quantum vacuum mining

Agreed.  Done.

*cashes his chips in*

One other thing to remember... if you're giving + honor points for taking from families near your NW range and - honor points for farming... eventually, that means if you do enough big family taking, you'll essentially be given a free pass against some farming (because there is only a disadvantage if someone is among the worst honorable people in the galaxy, but there's no advantage to trying to have the most honor).

Would that be working as designed?  If so... what's the amount of planets an individual is expected to take from large families in order to gain the right to take 100 planets while farming a small family?

Our models aren't mutually exclusive.  Your model is trying to predict what the resulting GDP would be, and thus what tax revenue would be, as a percentage of GDP.  That's step 2 in a two-part problem.

My model is not saying "The GDP rate will be whatever GDP rate is actually displayed."  Rather, it simply acts as a gauge to calculate what the GDP would need to be at each point to achieve the target goal in government revenue (so, for example, the question of what will actually happen is in no way calculated under my model).  If taxable GDP would be lower than the rate # (for example, the black market argument), the tax rate isn't preferred.

Alright... what the hell...

So here's a little thought experiment.  Assume for this experiment that the government's goal of revenue is $10,000.  Below is a list of all possible tax rates for a given economy, expressed as a percentage of GDP.  Next to that, you will see, in order:
Req. GDP: What the GDP needs to be at any given tax rate for the government to reach its goal.
1%: This is the total growth, expressed as a %, required for a nation to reduce its tax rate by 1% to the number given, assuming the GDP before the shift was the target GDP.  The same is done for a 5% and 10% decrease.  So, for example, if you wanted to check the GDP growth rate required to maintain the same tax income levels resulting from a reduction in the tax rate from 50% to 40%, you would find 40% on the chart, then look to the last column (for 10%), and you're given the percentage.

The percentages and required GDPs are not assumed numbers: I ran the calculations for all of them.

