DonAthos

The best, most beneficial, way that I've found to interact with "normal" people, is to first realize that I, and you as well, am also a "normal" person (insofar as "normal" is even a valid concept, which I hesitate to believe).
 
When I first got into Objectivism, also in high school, I had this whole ridiculous phase where I saw everyone around me as a "Keating" and a few, select people as actually rising above the rest. This is a stupid viewpoint. Everyone around you is not a "Keating," you just don't know the people around you, so you assume. Almost everyone I've ever met has personal interests, goals, ambitions, things and people they care about. Yeah, some select few people truly are hopeless losers who will only bring you down. Learning to avoid those people isn't an Objectivist task - it's a people task, because everyone has to avoid that kind of person. But most people aren't that kind of person.
 
But sometimes we get into the habit of tribal thinking. Everyone who isn't an Objectivist, or who doesn't strictly adhere to the tenets of Objectivism, is a lesser person, or at least you're a greater person for doing so. It's the same kind of thinking that leads to religious extremism, and it's the same kind of thinking that causes people looking at some Objectivists to pronounce that they are dogmatists or cultists: that inside-vs-outside sort of attitude, where you're somehow more special than people who don't believe, is the exact kind of thing that causes people to believe Objectivism is a cult. You are no more a "true" individual (as the first responder would have you believe) than anyone else is - this isn't to say that you aren't an individual, but rather that everyone is.
 
If you have trouble conversing with people because of your beliefs... well, than either the problem is your beliefs (which, seeing as there are plenty of Objectivists who are capable of living normal social lives, I hesitate to believe) or the problem is your social skills. Either way, the solution is simple: whatever problems you have with other people based on your beliefs, get past them. Until someone truly slights you, you have no reason to think less of them by default. Try to get to know people, discover their interests and their ambitions instead of simply assuming that they are "Keatings". Be a good person, and discover the good in other people. Share your interests with other people, and discover people who care about what you care about - or discover new things to care about by learning about other people's interests.
 
Ayn Rand's fiction, while brilliant, did not portray a world that reflected the real world. Its limited cast of characters were almost always on one side or another: die-hard Objectivist ideals (with resumes that most of us could only aspire to) or clear cut "moochers" and "looters". There were a few exceptions, but Rand's fiction encouraged - perhaps not intentionally - the view that the majority of people are simply mindless drones. It's an easy belief to fall into when you're a teenager and you haven't developed that sense of perspective that allows you to be aware that, indeed, everyone around you thinks, everyone around you goes through hardships, everyone around you has goals and loves and passions, and everyone around you sometimes, also, feels left out.
 
 
 
As for the problem of not enjoying school itself, take everyone else's advice: find a subject you enjoy, and learn it yourself. I did that in high school, and I've continued doing it in college, even when I didn't need to. 

Whether this sort of thing is good, bad, or indifferent, what matters to me is the recognition that it exists.

People don't always speak their minds directly. Sometimes communication is coded. We don't do ourselves any service by pretending not to understand, or refusing to understand. It is better to be informed.

If you're in an angry conversation with someone in a public place, and they ask you to "step outside," they're not simply looking for fresh air. If you're on a date with a woman, and she invites you upstairs afterwards to "see her apartment" or "have coffee" or a "nightcap" or whatever else, it's important to recognize the content of what she's likely communicating (regardless of whether or not you find it "honest" of her).

It does no good to act as though you know less than you actually know. (And if you don't know, now you know.)

Critical thinking skills are an acquired ability to distinguish between clear and unclear expressions of thought. An ability that comes in handy is the ability to evaluate a statement with regard to how others might perceive it. A statement may seem clear at first, in the context of what was being considered when writing it, and lose that clarity when reviewing it at some point in the future.
 
Objectivism is a philosophy that touts reason and logic underpinning the five basic branches, and the host of factors that give rise to its hierarchy and structure. Understanding it, like understanding anything, is not automatic.
 
Imagine an outsider with little more familiarity to Objectivism, than hearing it is the solution to all the problems in the world. While this is an overstatement, Objectivism posits solutions to understanding key issues in ethics and politics that run askew to anything tried during the course of human history.
 
The internet has more materials than anyone could possibly process in a lifetime. People need to allocate their time when using the Internet, just like anything else, and seek out what they esteem of value. A forum offers the opportunity to discuss and share ideas that fall under a common theme. People interested in understanding more about math, can find a math forum. I consider a forum like Freethought and Rationalism as a showcase for what advocating any and every idea as possible and plausible leads to.
 
Objectivism advocates the adherence to a method in order to establish if an idea is possible, possible and ultimately as certain. Ideas that do not meet these criteria are deemed to be arbitrary. Critical thinking skills are honed by arriving to a conclusion of the ideas position along this continuum.
 
While there is a place of being critical of others, it is usually accompanied by making a strong case supporting it. Folks who come here to read these threads are hopefully interested in what Objectivism is, and how it can benefit them. They can argue willy-nilly at home, work, school or favorite social club.  Objectivism identifies the role that philosophy in the course of human events. If rational discourse with a sincere respect for logic is to return to the culture at large, where is it to start?

Just to say that I quite like this.

Honestly, I don't think it's worthwhile to try to calculate how much Rand (or anyone else) "paid in" to such a scheme versus how much they "took out." I wouldn't think to look for morality there.

But for those who think that such calculations are important, I think it's worth considering that we're not necessarily talking about a 1-to-1 relationship, dollar for dollar.

If a person is taxed early in their life, it possibly prevents certain investment opportunities and a greater resultant wealth. Also, governmental intervention into the economy can result in poor outcomes in the marketplace. Given Capitalism, who knows how (in)expensive healthcare may have been for Rand -- or, for that matter, how many other areas of economic life would have been cheaper, again resulting in the potential for a greater overall personal wealth.

Governmental interference in the economy -- infringements upon liberty generally -- make us all poorer, not only for the specific monies that we're individually taxed, but also in innumerable and incalculable other ways, as production is punished and made more difficult, and the entire system is thereby made inefficient.

There is also this, from the conversation between Burgess and Robert on Burgess' blog:
 
When he says "you have given me a useful example" and "that will help me," he's providing his rationale for awarding the $100. I see no further call for "speculation" as to his motive -- I trust Burgess to be able to speak his own mind on the matter.

To be real but not concrete would mean that the concretes of the fable never really happened. Yet, the fable is real in the sense that the message is true.
 
For instance, take the story of Joseph (from the Abrahamic religions). There was a man who interpreted a Pharaoh's dream of fat and thin cows. He said it meant 7 years of abundant crop would be followed by 7 years of famine. So, the king should fill granaries during good years to be used in years of need. The whole story might be concretely false. Perhaps there was never such a guy. Even so, the message is true: the boom-bust cycles in pre-industrial societies usually come from the cycles where a few years of good weather were followed by a few years of bad; therefore, one should prepare for bad years when times are good. Dropping the concrete of agriculture, the fable can still hold true across modern boom-bust cycles.  Even if we assume the whole story is concretely true, we can imagine such a story morphing into others: e.g. "Joseph was the man who flew up to heaven and forced the Gods of the Sun and the Wind and Rain to bow down to the Pharaoh"

I'll have to trust you to do this, if that's your choice. But honestly I feel apprehensive at the idea, because too often I believe that people give themselves license to ignore specific cases, examples, and points -- those things that constitute the case I'm actually making, and over which I have labored -- in the name of "responding to the main idea," which winds up being a mere recapitulation of their own original views (and/or a strawman of my own), seemingly untouched by anything I've actually had to say.

I sometimes suspect in such cases that the real reason they're not responding to any of the specifics I've set forward is because they cannot do so, while simultaneously holding to the original positions that they have staked out for themselves.

