I say, I don't really see this as the same set of issues — the ability to reproduce information (music, stories, videos) for essentially zero is going to require a whole different set of solutions than those problems that encompass physical objects.
I like questions like this: Are we going to let the cost of a Hollywood blockbuster (say, the star wars series) and our interest in such blockbusters choke the entire rest of the creative industry with DRM and so forth? I see that as a very bad road to go down; I'd rather lose the big productions and see less recompense in general, with a better chance for more artists to be exposed. I also think that as (ok, if) the balance swings more towards people who are doing art for art's sake instead of for that one chance at the brass ring, we're more likely to see exceptional works (which I would not, for instance, include star wars in...)
Theism: Belief in a god or gods. Theist: Person holding belief in a god or gods.
The root "a": Without.
A-theism: without belief in a god or gods. A-theism: Person without belief in a god or gods.
And before some wag tries to misconstrue the etymology as "without god" as in "a-theos", let me remind them that the word is not a-theos, it is a-theist or a-theism.
Atheism is not definitive of "disbelief." Disbelief is a additional stance taken over basic atheism (after all, you have to be without belief in god or gods to go the next step and declare your faith that there is no such thing.) This latter stance is called "hard atheism" while the former is "soft atheism." This is so well established, and has been for so long, you should be absolutely mortified that you are unaware of it, yet are trying to take part in a discussion about the issues. Go educate yourself.
The common person's misunderstanding of the atheist position is is why the wikipedia entry for atheist has been closed so often, by the way, atheists trying to get the definition for what they stand for corrected, and non-artheists repeatedly mis-characterizing their stance.
I don't need to defend this position extensively, it is a done deal in the atheist community. I'm just letting you, and others who are similarly confused, know what the actual situation is. You can check it out -- actually do some research -- and learn something, or you can continue on in ignorance. Your call.
With regard to the claim for agnostics; this is not relevant, except in that it puts agnostics out. Agnostics talk about knowledge, when asked about belief (the atheist/theist question.) These are two completely different cognitive domains. It is similar to asking if water is cold, and being given the response "I wonder if it is wet?"
Either you hold a belief in a god or gods, or you don't. You can call it whatever you want, riding your confusion off into the sunset for all I care, but there are still only two positions. If your answer is that you hold such a belief, then you are a theist. If you do not hold such a belief, you are an atheist. With regard to knowledge, no one asked you what you knew, or why you take the stance you take: The question is simply, and always has been, do you believe? The only answers are yes, or no.
Because you have muddled up the ideas of belief and knowledge, your story makes no sense and mis-characterizes the atheist position. With this corrected, your story comes out this way:
Query: Do you believe statement about breakfast was made?
Theist: holds belief statement about breakfast was or was not made.
Atheist: holds no belief about statements, cites "no evidence"
Agnostic: "doesn't know", sidesteps question
Looking at this, we can see that the atheist position is the open one; no beliefs are held without evidence, the atheist is not only willing to say so, but knows why this position makes sense. The theist position is committed to belief without evidence, cites "faith"; the agnostic hasn't even answered the question, though we know that this is simply an evasion, because the fact is, either you hold a belief, and you're theist, or you don't, and you're atheist.
Tip: As soon as you mis-characterize the atheist position as "believing there is no god" then you're off in never-never land. Atheists are without belief.
Again, you're tying things into reality. Of course it's silly that unicorns are running around upside down - we know about earthquakes and why they happen because we can observe those things.
Actually, we don't. We just observe the consequences and have crafted a theory to fit. The unicorns want you to think it's "natural"; they're embarrassed about the dildos, of course. You've never been underground to observe them run, nor have you been underground when your imaginary "fault" slipped.
Now, I ask you again -- same question. No evasions. Why, when you have story A and you have story B and neither one has a shred of evidence, do you go atheist on the one and agnostic on the other? Why do you feel it is inapropriate to fail to believe in god (atheism) and instead retreat to "I don't know" instead of the same healthy reaction you had to the unicorn?
Look, let's cut to the chase. Either you believe in god (theism) or you don't hold such a belief. There is no such "separate" stance as agnosticism, because it isn't knowledge we're talking about here, it is belief. Belief doesn't require knowledge (see legions of tarot card users for concrete example of this.) Theist: Believes in a god or gods. Atheist: without belief in a god or gods. You're one or the other, this agnosticism is a copout, plain and simple. Belief: Either you believe, or you don't. So declare yourself and stop this silly pretending to be above such a simple question.
So, you're "agnostic" about little pink supernatural unicorns that cause earthquakes by running upside down along faultlines and crap gold deposits when stimulated with fish dildos weilded by mermaids, too?
Or perhaps are you willing to stipulate that when someone invents some silly set of ideas with no basis in reality, atheism -- that is, lack of belief -- is more appropriate than agnosticism?
If you're atheist with regard to the unicorn, but remain agnostic with regard to the idea of "god", perhaps you would enlighten all of us, or even just me, why you give the idea more credence, other than wanting to "get along."
What does this skeptic think we're doing? Hiding it in the freezer so we can lob snowballs across the 49th parallel next summer?
....mmmmph... bunch of bacon-eating bastards... we know what you're doing with it... you're sequestering the ice for your goddamned BEER, that's what you're doing... Oh yes, we know you, you and your CARBONATED beer... CANADIANS CAUSE GLOBAL WARMING! You and your goddamned elk, farting out their methane... and then there's Alaniss Morisette... hot air, global warming... anyone can see the truth in it...
