Fav quotes

[Travis Retriever]

http://www.cracked.com/article_19151_5-bad-ideas-humanity-sticking-with-out-habit.html
Best. Cracked. Ever.

[VectorM]

http://www.cracked.com/article_19151_5-bad-ideas-humanity-sticking-with-out-habit.html
Best. Cracked. Ever.

About number 3 - why do we have to go to school for so long to begin with? School should last half as long, at most. And from then on, let people who are interested in math, or whatever, to specialize in that specifically. Not this generalized bull-crap we have now, that just goes on and on forever.

"Oh, but you might need to know who the president of Turkey was, if you got asked in a TV show or something". Screw you.

[Travis Retriever]

About number 3 - why do we have to go to school for so long to begin with? School should last half as long, at most. And from then on, let people who are interested in math, or whatever, to specialize in that specifically. Not this generalized bull-crap we have now, that just goes on and on forever.

"Oh, but you might need to know who the president of Turkey was, if you got asked in a TV show or something". Screw you.

True, even Fringeelements has speculated that in a free market, school would probably only last about until the person is 12 years old, until they can be taught a trade if they aren't academic material, and for the more academically inclined students, accelerated year round study so that someone who wants to be a doctor can be ready to get a job by age 17.

[Travis Retriever]

http://mises.org/daily/5227

Jeffrey Tucker = made of win!

[Gumba Masta]

"Eight years involved with the nuclear industry have taught me that when nothing can possible go wrong and every avenue has been covered, then is the time to buy a house on the next continent."

- Terry Prachett

[Travis Retriever]

Ayn Rand considered the legal protection of a patent or copyright necessary to protect the rights of an idea's creator because of "man's right to the product of his mind." But Rand recognized that ideas couldn't really be treated just like other property. Rights to ordinary property exist in perpetuity — you can pass the property on to your heirs, and they to their heirs, and so on forever. But Rand believed that IP rights could only be recognized for some limited period of time. She could see that if people retained permanent property rights in ideas, this would "paralyze" society as research and innovation would grind to a halt and people would be forced to pay royalties for virtually everything they use to the layabout heirs of long-dead inventors. So Rand recognized that some time limit would have to be established that balanced the inventor's rights with the ability of others to pursue further research.[4]

Rand maintained that her philosophy and her views on IP were a product of her moral views on man's rights, so limiting the duration of IP rights to encourage innovation seems uncharacteristically utilitarian. But anyone who believes that IP rights are natural property rights [and/or believes them as a form of property on moral grounds] will have to contend with this difficulty.

(Source of quote)

Can you image if the people supporting IP on moral grounds actually took IP to the above logical conclusion?
I can already imaging, if we started out with zero patents/copyrights, but with the laws they wanted in place for people to claim patents/copyrights, along with an otherwise free market, the industry would boom at first, causing all the Pro-IP people to go, "Look! See? We NEED IP laws for progress in science and art!"  Then, as the weight of the laws coming bearing down and slowing progress, and people begin to play black market, the slowing of growth would of course be blamed on pirates, as "trespassers" (Notice how they changed it from "thief" to "trespass".  Does that remind you of the name change from Creationism to ID too?) instead of their wholly dated laws, as everyone has to pay royalties for everything long into the future.

[VectorM]

Like the "Boom and Bust" thing.

[MrBogosity]

I wonder how these people think cavemen ever invented spears and bow/arrows without first inventing IP?

[VectorM]

But Shane, they would have more incentive to make them, if they did have copyright laws, right? Right?

That's how a good democratic society works, after all.

[MrBogosity]

Yeah, I'm sure if they'd copyrighted the wheel, civilization would have taken right off! [/sarcasm]

[VectorM]

Yeah, exactly!

[MrBogosity]

Especially perpetual copyrights and patents...what do these people honestly think the world would be like if we had to pay the descendants of Grog every time we made something with a wheel?

[Travis Retriever]

Especially perpetual copyrights and patents...what do these people honestly think the world would be like if we had to pay the descendants of Grog every time we made something with a wheel?

My point exactly:  all research and creative innovation, invention and new art would grind to a halt.

[Travis Retriever]

Ludwig von Mises was not concerned with natural rights, so he didn't run into this problem. He simply considered IP necessary to motivate people to create useful books and technological innovations. He wrote in Human Action that it is "unlikely that people would undertake the laborious task of writing" such things as "textbooks, manuals, handbooks, and other nonfiction works," if "everyone were free to reproduce them," and that it is "very probable that technological progress would be seriously retarded" if inventors and those who finance their work could not have a patent's help to recoup their expenses.[5]

(Source of quote)

By Mises' logic on IP, all businesses deserve handouts during their first few years in order to make up the huge fixed cost relative to variable costs that causes the average total cost per unit of output to be so high during the start of a business.  Same logic as IP.

[Travis Retriever]

Dale Everett really hit the nail on the head with IP:

My own views of intellectual property are a bit nuanced.  I definitely don't believe anyone is entitled to damages or restitution because someone copied, not stole, your shit.  In that sense, I'm completely anti-IP.  On the other hand, I believe in the notion of IP in the sense that you can own an idea to the extent that you can "protect it" without violence.  You can either keep it secret or you can do a good enough job of branding it or at least date-stamping it so others will have difficulty claiming it as their own.  That doesn't mean they shouldn't be able to make money off of copies but it might help you to counter that and make the money yourself in a peaceful manner.  I'm also a big fan of people expanding on ideas and making them better.  I think claims of damages for copying are unreasonable and they impede that creative process which many consumers stand to benefit from.  I'm also a big fan of reverse-engineering actual physical products and making your own versions of them, possibly improved or just at a lower price.  Patents are bullshit.  This [the elimination of patents and patent laws] is something else that consumers stand to benefit greatly from.

(Source)

In another bit he also points out the absurdity of the utilitarian claim made by many IP proponents of the artist's or inventor's entitlement.  That is, they seem to be under the impression that you have a right to profit from your works.  Makes me wonder if they thought the bailouts were justified.  After all, not giving those failing companies bailouts would have violated their "right" to profit!