I'll ask you to please try to ensure that your post actually responds to my post -- so that when I read it, I feel as though you have troubled yourself to understand what I am saying, and are responding in kind.
 
I am responding to this:
 
Emphasis added.

I don't know what it matters to our scenario "who invented the piano" -- why we should ever need to figure that out to suss out a modern day example of one or two guys building a piano between them. The piano was invented 300 years ago, per Wikipedia.

And yes, I'd stipulated that these scenarios are not running afoul of IP, because I wanted to look at a case of property unburdened by such things... but beyond that it's not for me to say whether you believe that an IP claim should normally last for a day, a lifetime, or forever. Proponents of IP make all kinds of claims as to how such things ought to be administered, and while you maybe believe some certain period is reasonable, another reader might have some other opinion on the matter. I don't know how those things can be argued, one way or the other -- if there's an objective principle behind the length of IP assignment, I don't know it. (Personally, arguing over matters like whether author's life + 65 years or + 70 years is "more reasonable" is a bit to me like arguing over the average life expectancy of a goblin. That it all has the whiff of the arbitrary is to be expected, given what I believe IP is at heart.)

All right. It's been a while, and I don't believe I ever addressed your OP due to overwhelming frustration at the time. Let's take this from the top.
 
Sure.
 
On that subject, let's briefly pause.

Suppose Franz had not yet designed his piano or his blueprint. Suppose that he had simply purchased the material as he struggles to come up with a design, and now that material is on the floor in similar fashion to your proposal. Is that material any less Franz's, in terms of ownership, for not yet having been collated into a particular piano design?

Does he not, even at such a stage, already have complete ownership of those materials?
 
I believe that land is a special category of property at least. If we are dealing in pianos and ships and basketballs, and if something "as simple as saying a physical boundary" applies well enough to them, then let's deal on that level unless we have some good reason not to. If we were discussing engineering a roller coaster, after all, there would be no need to begin our discussion with quantum mechanics -- would there?
 
Let's be careful here. First of all, I need to clarify (because this is very often at the root of my critique of your approach to IP) that your assertion here -- "what I’m getting at is that the property in question is intellectual in nature" -- does not mean that you are necessarily addressing yourself to IP, despite your use of the word "intellectual," and even if this use of the term is accurate.

There is a difference between a standard theory of property and a theory of intellectual property. Which is not to say that there can't be some "grand unifying theory," which... I think is what you're after? But at minimum, a theory of IP (and even such a grand unifying theory) would have to be able to address those things that IP actually does/has done in the world, namely patents, copyrights and trademarks. (If it does not, then we are not discussing IP at all.)

So even if you're right in your approach to standard property, in that there is this "intellectual" component to it, that does not serve to justify what we mean in the world when we discuss IP; IP still requires its own justification.

As regards the content here, in terms of property I think we recognize that Franz owns these materials independent of his purported intentions for them. Whether he values them for their own sake, or only for some specific design, is another matter. (And "monetary value" is yet another thing altogether, and I would argue a needless complication.) I'd agree with you that people typically value materials, as such, because we recognize that they have some eventual, potential application... but I don't think we necessarily need to know whether some specific material is slotted for a piano or for a treehouse or for anything at all, for those to fall under the umbrella of "property rights."

After all, if you had a warehouse filled with material -- material for which you had not yet found a particular use, but were preserving against future discovery/need -- I doubt that you would be comfortable with my ransacking your warehouse, because I had judged my own need for that material more important or more immediate than yours, because I would like to use it to build a piano, for which I have a design ready. Or if that's deemed allowable under your theory of property rights, then I'm not certain it is a recognizable theory of property rights at all.
 
I'm a little hesitant about responding to your question as phrased. Should Franz have the right to bring Wolfgang to court if he so chooses? Don't we generally have the right to bring people to court for any manner of reason -- injuries real or imagined?

The real question is whether Wolfgang has committed some crime against Franz. Now how I would normally try to assess such a thing is to ask whether Wolfgang has in some fashion initiated the use of force against Franz, because that's what I hold to be criminal. Leaving aside the question begging I might expect from others (i.e. the response that "he *must* have initiated the use of force, because he violated intellectual property rights!"), let's ask ourselves what it means to initiate force against a person -- what it looks like, what it means, and how we respond to it.

Because, look: if we can establish that Wolfgang is now employing physical force against Franz, then you and I will be finally agreed on the basis for IP.
 
Yes. It's a criminal matter, and Wolfgang should be processed through the criminal justice system in such a case (which might mean going to prison).
 
I would argue that the difference is such that he has committed no crime. Let's return here to the question of the initiation of physical force.

Things are what they are -- are we agreed? If I initiate physical force against you, then it doesn't matter whether you're aware of my having done so or not -- I have committed that crime.

But how do we recognize the initiation of physical force, or any crime, to begin with? Let's consider Wolfgang.

You have him building a piano of his own materials in his own home by virtue of the design he learned from seeing Franz's blueprints, yes? And then you have Franz discovering the fact when visiting Wolfgang's home, leading to court. But let us note, that moment of discovery is not when the crime was committed.

In theory (and specifically what I take to be the theory of IP you would lay out), Wolfgang has initiated the use of physical force against Franz at the moment he has built his piano.

Now please, in the name of your at least understanding my position on this matter, I would like for you to give that scenario some substantial thought.

We do not have to further suppose that Franz visits Wolfgang's house and sees the piano. That would not change the supposed criminal nature of the deed in question. Franz would not ever need to know that "he has been harmed."

But has he been harmed? In truth? In reality?

We can recognize the harm when Wolfgang takes Franz's physical, actual piano from him, such that Franz is left bereft of his piano. We understand how and why Franz might defend himself physically against such an ordeal, or failing that, use some third party to use retributive force in response, in the name of justice. It is clear to see that Franz is injured from such an action, which is why we would act to prevent it from happening, or in retribution.

But how do we account it the same kind of thing when Wolfgang is ensconced in his home playing music on a piano he has built, apparently injuring no one, and possibly without anyone else's knowledge? How is that harm at all?
 
Another caution: "materialism," so far as I understand it, is a theory that denies consciousness -- a theory to which I do not subscribe. The position that property has to do with material is not an advocacy of "materialism," unless the very claim that material is something which exists -- that things are made of material, and are recognizable (as a piano, or a basketball, or etc.) -- is somehow considered suspect.

In specific, I'm not "ignoring" the means by which Wolfgang has built his piano. But I would argue that you might be doing that very thing, if you are arguing in similar pattern to what I've found typical of the proponents of IP.

Contra "materialism," both Franz and Wolfgang have a consciousness. Wolfgang has learned of the idea of the piano through Franz, but his consciousness has also grasped that idea. And furthermore, he has translated that idea into reality, which is the basis of property rights. The object of that translation, the idea made manifest -- the piano, which is material -- is what is property.

Wolfgang is not somehow using Franz's mind to build this piano; he is using his own.
 
No. The value of the specific piano that Wolfgang has built is immediately dependent on two things: 1) Wolfgang choosing to adhere to the design he learned from Franz's blueprints/research (for he could have altered them, either intentionally or accidentally); and 2) Wolfgang's having built the piano in reality. If Wolfgang does not accomplish step two, then there is no piano to speak of, and no material value.
 
Of what use is a piano design, except in the construction of one or more actual pianos?

But the rest of this is just a reassertion of your premise, I believe. I agree that I may design a piano, and others may find value in that design and opt to purchase a piano or build their own, but I disagree that there's any necessary "therefore, I should be able to tell them that they can't do it."

I disagree that building a piano or a type of piano (with all of the requisite research granted) gives me reason or right to control "the design," which actually means to control the actions of others, even should those actions cause no injury to myself.