What? Oh. OK. I, um, I have to go now. Time for my meds.
The expense of any machinery capable of cooling something to 0.35 kelvin far outweighs the neatness of being able to do it with silicone too.
Oh, I don't know about that. Imagine a pair of enhanced breasts, little stalactites of ice hanging from the nipples, provocatively visible through a lace bra made of advanced insulation, while thousands of amperes surge through the underlying silicone with virtually no loss at all. It'd be like... the "mother's milk of power!"(tm)
I, for one, welcome our super-conducting silicone overlordettes. Show me the evidence, and I will believe!
You can't expect them not to respond to something like this. The window in which superstitious fantasies like creationism exist just closed a little further; the fact of the myriad variations among humans and animals leans ever nearer to a mundane explanation, and further from the hand-waving vagaries of "soul" and "mystery."
The more information science puts on the table, the louder the screams from the superstitious will be. Right up until the day the last one lays down their book, crystal, bones, or tarot.
All we have to do in the meantime is keep these people from injecting their miserable dogma into our legal and social systems to the degree where it rolls back progress, like the recent push to get creationism into schools. That went well enough, the clueless were sent scuttling back to their caves; but as vigilance is the price of freedom, so it is the price of rationality. Keep a wary eye on your local mad hatters. They're plotting on you; count on it.
There is no need to "account" for them. It is purest hubris to think that we know anything definitive about how this universe settled out to work the way it does, as the event(s) are not in any way directly in evidence. What an atheist can do, however, is use science to discover what the various "laws" seem to be, and from there, continue to build a rational, consistent world-view -- at least so far as the world appears to be rational and consistent. Which so far, has been 100% with the single exception of human superstition.
How can abstract universal absolutes exist in a world where only matter exists?
Why do you feel that it is necessary to think that they do so? Why do you feel it is necessary to pretend you know how -- and why -- everything started? Why are you so uncomfortable that a tiny biological organism, alive for a tiny fraction of the time the universe has been relatively stable, even if you consider the entire race instead of your single instance, restricted in direct observations to a tiny, tiny, tiny corner of that universe, might legitimately not know, and for that matter never know, the answers to questions like these? I'm not saying it is improper to ask them, that's a very interesting process indeed, I'm simply saying that the presumption you already have an answer is more than a little absurd. Trying to invalidate a materialist world-view on the basis that some questions don't have answers is just silly.
Why should men be rational in your worldview?
Men should be rational because it brings good to the individual, to society, to other species on the planet, to the planet itself. Because it caused science to arise; because science is a system that continually generates advancement in knowledge and goods; because when we look at irrational systems like religion, we see far fewer benefits of any particular significance.
Where did the microchip from from, rational thinking or superstitious thinking? Where did the understanding of the human genome come from, rational thinking or superstitious thinking? Where did our understanding of the heliocentric nature of the solar system come from, rational thinking or superstitious thinking? Where did the laser, the nuclear reactor, space flight, penicillin, LCDs, chemotherapy, the SSC come from? Not from superstition, that is for certain. Superstition produces no output that advances society, defends society, bulwarks society. Superstition is a mechanism for explaining things by making up answers without regard for the known behavior of the universe and as such, it literally serves to retard society. Rational thinking, on the other hand, results in steady advancement. The penultimate example of rational thinking is represented by science; the penultimate example of superstitious thinking is represented by organized religion.
So we have every reason to be rational; we also have every reason to reject superstitious thinking. Rationality is the key underlying principle that has brought us quite a distance, through many objections from the superstitious crowd. Because of rational thinking, it is a lot more difficult today for the superstitious to jail people like Galileo; it is a lot more difficult to foist off utter nonsense like creationism on anyone who simply has a basic understanding of science.
There were settlers here long before any of the American Indian cultures set up shop. We have everything from campsites to footprints to full villages as concrete evidence.
Everyone is an immigrant here, or descendent of one. Humans did not arise in North America. Period.
...to convince users they need to buy new software...
...has been 100% effective here. I've converted our whole household to Macs. One too many annoying little bubbles popping up in the task bar, one too many spyware infections, one too many complaints about the boot process having stretched into minutes.
And now, Vista carries the not too subtle warning that it will need "more resources." Sorry. After spending quality time with OSX and being reminded what a speedy OS feels like, I've come to the conclusion that MS is too far behind the curve these days.
And you know what's really sad? I've been making PC software since Windows 3.1.
Some inventions can take years, and the inventor certainly doesn't want someone to reverse engineer it as soon as it's sold.
My opinion is that if it takes Joe three years to invent product X, but it takes Leroy 1 week to reverse-engineer product X, then Joe has been out-competed by the simple fact that his time is worth a lot less by direct market value, since Leroy's time can produce the same product in 1 week. Joe, therefore, is not entitled to out-compete Leroy in the marketplace, unless he can do it with downstream mechanisms (customer service, add ons, games, etc.) Even though Joe invested three years.
In other words, what you have here is something that was obvious to Leroy; and the obvious doesn't deserve protection. Of any kind. At some level, there will always be someone who can think of an idea, but will find it very difficult to actualize. These people are not well served by trying to be inventors. Invention requires the ability to conceptualize, actualize and then either sell (the idea) or market (the product.) That would be Joe. Leroy, on the other hand, is well suited, because he can do in a week what Joe can do in three years.
