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Remaining Principled with 3D Printing

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Or put another way, "To each according to his need, From each according to his ability."

 

I don't see the relevance. There is no coercion.

 

 

You, however, argue that it is more fair to let the man who had the idea demonstrated to him have the entitlement to this new knowledge, knowledge gleaned thanks only to the effort of someone else.

 

Should the second person feel guilty instead?

 

Isn't the intellectual labor of learning earn you the entitlement of the knowledge?

 

If I'm making a big moral mistake here. I'd like to give some knowledge back, because I don't think I'm entitled to it, to ease my guilt. Can you please explain how I can accomplish that? I just want to give it back. At least I want to unlearn it. How can I do that?

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I can not integrate the concept of 'dependent' with your entire base of knowledge.

 

I don't understand what you mean, can you please explain in simpler terms.

 

 

When did I argue that scientific discoveries are the same things as creative ideas?

 

Are scientific discoveries not intellectual property?

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I don't understand what you mean, can you please explain in simpler terms.

 

 

 

Are scientific discoveries not intellectual property?

As to the first part, if you use someone's idea, your use of that idea is dependent on the fact of his existence, no? As in , if the idea did not exist you could not use it, so your use of it depends on its existence, and its existence is depedent on his existence.

 

 

and scientific discoveries are descriptions of natural phenomenon, not inventions of them. A widget based on my design would not exist without me, electricity would exist whether or not you or I understood it.

 

 

 

 

And the second

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Should the second person feel guilty instead?

Isn't the intellectual labor of learning earn you the entitlement of the knowledge?

If I'm making a big moral mistake here. I'd like to give some knowledge back, because I don't think I'm entitled to it, to ease my guilt. Can you please explain how I can accomplish that? I just want to give it back. At least I want to unlearn it. How can I do that?

Sorry, I don't understand your point, nor whether or not you're being snarky.
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It's ironic you would speak of the moral difference.

This dilemma of humanity is that it is far easier to have an idea explained or demonstrated to you than it was for the demonstrator to think it up to begin with. Real life is lost to the man who did the original thinking, when the two are compared, in favor of the man doing the thinking after getting a demonstration.

You, however, argue that it is more fair to let the man who had the idea demonstrated to him have the entitlement to this new knowledge, knowledge gleaned thanks only to the effort of someone else. Or put another way, "To each according to his need, From each according to his ability."

Real life is lost?  That's a bit of overwrought rhetoric.

 

Without IP law (and 99+% of ideas are NOT protected by IP laws) human beings are free to use the best ideas available to them - whatever the source.  Today's innovator is tomorrow's imitator - and visa versa.  That we all learn from one another is one of the benefits to being humans.  It is not a dilemma, except for those who want to corner markets by coercively controlling other people's lives and property.  IP law is not a protection of rights.  We do not have a right to the effort or material of others.  We do not have a right to customers or market share.  But we do have a right to use our own effort and materials in imitation of others when we recognize a superior way to live our lives.  This is not parasitism; it is education.  Education does not victimize teachers.  The desire to turn learning into a crime for the benefit of market share requires the metaphorical pretense that actions and ideas are scarce objects and can be owned.

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Sorry, I don't understand your point, nor whether or not you're being snarky.

 

If I take your (physical) property, you'd be at a loss, right? But I can give it back. This wouldn't make us even, you have lost control over your property for the duration I held it hostage. But at least now you have it back. And I don't have it anymore.

 

If I take your intellectual property. How can I give it back? Again, I am not talking about the value I gained by applying it. My question is how can I pay back the principal?

 

This is of course absurd. But so is intellectual property. I hope you answer my question though.

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If I take your (physical) property, you'd be at a loss, right? But I can give it back. This wouldn't make us even, you have lost control over your property for the duration I held it hostage. But at least now you have it back. And I don't have it anymore.

 

If I take your intellectual property. How can I give it back? Again, I am not talking about the value I gained by applying it. My question is how can I pay back the principal?

 

This is of course absurd. But so is intellectual property. I hope you answer my question though.