I disagree. I find an implicit premise to all of this that "whatever contributes to flourishing" is therefore property (or a similar thought, though I'm sure you'd want other language to express it, if you'd even agree that this underlies your position). We give away "value" and contribute to the flourishing of others all the time without some resulting claim in property.

To use an example that I've employed before, imagine that I smile at a pretty girl as I pass her on the street. My smile may well inspire her to do something great -- I have a killer smile. I think in terms of reality, we may speak of this as being a "contributor to flourishing." What we do, even down to something so apparently small as a smile, matters. But I have no property stake (in reason or in law) in what she does thereafter, even if she cites me as her muse and accounts her entire product to our chance meeting. Even if she is, in some sense, right.

Ethically? We could perhaps talk about her recognizing the relationship that my choice to smile at her has had to her resultant fame and fortune. Perhaps it would be nice of her to invite me over for a spot of tea. But I do not own what she does, even on the basis of the inspiration I have provided. The property that she creates is directly a product of her mind and her physical labor, and that forms the basis for property. Her property.

This seems to me to be an attempt to turn the conversation away from the subject matter and towards the people discussing it -- "ad hominem." Could we please discuss IP instead?

No need to apologize for that. There's no time limit on the discussion, and I'd prefer that you take whatever time you need to understand the issues and express yourself clearly.
 
 
Your paraphrase does not express my position. Allow me to attempt this again in succinct terms -- or at least, that portion of my argument concerning "contradiction." The rest of my argument, and the details, can be found across what is now several posts of material:

Rand outlines property and property rights in "Man's Rights." She elaborates on the concept in other places as well. Her descriptions of those things are contradictory, in both phrasing and fact, to her arguments for IP in "Patents and Copyrights."
 
 
When you state that "property is a right to what one creates through their labor and thinking," this is true and represents my position on the matter, so long as we keep in mind the context that "what one creates" refers to the specific "material values" (i.e. the "property"), borne of that "labor and thinking," over which one thus has "the right to gain, to keep, to use and to dispose."
 
 
But before we move on, I'm sorry but I have to note that just about none of this is correct. Whatever is true about the nature of property was equally true in 1750 and 750. Man had the very same rights then as today or tomorrow or a million years from now. And the dividing line between what you're calling "tangible property" and IP is not at the level of mp3s; an mp3 is fully a piece of property, as in the sort of "material value" that I'm saying Rand discussed in "Man's Rights" and elsewhere. The question of IP is not whether a given mp3 is protected property or not -- it absolutely is -- but whether the information encoded by an mp3 (i.e. the "idea" of it) is protected.

And the very idea that you can even joke that I'm arguing for something like "a world without rights" seems to me to demonstrate a continued and woeful lack of understanding on your part on the substance and meaning of my arguments. I might as well call you a Kantian (jokingly of course, with a winky face!) -- that would have the same flavor and style and intellectual merit. After all, and so far as I can tell, I am the one arguing for actual rights, Eiuol, and you are the one arguing against them, contra all sense or reason...
 
 
That is very distressing to read, because I think I laid out exactly why I'm saying that in the post immediately preceding yours. Moreover, I think that Rand is so clear on this point -- as I have demonstrated -- that my "demonstration" is itself something like gilding the lily...

I just see no other way to understand how one might read Rand saying "what the patent or copyright protects is not the physical object as such, but the idea which it embodies" as other than that patents or copyrights do not protect physical objects as such, but the ideas which they embody. IP protects ideas. That's what Rand is saying, and that's why I'm saying it's what she's saying.
 
 
Right. She is drawing a distinction between that which IP may properly protect, in her view, and another category of ideas which it cannot -- "discoveries." This does not mean that such "discoveries" have to do with ideas while IP does not. It rather points up the fact that IP does have to do with the protection of "idea property," in that we must make certain not to confuse that with these "discoveries," which are deemed not protectable.
 
 
Why "as far as you're aware"? She says that specifically in the very portion I've quoted while presenting my case, and I've said nothing to imply that this is not her position. I'm certainly not trying to hide it. Here it is again:
 
 
Do you see how she says that "an idea...cannot be protected until..."? Meaning that once this condition is satisfied, then an idea can be protected. She continues:
 
 
"But" because she is drawing a contrast between the fact of an idea's "embodiment" and the nature of the property being discussed. She's saying "yes, it must be embodied -- given some physical form -- but don't get confused by this! We're not talking about the 'material value,' per se, when we discuss 'intellectual property.' We are talking about the ideas themselves as property."
 
 
And... that's it, Eiuol. That's the very thing I've been saying.
 
 
None of this pertains to anything I've said or implied. I haven't been trying to draw any distinctions between "ideas" and "bodyless ideas" (if that even makes any sense? an idea may be embodied in an object, or several, but the idea continues to be the idea, and does not itself have a particular body), nor have I been saying that it doesn't "apply to only *specific types* of ideas." I am saying, and have been saying, that "IP is a claim that people may own ideas." And it seems like maybe now we're agreed on that score...?
 
 
I do take the arguments Rand (and others) have made to their logical conclusion, as I think that's a good way to test the merits of those arguments... but I do not do this in the way you imply. I am not dropping the context of the arguments made, not even Rand's requirement that an idea must be embodied before it can be protected. Or if you would like to continue to contend that I'm doing that, please show me where I argue against IP as whatever it is you think a "bodyless idea" looks like, or against IP as a discovery. I haven't done, I don't think. I've argued against IP specifically as expressed by Rand, Mossoff, and the people in this thread.
 
 
"Perhaps" I'm not ignoring the role of intellectual labor in the creation of property...?
 
 
Perhaps I'm not!
 
 
And more important than that, Sergei is operating in Franz's employ! They have come to a contractual understanding that the pianos that Sergei builds are Franz's property.

For after all, we may imagine Sergei building this very same piano on his own time, twenty years later (or however long you believe a patent should remain in effect), and then it does not matter at all whether he is following Franz's blueprint (insofar as he has come to have this blueprint legally, which is itself property). We would recognize the piano that Sergei builds as being his own.
 
 
Yes. That's right. I'm a Marxist, Eiuol, well-spotted.
 
 
So can we observe? Sergei has indeed built the piano (or depending on the nature of whatever manufacturing process, he has at least assisted in building the piano), and it is on the basis of providing that labor -- labor necessary for the piano to exist -- that he is trading with Franz in the first place. If Sergei had nothing whatsoever to offer in the creation of one or more pianos, it seems unlikely that Franz would agree to pay a wage initially.

If Franz took the pianos Sergei had built and then also kept the promised wage, then Sergei would be justified in saying that he had been exploited, and denied the fruits of his labor.
 
 
Nope. We can't get to IP from here. The reason why Franz owns the piano, despite Sergei's having built it, is because they'd already had an understanding (i.e. a contract) that things would proceed in this very fashion: Franz would allow Sergei use of Franz's property for the purpose of building this piano; Sergei would build it; Franz would own the piano; Sergei would get paid a wage.

We can't dismiss this agreement, pretending like it was never even necessary in the first place, and then act as though there's some sensible way of just sorting everything out. Without the agreement, not only would Franz not be justified in claiming the piano that Sergei had built, but Sergei would not have been justified in using Franz's land, machines, blueprints and etc., in building the piano in the first place.

IP is not the question of whether an employee owns what he builds, despite having willingly entered into a contract (expressed or even implied) by which he trades his labor and interest in the object of creation for a wage. It is the question of whether some other person -- we'll call him Joseph -- who has never heard of Sergei or Franz, but builds a piano of his own, without having seen (or even known of) Franz's blueprints, let alone having entered into some sort of contractual arrangement, has the right to that piano? Or whether Joseph's piano may be deemed similar to Franz's piano such that Franz now owns Joseph's piano, too.

Does IP Concern Owning Ideas?
 