The example assumes that Joe's invention is in fact properly protected in terms of trade secret; there are no numbers on the IC's, the code has been freed of debugging information, the inside of the device is filled with epoxy — whatever it takes. Trade secret does, of course, require that you not share design information. Again, anything so simple that its design is obvious, is, well, obvious.:)
Nintendo DS...
Nintendo was affected only in the sense that the window of opportunity they tried to create was closed. I don't have a problem with this. Nintendo has many other opportunities to work the marketplace, such as producing games, adding goodies to the hardware, perhaps even stopping the practice of trying to make the games pay for the console, which is dubious at best anyway. I look at Nintendo and I see a company that has turned many millions of dollars using the system as it is. Lots of high-paid people, lots of satisfied customers. If things went a little different than they had planned, as Japanese, I expect them to understand, because as they say, "business is war." Remember: Trade secret won't serve to protect the obvious, nor can it be counted upon to let an attempt at obfuscation (like Nintendo's) function over something with little complexity or originality. Trade secret is at its best when the idea is not obvious, the implementation is non trivial, and the product is not exposed at the design level. In other words, trade secret serves those who invent things of significance in terms of resources, operation, effects, and follow-on issues. Finally, great success will breed imitation. No way around it. You have to plan for it; imagine your competitor's surprise (and displeasure) when they find that their customers are turning to you for service, add ons, and so forth.
What about things that take time? To use the old saying, time is money.
If it legitimately takes time, that is, it would take me just as long, or longer, than it takes you, then the time it took you to create it is the window you will have to market it before the first competitor -- me -- reaches your market. In that time, you can establish cost efficiencies, customer service mechanisms, add-ons, and so forth that add value to your product in such a way that the newcomer has yet more work to do to catch up. Additionally, you have had the opportunity to take the cream off the market. You had the opportunity to say "We've invented the Widget-O-Tron!"... which is a great marketing tool. At this time, you are now in the position of someone who is selling something that is no longer unique; this is not an untenable position, millions of manufacturers and retailers occupy this niche each and every day and do
What are the rich supposed to do? Stop inventing and taking advantage of the law?
The system is designed for them, as I said, and they will continue to use it. I also said it wasn't going to change; I said the system benefits them; I said they had no concern for any of the rank and file; how much plainer can I be?
If anything is ever done, it will have to be done at the level of legislation. But again, I don't expect that to happen, because as I already explained, there is no way provided for the rank and file to change the system.
The only reason why it looks like a rich vs poor matter is that mainly the rich can afford to invent.
That is tripe and nonsense. Inventing is a nearly cost-free process. I've been doing it all my professional life, and I started with zero dollars. I'm the poster child for inventing things on napkins and in simulation. It doesn't take money; it takes an innovative outlook and a reasonable fund of knowledge. Both are available for free, the more so today for that matter.
The reason it "looks" like a rich vs. poor matter is because the patent system is tuned for high dollar players, just as I said. You know, it doesn't have to be so: just the fact that it is should tell you a lot.
What kind of protection is [trade secret]? It's not legally enforced, meaning that society has no problem with people completely nullifying the value of the inventor's initial investment. It's not secure, since it's simply security through obscurity.
It is temporary, which is enough. I made my fortune with it; I can assure you it is adequate to the task. My point is that patents are too much protection; in fact, they go well beyond protection and constitute assault on people who legitimately invent something on their own. Trade secret does not protect the obvious. Yet if you look, you'll see that even the patent system wasn't supposed to do that. It has been perverted to do so, one of its many problems.
They only injure the general public if you completely ignore what they have done for society.
You're assuming that only patents can do this. But that is false. I've been inventing all my professional life and never used them. I've put out many innovative products, and I have benefited from this a great deal. Patents injure the public because they are a repressive means of handling invention. They work by suppression of the many and encouragement of only one person, the first inventor to get a claim to the patent office. Trade secret encourages everyone, all the time. It is not only better for society as a means to provide faster and more numerous innovations, it is ethically more sound at every level.
There's nothing illegal about mentally developing on an idea that someone patented.
There's nothing illegal about wishing you were free when you're actually a slave, either.
Wait! Could it be to help encourage invention? To give the inventor a very temporary monopoly to the inventor on the concept in question?
No, a mechanism already exists for that purpose; it is called "trade secret." The way it works, see, is that if your idea is complex enough to be non-trivial in terms of the resources required to instantiate it, then you just don't tell anyone how you did something, you simply develop it, and market it. If it is useful, you'll have a market window, and this gives you that "very temporary monopoly" you need to make a reasonable amount of income from your idea. What is great about it is that it doesn't involve lawyers, it doesn't involve the government, and it doesn't involve repressing everyone else's creativity. It also has built-in safeguards against simplistic ideas being given the status of unbreakable dams against progress.
Nah, that can't be right. I'm sure society has patents simply to suppress creative thought.
You really don't understand how things work. It's not "society" operating here; it is corporations and the rich. And what they want to supress is your ability to do anything at all without paying them, either for a product, or for the use of an idea they've latched onto.
The fact that this suppresses creative thought is a side-effect, one that (a) only injures the general public and so (b) is not of concern to either the government, the corporations or the rich. What they're trying to do (and suceeding very well at) is suppress competition. What you think is of no concern to them. The system is designed to ignore what you think. That's why legislators make law, and you don't get to. It's trivially easy to bribe the very few legislators (think PACs, trips, speaking engagements, employment after politics, re-election support) but it is not easy to bribe the hundreds of millions of citizens at large. Not only do you have no input into the process, you're pretty well stuck in the loop of supporting the system from without by paying for these patents and for the bribes and for the legislators. All those costs are built into everything you buy that has one or more patents, with the single exception of the costs that are built into your taxes.