Tax        Req. GDP            1%        5%        10%
100% $         10,000.00            
99%     $         10,101.01     1.00%       
98%     $         10,204.08     1.01%       
97%     $         10,309.28     1.02%       
96%     $         10,416.67     1.03%       
95%     $         10,526.32     1.04%    5.00%   
94%     $         10,638.30     1.05%    5.05%   
93%     $         10,752.69     1.06%    5.10%   
92%     $         10,869.57     1.08%    5.15%   
91%     $         10,989.01     1.09%    5.21%   
90%     $         11,111.11     1.10%    5.26%    10.00%
89%     $         11,235.96     1.11%    5.32%    10.10%
88%     $         11,363.64     1.12%    5.38%    10.20%
87%     $         11,494.25     1.14%    5.43%    10.31%
86%     $         11,627.91     1.15%    5.49%    10.42%
85%     $         11,764.71     1.16%    5.56%    10.53%
84%     $         11,904.76     1.18%    5.62%    10.64%
83%     $         12,048.19     1.19%    5.68%    10.75%
82%     $         12,195.12     1.20%    5.75%    10.87%
81%     $         12,345.68     1.22%    5.81%    10.99%
80%     $         12,500.00     1.23%    5.88%    11.11%
79%     $         12,658.23     1.25%    5.95%    11.24%
78%     $         12,820.51     1.27%    6.02%    11.36%
77%     $         12,987.01     1.28%    6.10%    11.49%
76%     $         13,157.89     1.30%    6.17%    11.63%
75%     $         13,333.33     1.32%    6.25%    11.76%
74%     $         13,513.51     1.33%    6.33%    11.90%
73%     $         13,698.63     1.35%    6.41%    12.05%
72%     $         13,888.89     1.37%    6.49%    12.20%
71%     $         14,084.51     1.39%    6.58%    12.35%
70%     $         14,285.71     1.41%    6.67%    12.50%
69%     $         14,492.75     1.43%    6.76%    12.66%
68%     $         14,705.88     1.45%    6.85%    12.82%
67%     $         14,925.37     1.47%    6.94%    12.99%
66%     $         15,151.52     1.49%    7.04%    13.16%
65%     $         15,384.62     1.52%    7.14%    13.33%
64%     $         15,625.00     1.54%    7.25%    13.51%
63%     $         15,873.02     1.56%    7.35%    13.70%
62%     $         16,129.03     1.59%    7.46%    13.89%
61%     $         16,393.44     1.61%    7.58%    14.08%
60%     $         16,666.67     1.64%    7.69%    14.29%
59%     $         16,949.15     1.67%    7.81%    14.49%
58%     $         17,241.38     1.69%    7.94%    14.71%
57%     $         17,543.86     1.72%    8.06%    14.93%
56%     $         17,857.14     1.75%    8.20%    15.15%
55%     $         18,181.82     1.79%    8.33%    15.38%
54%     $         18,518.52     1.82%    8.47%    15.63%
53%     $         18,867.92     1.85%    8.62%    15.87%
52%     $         19,230.77     1.89%    8.77%    16.13%
51%     $         19,607.84     1.92%    8.93%    16.39%
50%     $         20,000.00     1.96%    9.09%    16.67%
49%     $         20,408.16     2.00%    9.26%    16.95%
48%     $         20,833.33     2.04%    9.43%    17.24%
47%     $         21,276.60     2.08%    9.62%    17.54%
46%     $         21,739.13     2.13%    9.80%    17.86%
45%     $         22,222.22     2.17%    10.00%    18.18%
44%     $         22,727.27     2.22%    10.20%    18.52%
43%     $         23,255.81     2.27%    10.42%    18.87%
42%     $         23,809.52     2.33%    10.64%    19.23%
41%     $         24,390.24     2.38%    10.87%    19.61%
40%     $         25,000.00     2.44%    11.11%    20.00%
39%     $         25,641.03     2.50%    11.36%    20.41%
38%     $         26,315.79     2.56%    11.63%    20.83%
37%     $         27,027.03     2.63%    11.90%    21.28%
36%     $         27,777.78     2.70%    12.20%    21.74%
35%     $         28,571.43     2.78%    12.50%    22.22%
34%     $         29,411.76     2.86%    12.82%    22.73%
33%     $         30,303.03     2.94%    13.16%    23.26%
32%     $         31,250.00     3.03%    13.51%    23.81%
31%     $         32,258.06     3.13%    13.89%    24.39%
30%     $         33,333.33     3.23%    14.29%    25.00%
29%     $         34,482.76     3.33%    14.71%    25.64%
28%     $         35,714.29     3.45%    15.15%    26.32%
27%     $         37,037.04     3.57%    15.63%    27.03%
26%     $         38,461.54     3.70%    16.13%    27.78%
25%     $         40,000.00     3.85%    16.67%    28.57%
24%     $         41,666.67     4.00%    17.24%    29.41%
23%     $         43,478.26     4.17%    17.86%    30.30%
22%     $         45,454.55     4.35%    18.52%    31.25%
21%     $         47,619.05     4.55%    19.23%    32.26%
20%     $         50,000.00     4.76%    20.00%    33.33%
19%     $         52,631.58     5.00%    20.83%    34.48%
18%     $         55,555.56     5.26%    21.74%    35.71%
17%     $         58,823.53     5.56%    22.73%    37.04%
16%     $         62,500.00     5.88%    23.81%    38.46%
15%     $         66,666.67     6.25%    25.00%    40.00%
14%     $         71,428.57     6.67%    26.32%    41.67%
13%     $         76,923.08     7.14%    27.78%    43.48%
12%     $         83,333.33     7.69%    29.41%    45.45%
11%     $         90,909.09     8.33%    31.25%    47.62%
10%     $       100,000.00     9.09%    33.33%    50.00%
9%     $       111,111.11     10.00%    35.71%    52.63%
8%     $       125,000.00     11.11%    38.46%    55.56%
7%     $       142,857.14     12.50%    41.67%    58.82%
6%     $       166,666.67     14.29%    45.45%    62.50%
5%     $       200,000.00     16.67%    50.00%    66.67%
4%     $       250,000.00     20.00%    55.56%    71.43%
3%     $       333,333.33     25.00%    62.50%    76.92%
2%     $       500,000.00     33.33%    71.43%    83.33%
1%     $   1,000,000.00     50.00%    83.33%    90.91%

Calculations were done as such:
2nd column=target total tax revenue/tax rate
3rd-5th columns= 1-(pre-tax cut 2nd column/post-tax cut 2nd column)

The formulas can be used to calculate different intervals of cuts under the model (i.e., calculating the required growth for a feasible 3%, 7%, or other interval of tax cut) by plugging in the numbers as shown.