 
One aspect that I'd like to briefly examine on its own is one of the conclusions I've come to during my investigation into IP.  Specifically: what is the nature of the "property" that is owned under IP?  I contend that IP is a claim that people may own ideas.  But I have seen others, in this thread and elsewhere, advance a view where the property protected by IP is not an "idea," per se, but is instead only certain material applications of an idea.  That is to say, a person cannot own an idea as such, but he may own all of the material values associated with a given idea, in the name of IP.
 
Why is this distinction important?  I can't say for certain in every case, as it may vary from person to person, but I suspect that one of the reasons why some might insist on this distinction (though it would appear to have no practical difference) is because it would then appear to resolve the apparent contradiction I've highlighted between IP and Rand's regular use of "material values" to describe property in essays like "Man's Rights."  It is saying, in effect, "there is no contradiction here; intellectual property concerns material values, too."
 
This kind of superficial linguistic agreement, however, is only just that.  Rand's use of "material values" in those essays is inextricably and meaningfully bound with the specific arguments she presents there in describing property and property rights, and their application -- it is there that the contradictions lie, and not simply in word choice.  For instance, when Rand describes the source of a man's claim to a material value (i.e. property) in "The Property Status of the Airwaves," she is describing a process that is antithetical to the process she describes in "Patents and Copyrights."  That sort of contradiction cannot be done away with by claiming that Rand is discussing the same sort of thing in "Patents and Copyrights" as elsewhere ("material values"), for she is not.
 
So if property and property rights concern "the right to gain, to keep, to use and to dispose of material values," then what is the province of intellectual property?  I think Rand understood what is claimed with IP, and I think she made herself clear (emphasis in original, as for instance, the parallel italicizing of "idea" to "intellectual" which helps the reader to connect these two terms; "intellectual property" is "idea property"):
 
 
 
I contend that her meaning is unambiguous.  When she says that IP does not protect physical objects as such, but the ideas which they embody, she is saying that the "property" in IP are ideas.  But this is not alone what Rand "contends."  It is also the only thing that makes IP sensible.
 
Given a situation where Man A innovates and builds Object X, and Man B builds Object Y (which is here considered sufficiently similar to X to constitute an IP violation), IP holds that Man A owns Object Y.  Man A's claim to Object X is that he has performed the mental and physical labor necessary to bring Object X into being (qua material value; or property).  Obviously Man A cannot make the same claim for Object Y, as it was Man B who performed the mental and physical labor necessary to bring Object Y into being (in the same sense as Man A did for Object X).  So how can Man A claim Object Y as property (keeping our view of property as solely "material values" and not "ideas") without laying a prior claim to the idea behind Object Y?  He cannot.
 
It is a dodge (and an ineffectual one) to say that Man A simply owns Object Y (somehow) without recognizing that the source of this claim is that Man A has property in the idea embodied in Object Y.  We cannot ignore the reality of this situation out of existence.  IP is the claim that ideas are property.
 
Now, like I say, the reason I think some people do not want IP to be a property claim on ideas, as such, is because they are dealing with an apparent contradiction between some of Rand's essays/claims.  It is almost as though they have taken as an unassailable premise that no such contradictions can possibly exist.  Thus, when it seems like there might be a divergence between Rand's treatment of property generally, and her discussion of IP, it must be the case that she's actually talking about the same thing despite how it appears.  Thus, it's all somehow "material values," whatever that's left to mean.
 
The other way to go, to preserve consistency on this point between Rand's essays, would be to assert that she never meant "material values" (even when discussing that very thing, by that very term).  It is a far bolder stance, and the mind thrills at what Rand might construed to mean on all sorts of topics by virtue of such... uh... liberal readings.
 
And -- with apologies to Eiuol -- it is Mossoff's:
 
 
 
Mossoff's reasoning here is consonant with Rand's views in "Patents and Copyrights," but not anywhere else.  Rand made explicit why property rights are not "limited to just physical objects" when she said that the right to property is "the right to gain, to keep, to use and to dispose of material values"?  Rand had a funny way of making things explicit!
 
And while man's mind is indeed his basic means of survival, this observation does not give us license to drop out every other aspect of what man's survival actually entails, and treat man as some sort of phantom that floats around reasoning and thereby surviving... (somehow!)  To treat property as alone the work of the mind, ignoring the physical labor equally necessary to create that property, is to mistake what wealth is, why it is necessary and a right, and how men come by it in reality.  To enshrine this false division in law is to commit a grave injustice.

I'm sorry, but I don't plan on doing that, for reasons I'll elaborate presently which I hope you can understand.
 
 
That's easily remediable. Here's the material I'm referring to.
 
 
That's fine. I am scrutinizing all of the arguments presented, so far as I can. Mossoff's arguments were introduced earlier in the thread, though not by me. Mossoff roots his claims in his understanding of Rand and Objectivism. For these reasons, I find them relevant to the thread, and worth discussion.

I understand that your claims are not necessarily the same as his. They don't have to be, to be worthy of discussion in this thread. For yourself, you can establish why you think he's wrong (if you do), if you investigate his claims, or you can ignore them altogether. I don't require you to discuss Mossoff. But you are not the only person participating in this thread, and your ideas/arguments are not the only ones which have been advanced.

Most specifically, I am using my own ideas/arguments (just as you are using yours), and I find that Mossoff's arguments provide a strong case to examine, and against which to situate my own thoughts. I believe that they are a good foil.
 
 
When you say that "not even tangible property is owned into perpetuity," do you mean to say that society is justified in taking tangible property from owners who inherit it, based on the length of time it has otherwise been owned, and put it into some "public domain"? Because that's the point of comparison to which you're speaking.

Dead people can't own anything, but living people can inherit property and confer their property onto whomever they'd like for their own bequeathal.
 
 
IP and tangible property are not the same, and thus they ought not be treated the same. Specifically, owning an idea (or whatever you believe IP to cast as property) does not and ought not convey the right to restrict others from using those same ideas in those same manners. That is one of the ways they should not be treated the same, on account of the fact that they are not the same, and the roles that ideas and "copying" and etc., actually play in human life on earth.

IP is so unlike tangible property that it is not even property or a right.
 
 
I sincerely don't know what those reasons are, or where to find them, and if you did state them earlier, I expect that I did not understand your explanation. Could you please direct me to them?
 
 
But Rand does not say that at all:
 
 
You should read Rand's words before attempting to determine her point (in the same fashion, and for the same reason, that I've reminded you to read my words before deciding what I must be trying to say).
 
 
If you believe that these things are true (and moreover consonant with the Objectivist stance, though who knows if anyone argues for that at this point) in light of the quotes I provided from Rand, Mossoff, and the Federal Law Code in this thread, then I don't know how I could convince you otherwise.

I do understand what you're saying. In reply, I'm saying that the plausibility of the scenario does not matter to the spirit of tad's question. I think it would have been contrary to productive conversation (and possibly rude as well) to have come back at him with something like: "You? Build a Mercedes in your garage? Not bleeding likely! Might as well start talking about Martians..." It would not have been at all to his point, and it would not have answered his question, but it would have left him feeling like I was trying to evade/duck his question (which, in that case, might well be true).

I prefer to meet peoples' questions head-on, insofar as I understand them and am able. I prefer to deal with people as honestly and directly as I can.
 
 
Or you could be a mechanic who has purchased old parts from junk yards, or there might be many different ways to salvage (ha!) this particular scenario for verisimilitude, but... it really isn't necessary. I understood the point to his asking (I think!) and I responded in kind (I think!). I'm fairly sure he wasn't trying to get into the particulars of how someone might build a car, but that he just selected two items at more-or-less random to test a theoretical aspect of IP enforcement.
 
 
I...

How does this happen? I'm... really struggling to understand here...

The portion of Crow's post which you've quoted above here? This was my response to it:

"Yes. That is my idea of property."
 