The system is locked-down. You can get a decent patent (meaning, one you have a slight chance of being able to defend in court) for about ten grand. But even if you can meet that financial standard (and of course, the vast majority of people cannot, nor is there any correlation between those who are creative and those who have such funding available), you have another, much higher hurdle to jump: You have to be able to pay for the defense of that patent in court. You on one side, with your house mortgaged (agin, if you have such a resource) and on the other, for instance, IBM, with (compared to you) absolutely unlimited resources.
But hey, don't worry about it. After all — it's not going to change.
Slashdot Mirror
Lawyers aren't the problem. Laws are the problem. Laws come out of legislatures, and legislatures are out of control, have been for decades. Speaking of the US, as a US citizen. Not familiar with other systems. Entirely too familiar with ours.
No. It isn't. Risks and unknowns become a problem only when you are thinking they don't exist. If you can see enough of a problem to evaluate it in your own life, then you should be free to do so. Problems and solutions are not evaluated on unknowns, they are evaluated on knowns. For instance, when you take an aspirin, there is an unknown chance that you will exhibit a side effect. You assume it is small (because the odds are small) but that may not be the case for you.
You are who the founding fathers feared; that person who presumes he can dictate actions to others based upon what he thinks is benevolence, when it is really dictatorial evil.
But not to worry. You're in control. Goodnight, mommy.
I have a funny story about that guy.
I was working for a company that was doing measured pouring from an intelligent (relatively speaking) bottle cap for use in a bar. In case you don't know, the bar industry considers "over-pouring" to be a huge source of monetary losses. I did the electronics for the cap and the remote RF sensing stuff. Fun. Anyway, the ace bandage guy (Lenny) was one of the investors in the company. Another guy, a mechanical engineer named Joe, had this idea for a perpetual motion / energy creation machine. Joe physically designed the cap, its gears and valves, etc.; he sat next to me.
In short, his idea went like this: You have a tank of water. At the bottom, you feed in a series of little bubbles of air. Atmospheric pressure on the top of the tank would subsequently force the bubble to rise; the bubble was caught in what amounted to an upside-down cup, and this was attached to levers and gears which turned things and which you could tap for energy. He (Joe) thought that the energy in the system was coming from the broad surface of the water, and that squeezing the air into the bottom of the vessel would cost less energy than the rising force would generate because... well, it's not entirely clear to me why, as that was the crux of our arguments.
So, I argued my face off both to Joe and to Lenny that this would not work. I really did. I did the math. I showed them the math. All to no avail. They spent hundreds of thousands of dollars building a BIG prototype. And of course, it didn't work. At all. Neither one of them thanked me for trying to warn them of this outcome. Ungrateful wretches. :)
Just goes to show you that even if your imagination can come up with something really cool like the ace weave, it doesn't mean you're competent to do anything else...
So, for you and me, it is time to put the argument to bed. I will continue along my chosen path, although unlike Lenny, I'm doing well with my choices -- my net worth increases consistently. :) You can continue to champion the patent system, and encourage those changes to come about. My feeling is that no changes will occur, because the system is controlled right now by the people it is designed to benefit the most. Unless you can wrest control from them, you won't be able to implement any changes at all -- not yours, and not mine.
Again, I enjoyed the conversation and appreciate your time and commentary.
As far as the atheist community is concerned, based on that statement, you are a declared atheist. Of course you'd believe if someone proved it to your individual satisfaction. So would anyone else, including me and every hard line atheist on the planet. The alternative is belief based upon faith, and that, of course, is what theism is. You specifically don't believe in god. That's what makes you atheist. You can, of course, call yourself anything you want.
The issue is the likelihood of such proof being shown. You -- I guess, correct me if I'm wrong -- think that it is just as likely that you'll be shown such proof as it is that you will not, hence you feel the need to attempt to straddle a line squarely placed between evidence and no evidence. Me, I observe the complete and utter failure of any religious person to come up with any evidence over all the thousands of years of human history, and I see no need, or even hint, that such straddling is called for. I'm not sitting here, waiting for evidence. I don't expect any, based upon past performance (that is to say, none.) I've very, very high confidence that superstition is that form of storytelling where the storyteller accepts the story despite a complete disconnect from reality, and I'm not particularly concerned with the rationalizations that underlie such a choice, and that stands regardless of the number of people who are so taken with the story as to believe it is true.
The term those people use within the atheist community is "hard atheist." They in turn call the rest of us "soft atheists." We often call them "naive atheists", mostly as wry commentary on their falling into the trap of using faith to attempt to refute a faith-based idea.
Atheism (just like theism) has room for many divergent outlooks beyond the basic idea of being without belief in a god or gods. In other words, just as Christians are reasonably likely to want to dunk you in water, and Muslims are not, some atheists actively disbelieve, and some do not.
It is important to realize that the argument for what atheism means isn't "my" argument. It is the argument of the atheist community in general. And just as you would probably think that taking a Christian's word for what Christianity means is more reasonable than taking an atheist's word for the same, I submit to you that you're better off taking the atheist's word for what atheism means than you are taking anyone else's.