You'll notice this very similarly represents the theoretical Laffer Curve, in that at higher tax rates, the required GDP level to maintain the tax amount is extremely high.  On the other end, though, it would be almost impossible to fathom the idea that cutting taxes from 2% to 1% would result in a doubling of GDP.  So... just like with the Laffer Curve, the solution is somewhere in the middle.

So... to find out where one is on the curve in this model, you would find the cut to be made and find the percentage... if the percentage given by the chart required to maintain the equivalent tax rate is higher than what one could expect in GDP growth from that rate change, the tax cut would result in a net decrease in revenue (and thus would be on the side of the Laffer Curve favoring keeping taxes high).  If, however, the percentage given by the chart for that particular cut is lower than what is expected from the tax cut, the tax cut would result in equal or greater tax revenue, and the tax cut is desirable.

Understand, this is a relatively crude model.  I'm really just experimenting here, so I could very well be terribly wrong.  Don't consider this any sort of authoritative answer on GDP growth requirements.

Now, this model cannot actually calculate what growth will happen.  That's where you come in.

Where's the peak?  What growth rates, given each tax reduction shown, are reasonable expectations?  Or, alternatively, is my math wrong?  Really, just a random thought experiment I was considering last night... wanted to throw it out here.  I'm just curious as to if it's feasible/logical to attempt mapping this out... unless I'm missing something, it may be self-explanatory.

EDIT: One additional note: Obviously, this only considers a flat tax... I'm just guessing, but more than likely, considering multiple progressive tax rates by averaging them out, for example, would disregard the specific incentives within each tax bracket... if we're discussing, for example, a society with one 10% tax bracket and one 80% tax bracket, it would probably be more appropriate to consider each bracket as a separate tax (so the ideal solution would probably be to close the gap for revenue maximization).

Also, this obviously does not consider certain tax revenues which may be considered distinct from GDP (for example, in some extremely limited circumstances, certain import tariffs would be pure revenue generators, exempt from the Laffer Curve question entirely).

> xeno syndicated wrote:

> I don't know, and I don't care.  Why don't you tell me, Zarf?  I see.  You'd rather send me on a wild goose-chase to find the answer.  Let's see... is wikipedia up yet?  Have they finished protesting the crime which is Pipa and Sopa?

Would it be: dialectic of class struggle?
Maybe Hegelianism?
Leninism, Stalinism, Trotskyism and Maoism
dialectical materialism?
commodity fetishism?
economic determinism?

Who gives a rats@sseism?

The correct answer is "capitalism," which you recognize later in this post (noting that Marx used the word "capitalism" in that context).  The point to this will be explained there.

> 1.  "Capitalism is in no way associated with greed or the self-interest paradigm."

Now... how am I supposed to address this issue without getting into the self-interest debate?

By recognizing it as a fact and conceding the point, admitting that you, like so many others, are sucked in by the partisan brainwashing - both by fascists and communists, republican and democrat alike, that out of ignorance of what the word actually means; ivory tower twits like Marx, who usurp the meaning of perfectly good words, forever ruining it with the misnomer that 'capitalism' has anything whatsoever to do with any sort of ideology when it is simply economic activity.

1: So... either I agree with you or I'm a troll?

2: Hmm... what does capitalism mean...

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/capitalism

noun
an economic system in which investment in and ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth is made and maintained chiefly by private individuals or corporations, especially as contrasted to cooperatively or state-owned means of wealth.

Word Story
It is easy to forget that capitalism  was coined not so long ago, in the mid-19th century, when the Industrial Revolution was in full swing, and individual entrepreneurs were creating new industries and amassing wealth. Terms for the other two major competing economic systems of the past two centuries

By the way... let's go to your ultimatum... just noticed a fundamental problem:

> 1.  "Capitalism is in no way associated with greed or the self-interest paradigm."

Now... how am I supposed to address this issue without getting into the self-interest debate?

> 2.  "The supply chains for various products (not only intellectual property) must undergo transformative innovation and do so in such a way as to offer the cheapest possible final price to their consumers, or else someone else will, because it is possible for them to do so in a free market."

(Unless, I might add, free-market capitalism has been sabotaged - as it currently is)

You're essentially restating the thesis.  The easy answer to the thesis will only come as a result of the nitty gritty debate I was trying to have.  Otherwise, we might as well just have 400 posts of just "Yes," "No," and call it a politics debate.