 
Yes, that's certainly my point. No ideas are property.
 
 
It is.
 
 
Okay, we'll certainly look at your line of reasoning (though keep in mind that my responses to other people must deal with their line(s) of reasoning, even if it does not match your own, so if you do not know that relevant context, you are not well-disposed to understand my replies to them). I have no problem with discussing things on your terms, insofar as I understand them. But at heart, I believe that IP is about owning ideas. Or at least, I think the Objectivist case for IP is about that, which is what I think we're generally discussing, and what Thomas supposed he was defending when he started this thread. Here's Rand:
 
 
Not the object, but the idea. That is what is "protected." That is the property in question.  The idea.
 
 
Begging your pardon, but here is the quote to which I was (in part) responding, and a specific origin of the (para)phrase "in the head":
 
 
So we have a person who wants to sell his "ideas."  Crow then describes a process for doing this very thing, and I agree that one of the requirements Crow holds for being able to do this is the creation of the "realizable form" you mention, but here is his conclusion:
 
 
Well, what is the "it"? Is "it" not "what's in your head: your ideas of how to grow corn"? Because that's my reading.

He is speaking of "turn[ing] an idea, potentially, into a product." Not just of selling a material product, but "offer[ing] your idea for sale" (the emphasis on the word "idea," presumably to demonstrate its importance, is Crow's).  I think he's talking about ideas as property.
 
 
I'm sorry, I don't understand what you're talking about here. When you say that education "is not a great example," I don't know what you mean (what was it supposed to be an example of?) except that you seemingly find every case offered in this thread for any kind of discussion as a poor example of something or other. You obviously want me to come to whatever conclusions you've reached, and I respect that, but you seem to be unwilling to discuss anything that is not defined by your own terms... yet I don't know what those terms are, and I clearly don't understand them. We need a common ground from which to work or else we will continue to speak past one another.

So listen, you've asked me to respond to Crow's posts, and I have, to the best of my ability. Would it be impolite if I asked you, now and in return, to answer some of the questions I've tried to put to you directly over several posts?

We can start small and build from there. You said that you considered the cat exercise patent "terrible." What specifically makes it terrible?

My contention is that ideas are not property at all. The thing that one makes, when one makes property, is property.
 
 
True.
 
 
Yes. That is my idea of property.
 
 
Not roughly the same, but the same. The creation of a material value in this way requires both mental and physical labor. (Unless we introduce spirits who act as minds without bodies, and zombies who act as bodies without mind.)
 
 
I disagree. I think rights are not granted by any specific institution, though it is proper to speak of a government protecting rights as you do. That is the role of a government, after all. When a government fails to do this, it is not that a person's rights do not exist, it is that their rights are violated. (If these rights did not exist without governmental recognition, then they could not thereafter be violated.)

A man living in a frontier society without a recognized law (or one where the government is not equipped to provide a proper defense of rights) still has property rights over his land and possessions, though he may have to defend them himself (just as someone does while waiting for the police to arrive in a home invasion, or etc).
 
 
It is not the case that rights do not "come into being until there is a government." It is through the recognition of rights that we seek a government, and know to look for a "proper" one (which is: one that will protect our rights fully, as opposed to the governments we've had thus far).

Rand's Ethics and Politics are concerning the nature of man qua man, and they thus apply to every individual, regardless of his present circumstance. A man on an island yet has rights (even in the "negative," political sense) in that we know that this man must not initiate the use of force (or have the use of force initiated against him) should he ever participate in any further society.
 
 
This is indeed how IP seems often approached -- through a metaphor of land ownership. I do not agree that this metaphor is appropriate. And you may certainly "sell what's in your head" in the sense of offering instruction through many various means; education is an economic good. But it is different altogether to claim that what is in your head may not be used by anyone else even if it is also in their head (and furthermore and even if it is there through completely independent means). Yet that is the claim of IP, as advanced by Rand, Mossoff, and most of the participants in this thread.
 
 
Once IP is granted, I don't think anyone will take issue with the idea that there must be some means by which it is recognized by the government. I would insist on some "objective" means that I do not think has been yet defined here, or anywhere else.

The central point is that describing the process by which IP may be handled is not making an argument that IP exists, or ought to be recognized, in the first place. If the argument boils down to this -- that "rights are what the government says they are, do not exist apart from the government, and therefore the government may create IP as it pleases (or perhaps any other 'right' as well)" -- then I must simply disagree.
 
 
Yes, I agree -- there's no question that these laws are practical rules which aim to turn ideas into products (though in some senses, ideas are already "products" in that, as I've said, education is an economic good; perhaps IP may be better understood as interference into a natural marketplace, rather than an attempt to create a marketplace out of nothing) . But I am not satisfied with "practical rules." Even in granting IP in full, I would insist on "objective rules." Here is my standard:
 
 
Otherwise:
 
 
So... before, say, creating a derivative work of art, I would want our artist to be able to refer to objective laws/standards such that he will know in advance of creating that art whether it is forbidden to him or not. I think that to accept anything less (by which I am close to including "advocating IP without being able to formulate objective application") is to endorse whatever it is the opposite of "a free country" or "a government of laws and not of men" must be. It is to grant the license which Rand describes, "for some men to rule others."
 
 
While you may offer your idea to the marketplace for sale in the form of teaching someone (for some price), I do not see the justification for forbidding others to do likewise, should they have the same idea (or a similar one).
 
 
Yes, but the very question we must answer is whether your ideas are "your own property" in the sense that you have the property right to exclude others from those ideas, or their use.

I say that ideas are not property. They do not convey these property rights.
 
 
Or! If I am wrong and this is the case, then perhaps we can say that ideas may be "property," but specific aspects of property rights must be adjusted to reflect this new context. Specifically, owning an idea does not mean having the right to prevent someone else from owning that same idea, or profiting from it.  It may continue to be property otherwise, in the sense of being able to use one's ideas to profit as one can.
 
 
I think that, if we decide that there is any such thing as valid IP, that this would at least be a far more just implementation than our current approach.

And of course that's the very response I expected, and you're right and you're wrong (though fortunately for our epistemology, not in the same sense). Allow me to explain:

It is a strawman in this way: I didn't expect that you would find this proper, or that anyone here would either. I strongly suspected that you would say, "That's not what I'm talking about!" But honestly? I don't know for sure. I don't know which specific applications you would believe are proper, or Dante, or Thomas, or tad, or anyone, because nobody can spell out their methodology (or at least, nobody seems willing to try). There is no argument to put to the test.* It's all (apparently) left to officials like the one who decided this patent is valid, on the basis of his equally unknown/unknowable standards.

So if you know why this patent oughtn't exist, and you know why the anti-Kant thing doesn't work either (if, in fact, that's what you believe), but you know why other cases are rock solid, then please do us the great service of formulating the objective case that must underlie these particular applications. Don't just leave it to looking at random cases and saying "yes" or "no" as the mood strikes, hoping for agreement. Spell out your beliefs that we might put them to the test.

It isn't a strawman in this way: this is an actual patent. Whether this is what you mean when you conceive of proper IP or not, it's obviously what someone means by it. So at worst you may take me as arguing against that someone's case, even if it is not your own. Moreover, that someone sits (or did sit) in a position to effect real, actual policy, and presumably after being trained in doing this kind of thing; they weren't just theorizing on a discussion board. So while to talk about IP as though it's some sort of Ideal situated in a Platonic world of forms or something is a pleasant enough pastime, there's some value in discussing... actual things that happen, too. Isn't there? Oughtn't we consider real world examples for the purpose of creating/elucidating/refining our abstract principles?