Do I believe in god? No. Not even a little bit, not a shred. That is what puts me squarely in the atheist camp. I am not "agnostic", that is "undecided" based upon lack of knowledge; I am without belief and there is no doubt of it. The cup of evidence is completely empty, just as it is for dragons, fairies, Santa, Harry Potter, pink unicorns and the spaghetti monster. The fact that humans can imagine something has long been associated with the idea that such things need have no counterpart in reality; the fact that large numbers of people believe in something likewise has long been known to have absolutely no correlation with the truth or falsehood of that belief. I consider the claim of "no knowledge" to be the same claim as "no belief", technically speaking. At that point, it is more interesting to observe why such a claim might be made. If I ask, do you believe, and you answer, "I don't know", what are you saying? Are you saying you don't know if you believe? In such a case, is your mind made up of fog? Or are you saying, I don't know if there is a god or gods? In that case, I remind you, I asked about belief, not about knowledge. People believe with and without knowledge, therefore the issue of what you know is irrelevant. I just asked what you believe, and this is based on the same "it takes faith" argument the religionists make. So I can ask "do you have any faith there is a god or gods?", it is really the same question. If you have any at all, you're a theist. If you don't, you're atheist by the atheist community's definition. In the end, you can call yourself anything you want. But there are really only two major camps, and they split over the issue of belief in god(s), or the lack thereof.
Stop doing your research in Christian publications (yes, most dictionaries meet that standard... especially English dictionaries.) Do your research in the atheist community. The definitions of Christians applied to atheists are inherently invalid and biased.
Now, instead of the little "sound bites" you get from these dictionaries, do some real work: A good starting point would be if you read George H. Smith's scholarly "Atheism - The case against God", 340 plus-pages of actual research, exposition and background. And of course, this work includes the correct definition of atheism (on page 7.)
Or here, or here, or here (though as usual, in Wikipedia, this article is badly tainted by the opinions and errors of non-atheists... it still lays out the idea and a close approximation of the boundaries), or here, or here, or here, or here, or here. And in tons more, just go google it. On the one hand, you will find the atheist community, repeatedly explaining what the situation actually is. On the other, you will find religionists (and many agnostics), trying to apply a set of outlooks to a set of people who do not agree that they hold said outlook.
You'll note that these sources pretty much all treat the subject in some detail, explaining not only what is, but why. These sources come from the atheist community, and when an atheist tells you what they stand for, you're a lot better off taking them at their word and intent than you are trying to fit some religionist's preconceptions on top of what they actually think. But it is, after all, your call. You certainly won't be alone; religionists (and again, many "agnostics") try really hard to misconstrue the atheist position. it is pretty obvious why they do so. In the case of the religionists, they want to apply the idea of faith to the entire set of atheists, when this only applies to the hard atheist subset. They do this in order to try and demonstrate that "faith" is "required" to take the atheist view, when the actual situation is that this argument only applies to the hard athiests — of whom, by the way, I have met very few. In the case of agnostics, they do this so as to try to stake out an imaginary middle ground between belief and lack of belief. There is no such middle ground, and agnostics are upset by this idea because, I think, they're trying to avoid the issue. This can always be resolved by a simple question: Do you believe in a god or gods, or not? The answer is "I do" or "I don't", and the answer clearly defines one who embraces theism (theist) and one who does not embrace theism (atheist.)
I am atheist. I hold absolutely no belief in a god or gods, nor do I ever expect to, nor do I ever expect to run into any evidence to the contrary that would cause me to embrace the idea that the idea of a god or gods rises above the standard of any other fairy tale. Given the complete and utter lack of evidence made available to me to date, my confidence that the idea of a god or gods is a completely human construct is extremely high. None of this is disbelief. It is lack of belief. I find the cup of evidence to be empty. Like any assertion for which no evidence can be found, asking for belief is asking far too much. Is the idea interesting? Certainly. Is it entertaining? Yes, that too. Is it woven throughout history? Yes. Has it affected the course of human lives? Sure. Should I therefore pay attention to it? Indubitably. Might it affect my own life? Yes indeed. Does any of this make t
The fact that there are risks and unknowns do not in any way reduce your ability to make an informed choice. An intelligent adult understands that there are risks and unknowns. You can't be protected from everything, including people who might not care about your particular situation or outcome.
None of that serves as "good reason" to take the right to choose from adults.
As for your outlook on drug companies, fine, whatever. You're entitled to your outlook. That still doesn't give you the right to tell me what to do with my own body.
Did you ever consider that there are cases with some disease processes where people might be very pleased to consider becoming a "guinea pig"?
Not everyone thinks the government should be their mommy. If you need a mommy, then by all means, have some old lady adopt you. For those adults capable of making informed decisions for themselves, why not stay the heck out of their lives? I know, it is just such a radical idea, but even so... adults, making decisions about their own bodies, for themselves... it almost sounds like... liberty.
But we can't have that. That would be... un-American.
That's pretty much how I look at it, yes. But you have to keep in mind that if I am producing the "thing" at pretty near cost, and you also have to reverse it, come into a market I've already staked out a claim in, supersede my marketing and customer service and solution-fitting... just reversing it isn't going to buy you much. Reversing only works if a product is put into a market with a huge margin and the cream is being skimmed. Then there is room for competition. If I take a market properly, I won't leave much room for you, yet my idea is still there if you can figure out another way to use it that doesn't put you into competition. Today's model is that Joe invents X, charges WAY more than it is worth until Joe's patent runs out, then retires the idea. My model is that Joe invents X, puts it into the market in such a way as to actually be competitive from day one, and this reduces competition by making it actually difficult to compete based on service, quality, and so forth. If the idea is non-trivial, new, and executed well, it should do fine.
