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0 pointsTaylorAlexander8y ago0 comments

Well, I should say that I respect and appreciate your response. Certainly I can't truly think through the universal problem space, as no one can.

I also feel that at least my government (in the US) is so owned by corporations and the wealthy that it no longer represents my interests, and I tend to reject any solutions that endow in that government certain powers. As such I would disagree with intellectual property on philosophical grounds even if I didn't disagree with it on technical grounds. I simply don't think it's the government's place to attempt to fix markets in this way, and I don't want to be subject to it.

As it is, I see extreme waste in our world from intellectual property laws that ultimately send manufactured goods to the garbage dump sooner than they need be disposed of. Cars that could be repaired, if only an electronic module wasn't subject to monopoly control and unnecessarily high prices. I see poor children unable to access high quality textbooks despite the information being readily copyable. I see developing nations struggling to get on their feet while the rich nations keep their valuable knowledge to themselves.

I don't mind technological means of obfuscation, because those at least can fail. It is only the legal means of obfuscation that prevents us as humans from making every book ever written freely available to all people. I reject the idea that no one would write books in this new future, but I do understand the change would bring about great new problems that need to be solved.

But it is my life goal to find ways to reduce the marginal cost of human survival to zero, so we can care for everyone voluntarily. In order to do that, we absolutely must eliminate artificially inflated costs in that chain. That can be done voluntarily through the creation of an open commons, which I believe is more realistic, or it can be done more powerfully through the weakening and ultimate elimination of IP protection laws.

But you are correct that the real change that is needed is not an end to IP laws, but the stimulation of a culture which values sharing out of a love for one another. I believe that only a culture based on love can truly thrive.

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Scea918y ago

> It is only the legal means of obfuscation that prevents us as humans from making every book ever written freely available to all people.

I would bet that most writers do not want to make their books freely available. If they did how would they pay the rent? And would they be able to even write them then?

TaylorAlexanderOP8y ago

I think you missed a critical part of my comment - I see eliminating IP laws as critical to reducing the cost of living to zero. In this zero cost of living world, no one needs to pay rent.

In reality I believe zero is a worthy target but difficult to achieve, so I really expect us to hit "very low". In that world, the cost of living is so low that we can voluntarily support others at very little cost to ourselves, and with a minimum of Love for our fellow humans, those with income can support those without. In that world, authors are more free than ever to write what they truly believe. They have no publishers to please nor masses to target, and can write what they deem most valuable to write.

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