* Acutally, there is an argument to put to the test that might inform this example. It's Mossoff's. And by his standard (or at least my interpretation of it; if someone wishes to argue that I misread him, I'm open to that) -- "all values created by all types of productive labors" -- I think we'd have to say that... yes, there is a value here, and yes, it was created by a productive labor... so yes, it ought to be protected. After all, someone was the first to use a laser pointer in this fashion. Shouldn't that genius reap the rewards of his efforts?

But again -- for clarity's sake -- this isn't my argument, either.  I don't believe that "all values created by all types of productive labors" are or ought to be considered property.  It just seems to be the argument that some people make when it suits the particular end that they feel is right, for yet-unelucidated reasons, and only (coincidentally?) also seems to result in absurdities like the present patent under discussion. But as long as all of the real arguments stay hidden, I guess anything can be a "strawman" if it strikes us funny enough (or otherwise makes us uncomfortable).
 
 
Therefore people ought not bring up those cases when discussing their beliefs about government and its nature? It would be wrong to cite examples that purport to demonstrate their claims? To decide what we believe about government, it would be inappropriate to look at... governments?

My case that IP is wrong of its nature has already been made in other posts in this thread; I'd love to discuss that reasoning -- I posted it for the very purpose of discussion -- but very little of it has yet garnered any rational response (or actually, any response at all). Are you saying that every single post, and every single point I raise, needs to contain and restate my full argument? I'm expecting the people participating in this thread to follow along and keep that context in mind as they encounter new posts.
 
 
No. I have already told you directly what my investigation is about:
 
 
Here's the central post where I state my case.

You're telling me that I'm not actually questioning IP, but only its crummy implementation, in the face of my explicit assertions (directly to you, no less) that I'm questioning both? That's frustrating.  But if this confusion is actually somehow my fault, here's what I'm after:

I want to know what it is in your mind that leads you to pronounce some applications of IP "terrible." I want to know what makes one given case of IP valid and another not. I want to know the general case for IP, and also the specific case against this patent or against the anti-Kant shirt.  I want to understand this both in terms of principles and application.
 
 
That's not correct. I said something about genre, in the very passage you've quoted. I raised the topic for a reason. And "genre" was also raised in the Sandefur essay that was linked to earlier, and which provides some of the material being discussed in this thread.

What's more, the sense you're looking for ("Okay, and?") is contained in that sentence, the paragraph from which you've yanked it, and the material (initially quoted, for your convenience) to which I was responding (or in other words, the context):

Dante was arguing that the specificity of a novel makes for "practically no chance" that it will be "independently" and "innocently" written by another. I agreed with him ("we can regard that as impossible") but then took issue with the idea that a novel therefore is inapt to suffer from copyright infringement. Because it would depend (as it does depend) on "the proper scope and permissibility of 'derivative works,'" where something similar in several details (as is often the case within a genre) might be taken to be "too close to the original."

For instance (though this is a film/novel comparison, and not at all "innocent" in the sense we've been employing), is the film Nosferatu too much of Dracula, or sufficiently its own thing? Should that be considered a case of copyright infringement? Do we have any answers to such questions, or any objective means of determining those answers? I understand we can point to law-as-it-is, or cases as they've been decided, but I'd like to understand what "ought to be," and the rationale thereof.
 
 
Agreed.

But then, do you recognize that I said that very thing in the quote to which you're (apparently) responding?
 
 
Are you quite sure you're trying to understand what I'm saying before composing your replies?
 
 
"Admit"?

But that's what I've been saying. I'm sorry if I'm wrong, but you may not yet understand what's being contended here. Let's try to get this as simple as possible:

Man 1 invents and builds pencil sharpener X. He rightly owns X. Man 2 thereafter invents and builds pencil sharpener Y. I am saying that the same rationale for accounting X to 1 as property, holds (or ought to hold) Y to 2 as property, regardless of how we otherwise construe IP. That to proclaim that 1 owns both X and Y is not just, and neither is any formulation of IP that would have it so.

I am not saying that, therefore, 2 has the same "rights" as 1 to prevent Man 3 from inventing and building Z. I am saying that there are no such "rights."
 
 
I don't know what to do other to again point your attention to the conversation in which this you'll originally find this quote. Dante had indicated that he believed that the "compelling" nature of the novel as an example of valid IP is largely accountable to its "specificity." He thought that some of my concerns would be allayed by having "very high requirements for the specificity of some patent or copyright." He compared it to "our current system," which he contended has "much too generous [or: broad; non-specific] an interpretation of intellectual property." And again, to clarify his meaning, he compared two examples of IP, one being "specific" and one being "too generous/broad/non-specific": "Being able to patent a highly specific formula for a new complex chemical compound seems highly unlikely to conflict with an independent inventor's product; being able to patent the shape of a curve at the corner of a smartphone almost certainly will."

That accounts for my use of those terms and the meaning I had intended, especially as I was responding directly to Dante's post. If my specific phrasing was unclear, misleading, or says the contrary to what I had meant to say, I apologize... but I'm again led to wonder whether you're trying to understand my comments in context (which is ultimately how they must be understood).
 
 
I disagree that the humor was poor. I meant it when I said that it was clever. But I certainly thought that the content of the humor implied dishonesty, though I'll take you at your word that you didn't mean it that way. Thank you.
 
 
Yes, in that we're contending that this is criminal behavior; that IP is as property, and is a right, and thus to violate it is the initiation of force, morally wrong, and criminally liable.
 
 
This may well be. I don't know one way or the other except that I've seen shows where people choose not to "press charges" over cases of battery or theft or etc. I don't know the specifics of how it works with murder or rape, or whether Law & Order (for instance) ever knows what it's talking about.  (I hate Law & Order.)
 
 
Well... strictly, a novelist wouldn't have to have his work technically copyrighted to then "protect his rights." His rights are established with the creation of the property.
 
 
Except that violating a right is an initiation of the use of force. In "The Nature of Government," Ayn Rand said:
 
 
So what you're proposing -- someone has an idea which is properly property (whatever formula we finally decide upon to sort out the genuine claims from the false ones) but he doesn't seek to retaliate against those who usurp that property? That "encourages and rewards" evil. It is a "moral imperative" to track down those who violate our IP and make them pay.

We may well be wise to look at the rise of "fan fiction," and those cases where authors encourage their fans to partake in such activities. Now, on the one hand, once official sanction is given, I think all legal bets are off. (Moral considerations might be another discussion.) But what of the case where an author doesn't say anything on the subject until his rights have already been violated?

For instance, I'll assume (and maybe wrongly) that the first (several thousand) fan fictions written about Harry Potter were written, and likely shared in online communities, well before J.K. Rowling made any kind of statement as to how she felt about that, and without her explicit authorization. (Actually, now that I look, here's a story about this very thing for your review.) So... is this a case where Rowling failed in her "moral imperative"? Or maybe society should intervene, contra her stated wishes, so that we do not "encourage and reward" evil?  What do you think?  When teenage girls write their own stories about Ron and Hermione, are we witness to some sort of evil?  Is it a moral outrage that needs to be stopped?

I think that... the reason why IP often seems such a poor fit when applied to those things that Rand generally has to say about force, morality, rights, and property, is because: it does not fit.

Whether or not Thomas plans on continuing this discussion, I'm going to take this as an opportunity to try to express my current position.  It has taken me a while to formulate, and I continue to refine it (I haven't yet found a very succinct way of communicating these thoughts), but here goes:
 
IP is contended to be a "right" among life, liberty, and etc.  So let's start with rights.
 
From "Man's Rights":
 
 
Okay. So we have "right to life" as the source of rights, and "right to property" as their implementation. Regarding "property," Rand says that a man must have the right to "the product of his effort," for that is the requirement of survival.

And this makes sense, does it not? If you grow corn, but that corn is taken from you, you cannot eat it. In other words, you will starve. Having a "right to life" is meaningless if you do not likewise have the right to 1) grow corn and 2) eat the corn that you grow. You must have those "property rights," for if we grant you the "right to life" but deny you those means that are necessary to live, you will necessarily die.