Wrong questions. I'm not saying this is how it is; I'm saying, this is a much more reasonable way for it to actually be. Also, this is how I'd like it to be. Also, this is a way I've managed to do well, myself, and that's at least one pilot case. No more than that.
It doesn't, really. Copyrights and patents are different beasts. The copyright system has its own problems, and for the most part, they aren't really all that similar. But in broad strokes, recompense for writing a story or a song is reasonable. Bards were always paid with something, even if it was just a bed for the night. Earning millions, or tens of millions, for a story or a song? Is that equitable? I'm not sure it is. If it really takes you years to come up with a song (so that years of income need to account for your work) perhaps you really aren't cut out to be a musician. And mind you, I'm a musician and I own a literary agency, so I'm pretty sensitive to copyrights and what they can earn.
Society has jammed itself into a corner where a very few artists receive wildly large incomes for insane (by my view) terms, and most of the rest simply starve, even though many of them are really very, very good. I don't think that's particularly healthy for our society, and I do think that the main pressure that has caused this is long copyright terms and disproportionate rewards for creative works that really aren't that different from one another. But as I say, I don't really see this as the same set of issues — the ability to reproduce information (music, stories, videos) for essentially zero is going to require a whole different set of solutions than those problems that encompass physical objects.
I like questions like this: Are we going to let the cost of a Hollywood blockbuster (say, the star wars series) and our interest in such blockbusters choke the entire rest of the creative industry with DRM and so forth? I see that as a very bad road to go down; I'd rather lose the big productions and see less recompense in general, with a better chance for more artists to be exposed. I also think that as (ok, if) the balance swings more towards people who are doing art for art's sake instead of for that one chance at the brass ring, we're more likely to see exceptional works (which I would not, for instance, include star wars in...)
Joe an
Here is the relevant etymology:
Theism: Belief in a god or gods. Theist: Person holding belief in a god or gods.
The root "a": Without.
A-theism: without belief in a god or gods. A-theism: Person without belief in a god or gods.
And before some wag tries to misconstrue the etymology as "without god" as in "a-theos", let me remind them that the word is not a-theos, it is a-theist or a-theism.
Atheism is not definitive of "disbelief." Disbelief is a additional stance taken over basic atheism (after all, you have to be without belief in god or gods to go the next step and declare your faith that there is no such thing.) This latter stance is called "hard atheism" while the former is "soft atheism." This is so well established, and has been for so long, you should be absolutely mortified that you are unaware of it, yet are trying to take part in a discussion about the issues. Go educate yourself.
The common person's misunderstanding of the atheist position is is why the wikipedia entry for atheist has been closed so often, by the way, atheists trying to get the definition for what they stand for corrected, and non-artheists repeatedly mis-characterizing their stance.
I don't need to defend this position extensively, it is a done deal in the atheist community. I'm just letting you, and others who are similarly confused, know what the actual situation is. You can check it out -- actually do some research -- and learn something, or you can continue on in ignorance. Your call.
With regard to the claim for agnostics; this is not relevant, except in that it puts agnostics out. Agnostics talk about knowledge, when asked about belief (the atheist/theist question.) These are two completely different cognitive domains. It is similar to asking if water is cold, and being given the response "I wonder if it is wet?"
Either you hold a belief in a god or gods, or you don't. You can call it whatever you want, riding your confusion off into the sunset for all I care, but there are still only two positions. If your answer is that you hold such a belief, then you are a theist. If you do not hold such a belief, you are an atheist. With regard to knowledge, no one asked you what you knew, or why you take the stance you take: The question is simply, and always has been, do you believe? The only answers are yes, or no.
Because you have muddled up the ideas of belief and knowledge, your story makes no sense and mis-characterizes the atheist position. With this corrected, your story comes out this way:
Query: Do you believe statement about breakfast was made?
Looking at this, we can see that the atheist position is the open one; no beliefs are held without evidence, the atheist is not only willing to say so, but knows why this position makes sense. The theist position is committed to belief without evidence, cites "faith"; the agnostic hasn't even answered the question, though we know that this is simply an evasion, because the fact is, either you hold a belief, and you're theist, or you don't, and you're atheist.
Tip: As soon as you mis-characterize the atheist position as "believing there is no god" then you're off in never-never land. Atheists are without belief.
Actually, we don't. We just observe the consequences and have crafted a theory to fit. The unicorns want you to think it's "natural"; they're embarrassed about the dildos, of course. You've never been underground to observe them run, nor have you been underground when your imaginary "fault" slipped.
Now, I ask you again -- same question. No evasions. Why, when you have story A and you have story B and neither one has a shred of evidence, do you go atheist on the one and agnostic on the other? Why do you feel it is inapropriate to fail to believe in god (atheism) and instead retreat to "I don't know" instead of the same healthy reaction you had to the unicorn?
Look, let's cut to the chase. Either you believe in god (theism) or you don't hold such a belief. There is no such "separate" stance as agnosticism, because it isn't knowledge we're talking about here, it is belief. Belief doesn't require knowledge (see legions of tarot card users for concrete example of this.) Theist: Believes in a god or gods. Atheist: without belief in a god or gods. You're one or the other, this agnosticism is a copout, plain and simple. Belief: Either you believe, or you don't. So declare yourself and stop this silly pretending to be above such a simple question.So, you're "agnostic" about little pink supernatural unicorns that cause earthquakes by running upside down along faultlines and crap gold deposits when stimulated with fish dildos weilded by mermaids, too?