You could have benefitted from whatever you took while you had it. And then I could have shoved it in a closet and forgotten about it, receiving no further benefit even though it belonged to me. If you stole my idea, a court could calculate a penalty for the damages I personally suffered having lost the ability to take the idea to market myself. But benefit isn't the best argument for or against property. The best argument focuses on individuals' independent thought as the source of value and living, and the necessity that each individual can benefit from his own thinking effort.
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You could have benefitted from whatever you took while you had it. And then I could have shoved it in a closet and forgotten about it, receiving no further benefit even though it belonged to me. If you stole my idea, a court could calculate a penalty for the damages I personally suffered having lost the ability to take the idea to market myself. But benefit isn't the best argument for or against property. The best argument focuses on individuals' independent thought as the source of value and living, and the necessity that each individual can benefit from his own thinking effort.

 

You didn't answer my question. I'm not surprised because you didn't also answer the first question I asked:

 

How can you lose something you have never had?

 

We both know the answers. You can't give ideas back. And you can't lose something have never had. You ignore these two questions because answering them would mean acknowledging that the so called intellectual property is not actually property.

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Real life is lost?  That's a bit of overwrought rhetoric.

 

Says you. I described what happens in literal terms. If it takes me four times as long to think up something that someone else can learn from a demonstration, that is life he has gained that I have lost, if roles had been reversed.

Education does not victimize teachers.

Then what you are talking about is not simply education, since the teacher *is* victimized when he cannot receive the benefit of his own thinking effort.

How long do you think people will stay motivated to do a better job at life when they realize the source of value, their ideas, may be copied and used by anyone as soon as he recognizes a superiority which had not dawned on him before your own effort?

You're thinking of this subject in the wrong way. I asked you for an explanation of "property" in a prior post because you are stripping its meaning. "Property" is just random elements in the universe outside of the context of human beings who possess independent, individual, reasoned thinking ability.

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You didn't answer my question. I'm not surprised because you didn't also answer the first question I asked:

 

Why should I respond to you when your real concern is how swiftly you can reveal my obvious stupidity?

I've laid out in several posts now why I think IP is legitimate, so maybe you can find your answers there. If not, ask someone else.

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Are we going to decide whether or not there can be intellectual property, based on my feelings?

I'd ask that you please take this discussion seriously. What are your thoughts on my question? If you copy and distribute something after buying it under the condition that you refrain from copying it and distributing it, have you initiated force against the seller?

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Says you. I described what happens in literal terms. If it takes me four times as long to think up something that someone else can learn from a demonstration, that is life he has gained that I have lost, if roles had been reversed.

Then what you are talking about is not simply education, since the teacher *is* victimized when he cannot receive the benefit of his own thinking effort.

How long do you think people will stay motivated to do a better job at life when they realize the source of value, their ideas, may be copied and used by anyone as soon as he recognizes a superiority which had not dawned on him before your own effort?

You're thinking of this subject in the wrong way. I asked you for an explanation of "property" in a prior post because you are stripping its meaning. "Property" is just random elements in the universe outside of the context of human beings who possess independent, individual, reasoned thinking ability.

You consistently beg the question that since you have decided your worth, others owe it to you.  They do not.  If I see you doing something and I imitate it,  you are free to value things as you wish, but not free to impose those value judgments on me.  If you make something with an expectation of market share, your expectations do not impose obligations on others.  You continually imply that you are the arbiter of all values for others.  You're not.  I have as much right to decide that I could have thought up the same idea in 4 minutes that you took 4 weeks to think up.  You are not in charge of deciding the value of ideas - except to youself.  If you give them away for free, you are not in a moral position to put a price on them after the fact.

 

And you ignore that in a world free of IP, you will benefit from more ideas by others than others will benefit from your ideas, unless you're going to think up more ideas than everyone else combined.   Let's doubt that, OK?

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You consistently beg the question that since you have decided your worth, others owe it to you.

The point is that value as such comes from one individual independently doing his own thinking. It's from here that we entertain systems of society which will respect and support this basic truth.

And you ignore that in a world free of IP, you will benefit from more ideas by others than others will benefit from your ideas, unless you're going to think up more ideas than everyone else combined.   Let's doubt that, OK?