On property rights, Rand continues:
 
 
So, having a "right to life" is not a guarantee that you will own any corn, despite needing it to survive. You may well have these rights and starve nonetheless. But the "right to property" stipulates that if you earn corn (more to come on this), it is yours by right (and thus will not be taken from you by force). Further, "owning corn" means having a right to action(s) (and the "consequences of producing or earning that object"), meaning that it entails destroying the corn, selling it, eating it, bronzing it and putting it on the wall, or etc. We cannot detach one's "ownership" of the corn and one's right to these actions, for this is what we mean by ownership, and by property.

So here we are, presumably agreed with Thomas (and others) who contend that man has a right to "the product of his effort." But what precisely is "the product of his effort"? Still on property rights, Rand continues:
 
 
Property rights are rights to action (gain, keep, use, dispose) pertaining specifically to material values.

Why "material"? Because this is the implementation of man's "right to life" in the material world. Because man needs to eat corn, and cannot consist on corn's contemplation.

In Galt's Speech, Rand says:
 
 
Notice again the use of "material." When Rand speaks of "[translating] one's rights into reality," she is talking about the act of growing corn, having it, eating it. Thus "property rights" concern material values, and these alone. And here is also an insight into our earlier question: how does one "earn" corn to begin with?

It is a two-step process: 1) one must think; 2) one must work. And then one has "results" (i.e. corn) which, per property, are his by right.

Both of these steps are required to have these "results," which are material value, are wealth, and are property, and cannot exist without them. You cannot have any corn without the thought and planning required to produce it, but neither can you have any corn without the physical labor entailed in growing it. Both are required. And what then?

From "The Property Status of the Airwaves":
 
 
Here we are again: "human knowledge and effort." "One must think" and "one must work." To what end? "Any material element or resource."

This is the source of private property, and we understand it together with the need for private property: to translate one's right to life into action, where one has a material body that needs to eat corn; the right to life means having the right to earn the corn that one needs, through one's thought and labor, and, when one has earned that corn, one has the right to the consequences of having earned that corn, which is the right of action. That is, one may eat one's corn.

But what does all of this not mean?

In growing an ear of corn, I own that corn. It is the "material element or resource" which required "the application of my knowledge and effort," which is now my private property. "My" property, by right, because I was the one who "[applied] the knowledge and effort" required to grow it.

However, if my neighbor grows an ear of corn, I do not own that ear of corn. Whose ear of corn is it, then? It is my neighbor's -- for it is he who has applied knowledge and effort! Note that is is not a question of "who innovates," but "who applies" that gives a man a right to a piece of private property.

In growing an ear of corn, even if I am the first man to do it, I do not lay some mystical claim to all ears of corn that could ever be grown, anywhere. If a thousand, or ten thousand ears of corn are grown thereafter, but I do not personally grow any more than my one ear, then I do not have any claim to any corn apart from the one I've grown through my own effort. That is alone the wealth that I have created, because again, the creation of wealth (of private property) is two-steps, neither of which can be ignored: one must think and one must work.

Contrast all of this now with Rand's claims for IP in "Patents and Copyrights":
 
 
I believe that this is a reintroduction of the mind-body split. When Rand speaks of "the property right of a mind to that which it has brought into existence," I think that she is mistaken, and contra her own theory of rights and also property rights. I do not believe that a "mind" has a property right apart from a complete person, mind and body. I do not believe that a "mind" brings something into "existence" apart from the physical labor which is required to actually create wealth, or grow the corn that is necessary to live.

I do not believe that "mental effort" has a "paramount role...in the production of material values" if that is meant to compare it to the physical effort equally necessary to produce those selfsame material values. One may survey a plot of land and imagine a bumper crop of corn. That will earn one naught but an empty stomach, minus the physical effort required to grow that corn. And then, as one lays dying from malnutrition, we may understand what it means that one's "mental effort" had some "paramount role."

It would be equally useless to elevate physical labor over mental effort; one may work in the fields all day and all night, but without the knowledge required to grow corn, one is as dead as the reverse. But the point is that all attempts to divorce "mind and body" and protect the "product" of one versus the other is wrongheaded. Both are absolutely required, always, so long as man has to eat to survive.

And that is why we have "private property" at all -- to guarantee to man the product of his efforts (which means: thought and labor together). That product is some "material value" which is, through that effort, private property. And it belongs to the man who has applied that effort, and him alone.

***

So that is my case contra IP.

And if I'm wrong, I would love to understand how and why I am wrong (I'm sure there's plenty of potential for misstep, and I'm open to correction, but I refuse to do other than respect the verdict of my own mind). But further, I would like to see a case for IP that helps me to understand its objective implementation. Earlier in this thread, I quoted Rand on law where she said:
 
 
So I would like to understand the objective case for limits on IP length (I understand that Rand said the issue was "enormously complex," which does not make me hopeful that it will conform to her explanation of "objective law" above; it sounds rather like special pleading to my ears), and what makes one invention patentable versus another, and etc.
 
If I were to invent the first pencil sharpener, and lay claim to all pencil sharpeners thereafter, despite Thomas' insistence that other "sufficiently different" pencil sharpeners may yet be invented... and if I were to claim my ownership in perpetuity, just as I would any "material value" I had crafted, to be passed down from generation to generation as being my right as the innovator... how could someone gainsay me on objective grounds while still maintaining that there is any such thing as "intellectual property"?  How does it not all become a mass of pragmatic speculation and compromise?  ("Well... I guess 150 years sounds reasonable, give or take.")  Remember we're talking about rights, here.  Life or death stuff.  We do not guess or compromise on such matters.  We take them seriously.

Earlier in this thread, someone linked to an essay by Timothy Sandefur. And though I have not yet read through that essay, I did look at it briefly and found this near the very beginning:
 
 
Did this actually happen?  And is this consonant with the Objectivist understanding of IP?  If so, I would love for someone to run through the objective case here.  How precisely does one get from the rights Rand advocated to prohibiting someone from making a "No Kant" t-shirt?  What do we propose is "owned" in that case, by whom, and through what actual means?  And in the name of "objective law," how could someone know "clearly, and in advance" of designing such a t-shirt that it is -- and ought to be -- against the law?

Oh, that's fine! If you mean that you weren't attempting to make an actual argument, I'll agree, and then we can say that it was "unsubstantiated assertion" or something, rather than "begging the question."

I guess my point was that the simple repetition of your beliefs ("augmented" with bluster like "Period. End of story.") doesn't help to convince anyone of anything. It doesn't belong here, in sincere discussion (assuming that "sincere discussion" was ever your end).
 
 
Thomas, you do not understand my stance. That is why it appears to make no sense to you. You have come at this topic -- and replied to me -- with such hostility, that I believe you do not allow yourself to think straight. And even if I am unclear on some matters, or do contradict myself like you claim, your approach will not help to clear anything up or to elucidate the matter for me or anyone else.

I've never asked whether the second guy should "have the right to the first guys patentable product"; I've asked whether he should have the right to that which he creates himself, through his own intellectual and physical work. Rights aren't granted by government, remember, so it seems hard to me to believe that he only has the right to his creation if he receives an official government stamp at the patent office.

I've never even come close to making it sound like anyone was being "drawn and quartered." But on that subject, if the second guy is not permitted to make his pencil sharpener, and if he has the right to do it contra your position, then you are advocating the initiation of force against him. Probably not to the extent of executing him, but you know, it would be wrong nonetheless.

In any event, your habit of putting words in my mouth as a substitute for engaging with the things I actually say is both frustrating and sloppy. In your future discussions, with me or anyone else, I hope you can clean up your manner.
 