Or perhaps are you willing to stipulate that when someone invents some silly set of ideas with no basis in reality, atheism -- that is, lack of belief -- is more appropriate than agnosticism?
If you're atheist with regard to the unicorn, but remain agnostic with regard to the idea of "god", perhaps you would enlighten all of us, or even just me, why you give the idea more credence, other than wanting to "get along."
What? Oh. OK. I, um, I have to go now. Time for my meds.
Oh, I don't know about that. Imagine a pair of enhanced breasts, little stalactites of ice hanging from the nipples, provocatively visible through a lace bra made of advanced insulation, while thousands of amperes surge through the underlying silicone with virtually no loss at all. It'd be like... the "mother's milk of power!"(tm)
I, for one, welcome our super-conducting silicone overlordettes. Show me the evidence, and I will believe!
You can't expect them not to respond to something like this. The window in which superstitious fantasies like creationism exist just closed a little further; the fact of the myriad variations among humans and animals leans ever nearer to a mundane explanation, and further from the hand-waving vagaries of "soul" and "mystery."
The more information science puts on the table, the louder the screams from the superstitious will be. Right up until the day the last one lays down their book, crystal, bones, or tarot.
All we have to do in the meantime is keep these people from injecting their miserable dogma into our legal and social systems to the degree where it rolls back progress, like the recent push to get creationism into schools. That went well enough, the clueless were sent scuttling back to their caves; but as vigilance is the price of freedom, so it is the price of rationality. Keep a wary eye on your local mad hatters. They're plotting on you; count on it.
Irrelevant. Answered as asked.
There is no need to "account" for them. It is purest hubris to think that we know anything definitive about how this universe settled out to work the way it does, as the event(s) are not in any way directly in evidence. What an atheist can do, however, is use science to discover what the various "laws" seem to be, and from there, continue to build a rational, consistent world-view -- at least so far as the world appears to be rational and consistent. Which so far, has been 100% with the single exception of human superstition.
Why do you feel that it is necessary to think that they do so? Why do you feel it is necessary to pretend you know how -- and why -- everything started? Why are you so uncomfortable that a tiny biological organism, alive for a tiny fraction of the time the universe has been relatively stable, even if you consider the entire race instead of your single instance, restricted in direct observations to a tiny, tiny, tiny corner of that universe, might legitimately not know, and for that matter never know, the answers to questions like these? I'm not saying it is improper to ask them, that's a very interesting process indeed, I'm simply saying that the presumption you already have an answer is more than a little absurd. Trying to invalidate a materialist world-view on the basis that some questions don't have answers is just silly.
Men should be rational because it brings good to the individual, to society, to other species on the planet, to the planet itself. Because it caused science to arise; because science is a system that continually generates advancement in knowledge and goods; because when we look at irrational systems like religion, we see far fewer benefits of any particular significance.
Where did the microchip from from, rational thinking or superstitious thinking? Where did the understanding of the human genome come from, rational thinking or superstitious thinking? Where did our understanding of the heliocentric nature of the solar system come from, rational thinking or superstitious thinking? Where did the laser, the nuclear reactor, space flight, penicillin, LCDs, chemotherapy, the SSC come from? Not from superstition, that is for certain. Superstition produces no output that advances society, defends society, bulwarks society. Superstition is a mechanism for explaining things by making up answers without regard for the known behavior of the universe and as such, it literally serves to retard society. Rational thinking, on the other hand, results in steady advancement. The penultimate example of rational thinking is represented by science; the penultimate example of superstitious thinking is represented by organized religion.
So we have every reason to be rational; we also have every reason to reject superstitious thinking. Rationality is the key underlying principle that has brought us quite a distance, through many objections from the superstitious crowd. Because of rational thinking, it is a lot more difficult today for the superstitious to jail people like Galileo; it is a lot more difficult to foist off utter nonsense like creationism on anyone who simply has a basic understanding of science.
So... you've not been watching the US state and federal governments for long, then?
There were settlers here long before any of the American Indian cultures set up shop. We have everything from campsites to footprints to full villages as concrete evidence.
Everyone is an immigrant here, or descendent of one. Humans did not arise in North America. Period.
This "HTML tag" right here...
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And now, Vista carries the not too subtle warning that it will need "more resources." Sorry. After spending quality time with OSX and being reminded what a speedy OS feels like, I've come to the conclusion that MS is too far behind the curve these days.
And you know what's really sad? I've been making PC software since Windows 3.1.
My opinion is that if it takes Joe three years to invent product X, but it takes Leroy 1 week to reverse-engineer product X, then Joe has been out-competed by the simple fact that his time is worth a lot less by direct market value, since Leroy's time can produce the same product in 1 week. Joe, therefore, is not entitled to out-compete Leroy in the marketplace, unless he can do it with downstream mechanisms (customer service, add ons, games, etc.) Even though Joe invested three years.
In other words, what you have here is something that was obvious to Leroy; and the obvious doesn't deserve protection. Of any kind. At some level, there will always be someone who can think of an idea, but will find it very difficult to actualize. These people are not well served by trying to be inventors. Invention requires the ability to conceptualize, actualize and then either sell (the idea) or market (the product.) That would be Joe. Leroy, on the other hand, is well suited, because he can do in a week what Joe can do in three years.