> 3.  "Money only functions as a medium of exchange between items."  It does not only function as such.  Money is in fact not a reasonable means of exchange anymore due to inflation and the tendency for governments to commit currency manipulation so as to orchestrate events on the geo-political stage to suit their interests.

Actually... this may be an entirely new argument in this thread (we started to get into the currency debate... I deferred to you on whether you wanted the currency debate here or somewhere else because... it may distract from the original topic).

> 4.  The reason Pipa and Sopa are even being considered by legislators is due to the corruption, greed, unethical business practices coming back to bite their Wallstreet / Hollywood buddies.  It's poetic justice: the free market capitalism they had been manipulating and controlling to suit their aims is no longer possible without changing the rules game. Pathetic.

Guess what... this, once again, is restating the thesis.  Neither this nor #2 have justifications for the truth value of the statement on their own... so you have to rely on the reason occurring in the rest of the thread.  If you disregard the rest of the thread, though, because it's not addressing these issues... you're ignoring the very questions which determine whether there is any merit to these.

The thing is... we can't answer these questions intelligently without considering each in detail... and that means things like evaluating the incentives for why people do what they do... you know, the debate you don't want to have because you believe it distracts from your topic. 

Bahahaha!

Xeno... you are the one who very clearly brought this debate into a debate regarding both the link between currency and the individual motivation to act, and the link between the individual motivation to act and the patent laws.

"In a world without money, though, there would be no funds with which to entice people to endeavor on projects they did not actually believe in, and thus only those endeavors which were actually supported the best interests of the civilization would attract the necessary labor to produce them."

"Imagine a society where people create something simply for the joy of contributing to group; a society in which there is an innate dis-incentive to creating anything which might jeopardize the prosperity of the group; such could be our civilization.  As humans each of us is capable of being motivated towards action besides that of our own self-interest.  We are also capable of creating such a society if we only began to phase-out fiat currencies from our economic systems."

Sound familiar?  If these statements were not intended to bring the reader to the conclusion that you believed without money, individuals would not be motivated by self-interest to pursue technological innovations, then why were they around?

And considering the following quote in which you very clearly state a preference for the patent structure which avoids using greed as a motivator, very specifically citing an advantage of avoiding the greed motivator...

"To the contrary, my point is simply that a patent system without greed as a motivator would still be successful because many inventors would still invent regardless of monetary reward; and moreover, I'll go so far as to say that perhaps the inventions invented under such a patent system would be better, and more conducive to bettering society would better facilitate the kind of civilization in which the best interests of humanity are ensured, for such inventors would not produce inventions simply for selfish, ego-centric personal gain, but rather they would be motivated simply by the concept that their invention would better society somehow.  More to the point, then, would be, notion that removing the motivation of monetary gain from the patent system would result in only those inventions which were actually beneficial to society to be available to humanity, and thereby negating the ill-sociological-effects of those inventions which had been produced without any regard for the best interest of those individuals who would be using them nor the best interest of the civilization in which such inventions would be commonplace.

In other words, in a world where the patent system was without greed as a motivator, there would be no incentive for the invention of weapons of mass destruction, for without there being any monetary gain to the inventor of such destructive products, such products would never be invented: the disdain towards and chastisement of the inventor of such products as well as the personal guilt for even thinking of creating such heinous inventions of the inventor would provide a deterrence against the invention of such products.  Conversely, the perpetual-motion machine which could provide free-energy to all and thus solve the world's energy crisis would still be invented, for the recognition and honor, the praise and fame, as well as the feeling of self-accomplishment associated with the invention of such beneficial products would provide incentive enough for the inventor to embark on the process of inventing such products."

And, finally, considering that, when I tried to debate this issue while operating under the paradigm that you were trying to work within a system in which greed was a motivator (the status quo)... and got corrected with this one-line post.

"Your assumption is that greed is the prime motivator for those who would invent something.  This is a flawed assumption."

Exactly how am I supposed to interpret this debate, if not one in which your advocacy states that individuals would have a motivation other than greed, and use that motivation as the basis to fuel innovation?  If this wasn't the case, there is no reason you should have stopped me early in page 2 of this debate.  You, very specifically, made multiple posts arguing that your advocacy involved a shift (or reversion) in personal incentives within this environment, even going so far as to say you would prefer an inventor market in which individual gain has no place in the motivations for people entering the market.  How else is that supposed to be interpreted?