 
It's not directly to my point, but as another important issue, can you lay down the objective requirements for making a product "sufficiently different" as to be legal? After all, in "The Nature of Government," Rand says:
 
 
So if I wanted to know "clearly and in advance" prior to building a pencil sharpener whether I was going to be violating anyone else's rights thereby, how would you direct me? I can't know the opinions of one or more judges ahead of time, after all. So is there a way that I can know in advance whether my pencil sharpener is an example of my productivity and ingenuity, morally praiseworthy and thus deserving of all of the rights and profits thereof... or property theft, parasitism, morally repugnant and a crime? Or do I just have to wait and see whether there's a lawsuit?
 
 
Well... this "prior art" thing...

Does this mean that it happened prior to the advent of modern government, patent offices and whatnot? If so, I'll agree that it is true, but what of that? Rights such as we're discussing exist even without such government, do they not? It sounds like you're suggesting that "planting corn in the ground" otherwise ought to be patentable. That the first man to do it then had a moral right to prevent others from doing likewise (or maybe even a moral obligation), though perhaps he just lacked the means to carry it out.

But does that really make any sense to you? (And I know I'm lobbing a softball here in asking whether your own position makes sense to you, but I'm sincerely hopeful that this may spark a bit of reflection. If not in you, Thomas, then in someone more thoughtful.)

I understand we're looking on at an early bit of history, but human beings were fully human beings when they developed agriculture. They had every wit of rights at that point as we do today, and I expect that they understood in some manner what it meant to lose life, liberty or property. If you had cut off the hand of a man at that point, he would have protested, fought back. Same if you had imprisoned him, or forcibly taken the ears of corn that he had actually grown.

But if someone merely planted his own corn on his own field, even if the second man to do it, and in imitation of the first, do you suppose the "innovator" would have had any cause to protest against that?

If we're speaking of rights and their violation, then we're claiming that the innovator here has been injured by the second man planting corn. That force has been initiated against the innovator. But apart from some (I would argue "clearly wrongheaded") deduction from a mistaken understanding of property, it is hard to see that this has anything to do with the reality of the situation, either then or now.
 
 
Perhaps unsurprisingly, this is not at all my position.

So in return, here's my shorthand for your position (and I expect you'll find it equally fair, though I'd wager that I'm yet right): people can own ideas. You'll say that this isn't what you're saying, and maybe even convince yourself of it, and yet, it is what you're saying.
 
 
We're agreed that actual rights are exclusive, are individual, and that this applies to "life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness."

We are not agreed that "intellectual property" is an actual right, or a right of any kind apart from governmental fiat.
 
 
This is probably for the best. I don't know whether you're yet capable of productive and enjoyable discussion.

I think that people often act in emotional ways that are wrong -- though being human, I can easily understand and even sympathize with their actions. My judgement of Rand doesn't extend much past that, and I'm certainly not saying she was an immoral person on this basis, even if we're agreed that slapping a person is, in fact, an example of the use of force.

Is there room for a moral person to act immorally at times? I believe so. But that's a whole other kettle of fish, and trying to assess the overall morality of people I've never met is one of my least favorite Objectivist hobbies.

Context is king... but the Objectivist Ethics and Politics provide certain absolutes within the context of human interaction and society. So long as all of the parties involved are human (and I think so?), and so long as we're dealing with "force" and not mere romantic symbolism, or "free speech," or such (which is the only real bone of contention, imo), then we have context enough to assess the situation without trying to further sort out the sordid details of their affair-turned-sour. He (or she) who initiates the use of force is in the wrong to do so, full stop.

Or as Rand would have put it, when calm and reasonable:
 
You may continue to discuss the underlying issues under the banner of "context," if you choose, but I consider the above to hold that discussion as "inappropriate" in this case.

For what it's worth, I think Objectivists should let go of GOPers.  Having listened to many of Ayn Rand's interactions with conservatives of her day, in a manner of engagement sadly missing today, I've concluded that today's GOP could use a little more time wandering in the desert.  Ryan's political distancing from Objectivism under pressure demonstrates the weakness of relying on contemporary GOP candidates to understand, let alone appreciate and act on the whole package Objectivism offers.
 
Objectivists should worry less about flirting with any particular party, and focus more on reaching the individual in all parties.

What I really appreciate about this forum is that it doesn't have tons of threads dedicated to attacking another forum or other people over drama. Thanks for keeping it that way softwareNerd.

Ayn Rand is many years dead. Nobody speaks for her, and that includes Leonard Peikoff. Leonard Peikoff speaks for Leonard Peikoff.

Objectivism is a philosophy. It cannot be owned in the manner of property. Insofar as it can be "owned" or otherwise possessed, it is owned by everyone who subscribes to it. I speak for myself, and my beliefs. If I am an Objectivist -- if my philosophy is Objectivism -- then so be it. Who is authorized to judge whether that's the case -- whether I identify myself correctly, or present Objectivism intelligently? Every individual according to his own best judgment. There are no shortcuts.

If you appeared on Meet the Press, I would evaluate your arguments as I would those of Peikoff, or Rand, or any other person -- on their merit. Do I care who lays claim to being "official," or what their supposed pedigree is? I do not. I do not recognize a pope over my mind. If you and Peikoff disagreed as to some interpretation of a passage of the Romantic Manifesto, but you presented the better or the proper case, I would adopt your position over his.

And if Rand did intend to appoint someone to "speak for her" or for Objectivism -- were that possible in any sensible manner -- we must then confront the question of what it means that she should do such a thing, but no longer be in a position to re-evaluate whether it continues to be proper. I think we have evidence that Rand gave similar sanction to certain entities at one point, but then revoked the same at a later time. So with Rand dead and gone, upon whose judgment ought we rely to determine whether those who speak for Objectivism in some "official" capacity are still fit to do so? Or whether they misspeak at any given point?

Everything depends on one's own judgment. The Ayn Rand Institute may well have an "official spokesman," but the philosophy of Objectivism does not. Ayn Rand has the singular, historical position of having defined what Objectivism is. But once done, it is done, and Objectivism is what it is regardless of what anybody says. That includes Leonard Peikoff, or anyone else that he appoints in the future.

Let's say your friend, you, and I live on a small island together. You and your friend decide to have my friend banned from coming to visit me, or my would be employee banned from coming to work for me, because it harms your interests in some way (maybe you're working for me, and you're worried you'd be fired if the new guy comes over). Or maybe my friend has a different skin color, or speaks a different language, and you think that will "pollute the environment".
Whatever your reasons, be they sensible or stupid, you just sacrificed my interests, for yours. At that point, the last thing on my mind is your "aggregate". My existence is not something for you to subtract in some vague aggregate that's supposedly gonna cause some undefined total to go up a notch. I exist for my own sake, and will never agree to be sacrificed for yours, or for the collective's.

The only way you're gonna coexist with me in peace is by agreeing to respect my rights for as long as I respect yours. Any kind of arrangement, other than on these terms, is more like a truce than peace. Sure, I will probably tolerate some level of thuggery, for the sake of that truce (same way I choose to live peacefully in a mixed economy and a semi-fascist society, rather than start a revolution). Maybe I'll agree to your ban for now, rather than start a fight. But to tolerate is not the same as to accept. This tolerance is subject to a constant evaluation of my options, and can at any point end either by removing myself from your grasp or by retaliating (depending solely on which is the better option for me). So, be careful how you take advantage of your current ability to sacrifice me for your "aggregate".

No such thing as a "country's best interest"; only individuals have interests. And that which is in an individual's best interest where government is concerned is upholding individual rights. We should not argue for less.

I think a country may reasonably have border security procedures to ensure that people crossing those borders aren't wanted criminals or similar, but apart from that, what business is it of the government who goes where? Private property holders may insist that no one can trespass against their rightfully owned land, but the government has no similar claim over "it's territory."