The example assumes that Joe's invention is in fact properly protected in terms of trade secret; there are no numbers on the IC's, the code has been freed of debugging information, the inside of the device is filled with epoxy — whatever it takes. Trade secret does, of course, require that you not share design information. Again, anything so simple that its design is obvious, is, well, obvious. :)
Nintendo was affected only in the sense that the window of opportunity they tried to create was closed. I don't have a problem with this. Nintendo has many other opportunities to work the marketplace, such as producing games, adding goodies to the hardware, perhaps even stopping the practice of trying to make the games pay for the console, which is dubious at best anyway. I look at Nintendo and I see a company that has turned many millions of dollars using the system as it is. Lots of high-paid people, lots of satisfied customers. If things went a little different than they had planned, as Japanese, I expect them to understand, because as they say, "business is war." Remember: Trade secret won't serve to protect the obvious, nor can it be counted upon to let an attempt at obfuscation (like Nintendo's) function over something with little complexity or originality. Trade secret is at its best when the idea is not obvious, the implementation is non trivial, and the product is not exposed at the design level. In other words, trade secret serves those who invent things of significance in terms of resources, operation, effects, and follow-on issues. Finally, great success will breed imitation. No way around it. You have to plan for it; imagine your competitor's surprise (and displeasure) when they find that their customers are turning to you for service, add ons, and so forth.
If it legitimately takes time, that is, it would take me just as long, or longer, than it takes you, then the time it took you to create it is the window you will have to market it before the first competitor -- me -- reaches your market. In that time, you can establish cost efficiencies, customer service mechanisms, add-ons, and so forth that add value to your product in such a way that the newcomer has yet more work to do to catch up. Additionally, you have had the opportunity to take the cream off the market. You had the opportunity to say "We've invented the Widget-O-Tron!"... which is a great marketing tool. At this time, you are now in the position of someone who is selling something that is no longer unique; this is not an untenable position, millions of manufacturers and retailers occupy this niche each and every day and do
The system is designed for them, as I said, and they will continue to use it. I also said it wasn't going to change; I said the system benefits them; I said they had no concern for any of the rank and file; how much plainer can I be?
If anything is ever done, it will have to be done at the level of legislation. But again, I don't expect that to happen, because as I already explained, there is no way provided for the rank and file to change the system.
That is tripe and nonsense. Inventing is a nearly cost-free process. I've been doing it all my professional life, and I started with zero dollars. I'm the poster child for inventing things on napkins and in simulation. It doesn't take money; it takes an innovative outlook and a reasonable fund of knowledge. Both are available for free, the more so today for that matter.
The reason it "looks" like a rich vs. poor matter is because the patent system is tuned for high dollar players, just as I said. You know, it doesn't have to be so: just the fact that it is should tell you a lot.
It is temporary, which is enough. I made my fortune with it; I can assure you it is adequate to the task. My point is that patents are too much protection; in fact, they go well beyond protection and constitute assault on people who legitimately invent something on their own. Trade secret does not protect the obvious. Yet if you look, you'll see that even the patent system wasn't supposed to do that. It has been perverted to do so, one of its many problems.
You're assuming that only patents can do this. But that is false. I've been inventing all my professional life and never used them. I've put out many innovative products, and I have benefited from this a great deal. Patents injure the public because they are a repressive means of handling invention. They work by suppression of the many and encouragement of only one person, the first inventor to get a claim to the patent office. Trade secret encourages everyone, all the time. It is not only better for society as a means to provide faster and more numerous innovations, it is ethically more sound at every level.
There's nothing illegal about wishing you were free when you're actually a slave, either.
No, a mechanism already exists for that purpose; it is called "trade secret." The way it works, see, is that if your idea is complex enough to be non-trivial in terms of the resources required to instantiate it, then you just don't tell anyone how you did something, you simply develop it, and market it. If it is useful, you'll have a market window, and this gives you that "very temporary monopoly" you need to make a reasonable amount of income from your idea. What is great about it is that it doesn't involve lawyers, it doesn't involve the government, and it doesn't involve repressing everyone else's creativity. It also has built-in safeguards against simplistic ideas being given the status of unbreakable dams against progress.
You really don't understand how things work. It's not "society" operating here; it is corporations and the rich. And what they want to supress is your ability to do anything at all without paying them, either for a product, or for the use of an idea they've latched onto.
The fact that this suppresses creative thought is a side-effect, one that (a) only injures the general public and so (b) is not of concern to either the government, the corporations or the rich. What they're trying to do (and suceeding very well at) is suppress competition. What you think is of no concern to them. The system is designed to ignore what you think. That's why legislators make law, and you don't get to. It's trivially easy to bribe the very few legislators (think PACs, trips, speaking engagements, employment after politics, re-election support) but it is not easy to bribe the hundreds of millions of citizens at large. Not only do you have no input into the process, you're pretty well stuck in the loop of supporting the system from without by paying for these patents and for the bribes and for the legislators. All those costs are built into everything you buy that has one or more patents, with the single exception of the costs that are built into your taxes.
The system is locked-down. You can get a decent patent (meaning, one you have a slight chance of being able to defend in court) for about ten grand. But even if you can meet that financial standard (and of course, the vast majority of people cannot, nor is there any correlation between those who are creative and those who have such funding available), you have another, much higher hurdle to jump: You have to be able to pay for the defense of that patent in court. You on one side, with your house mortgaged (agin, if you have such a resource) and on the other, for instance, IBM, with (compared to you) absolutely unlimited resources.
But hey, don't worry about it. After all — it's not going to change.