This is assuming a collective premise. Everyone would be better off if everyone else did the thinking, and they did the copying, right?
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Then what you are talking about is not simply education, since the teacher *is* victimized when he cannot receive the benefit of his own thinking effort.

How long do you think people will stay motivated to do a better job at life when they realize the source of value, their ideas, may be copied and used by anyone as soon as he recognizes a superiority which had not dawned on him before your own effort?

You argue as if "the" benefit of new ideas is a market monopoly.  But humans have been thinking up new stuff for centuries, long before the IP monopoly game was invented.  Writing as if a monopoly is the main reason for humans to think up ways to improve life does not at all reflect history.

 

Also, such an argument is utilitarian rather than moral and has been soundly refuted elsewhere.  One important point, for instance, is that if you have a patent on a device and I see a way to improve it, IP law does not allow me to sell that improved device, because it infringes on (contains) your patent.  This acts as a major roadblock to progress and discourages all those people who may see a way to improve on your idea, but are prevented from doing so.  I highly recommend the book:  Against Intellectual Monopoly, by Boldrin and Levine for some detailed utilitarian analysis.  The book can be found online - free, of course.

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This is assuming a collective premise.

No, it is assuming a free market unmolested by monopolists.  It is sad that you don't like the idea of creating new ideas unless you get to point a gun at other people and force them to pay you for the privilege of using their own property by their own effort. It is sad that you see ideas as a race that only one can win - a race for a gun, at that.  It is sad that you benefit from so many ideas not your own and then dismiss that fact as collectivism.  Sharing, learning and mutual benefit are not collectivism, they are trading.  You misuse words.

Edited by howardofski
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I never said that, but then you do misuse words a lot. I said you cannot own what I know.

You say I can't own the contents of your brain, and I say the person who does the mental work should reap the benefits. Are we arguing about the same thing? I've brought this up in almost every post, but you haven't responded to it, yet.
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You say I can't own the contents of your brain, and I say the person who does the mental work should reap the benefits. Are we arguing about the same thing? I've brought this up in almost every post, but you haven't responded to it, yet.

I have responded often.  You are welcome to benefit so long as you do not use coercion.  If you reveal an idea to me, that is your choice.  But you may not reveal an idea to me and then claim the right to control me or my property when I use that idea.  No one is denying you the right to benefit from your ideas or your property.  I am denying you the right to benefit from a coercive monopoly wherein you control me and my property.  I have said all of this often and you write as if you have not read any of it.  That I deny you the right to benefit in one coercive way, you then report as denying you the right to benefit at all.  You misuse words a lot. 

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I think there's a distinction here. It's one thing to say "I discovered fire" and quite a different thing to say "I've seen you do it and I am now capable of building a fire".

 

That is not what we are talking about.  That is a simply every day thing peole have been doing since the Bronze Age.  If I invent a machine that builds better fires, say a new kind of Zippo that runs on alternative fuel, and you steal the idea instread of using your own idea then we would have a basis to work off of.

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Your desire to own customers, their wealth, other people's materials is alarming.  To earn is to receive the voluntarily given.  You are not talking about earning.  You are claiming the right to force the market on your behalf.

 

What in the hell are you talking about?  I mean seriously?

 

I never once said anything about owning something that belongs to someone else. I never said anything abut taking anything.   

 

Are you even refering to my post because I dare you to site it.

 

The only thing I said is if I have an idea it is mine and others do not have a right to steal a moment of my life. 

 

It's a pretty simple concept.  There is a whole book written on it which is likely the number one reason everyone is here:  Atlas Shrugged.

 

Or did you cheer when the looters stole Rearden Metal since they owned it too? 

 

YOU are the only one talking about claiming ownership over something that is not yours. 

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Howardofski, I'm also interested to hear what you think about my question. Here's the hypothetical:

You want a great writer's new novel. He tells you he'll give you access to a digital copy if you promise not to copy or distribute it. You tell him you agree, but later you copy and/or distribute it anyway. Have you initiated force?

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