Look... I study economics.  Economics is a tool by which individuals can analyze, understand, and predict how individuals will respond to incentives.  However, the only way economics is useful as a tool in understanding the way incentives will affect behavior is if we understand the individual's incentives.  The moment I began attempting to utilize the empirical tools we have to understand the behavioral response to your proposed policy change... you stopped and let me know that the incentives which I was assuming existed (personal gain) would not be the incentives which would be motivating action in this particular society.  To say that we are supposed to understand how people will react without being able to pin down the incentives, and thus derive both the results of the incentives and try to explain the way we achieve any changes in incentives which exist, without actually discussing the fundamental question of individual motivation vs. communal motivation is equivalent to telling a doctor to test an individual for cancer, but without being able to have any contact or data from that individual.

If your proposition relies on the argument that the individuals will be operating under an alternate incentive paradigm than what is required, analyzing both how that paradigm comes to being and any effects of the paradigm shift, are completely legitimate points of contention, because they are, at that point, a prerequisite to understanding how your policy proposition would function.

> "Without the knowledge that the coal-burning factory, there wouldn't be a knowledge that there was a safe alternative, because there wasn't a need to develop the safe alternative."

Zarf, seriously, I shouldn't even respond to this, for by posting it it is clear you did not read my post at all.  My criticism of the self-interest paradigm's patent system is not that it allows for the production of harmful products, but that it PREVENTS the remedy / innovation of that product by anyone other the producer who has already invested heavily into the production of that product and thereby does not have it has his best interest to innovate that product / remedy its harmful nature.  Again, why do you want to troll me around here to discuss redundant, irrelevant topics which detract this into a partisan debate?

From your prior post:

"The inventor certainly wouldn't have to buy the intellectual property of the offending producer simply to remedy the wrong of that particular product, for the patent would be publically available, innovative improvements to products widely supported."

Actually, you're right... I did miss this sentence entirely.  Apologies.

That being said...
1: If environmental regulation exists, when people or environmental agencies determine the pollution is a problem, in time, any regulations established on that technology necessitate the business to find a solution to the problem... so even if a patent exists which would prevent individuals other than the patent holder to produce the alternative, a market intervention in response to the pollution would force the business to change... this is a recurring phenomenon in 20th century history.
2: Often, the actual correction to the problem doesn't require access to the original technology.  Offhand, I'm thinking of mufflers, used to reduce noise from combustion engines.

> "This is just wrong.  The "money is the root of all evil" saying is just a red herring."  Why should I respond to this disingenuous attack?  You are clearly taking my point which was NOT "money is the root of all evil", TROLL, and labeling such.

My GOD how can you do this?  You are an F-Mod

Personally, I thought I was pretty clear with this statement.  That sentence was clearly taken out of paragraph context.  My full argument was...

"This is just wrong.  The "money is the root of all evil" saying is just a red herring.  Even before the concept of money existed, greed existed because natural resources (natural resources, labor, and capital resources) still existed.  Money only functions as a medium of exchange between items.  Greed would still exist, except instead of people valuing the "almighty dollar," value would be redirected to the "almighty oil well," or the "almighty bar of gold," or whatever other commodities are determined to be the definitions of wealth.  Native American tribes, Somali warlords, the Mongol hordes, Hunnic tribes, and any number of other tribal governments existed without currencies.  Did hierarchies, power struggles, witholding of resources, and outright neglect of the common good exist?  Yes... because people who controlled the distribution (not necessarily the production) of important resources would control the society.  Mohammad Adid in Somalia controlled UN food aid (yes, I just watched Black Hawk Down... good movie), the male hierarchy in the Iroquois tribes had authority over who received food (despite the women being the producers)... the list goes on."

The actual content of my argument was a direct indictment of your previous statement, highlighted here.

"In a world without money, though, there would be no funds with which to entice people to endeavor on projects they did not actually believe in, and thus only those endeavors which were actually supported the best interests of the civilization would attract the necessary labor to produce them."

The idea being that using economic power to entice individuals into action still exists, except that people would entice others with natural resources, not money.  I'd ask you to please refrain from taking my statements out of context in analyzing their intent, as this was very clearly an example in which the actual substantive debate was focused very specifically on your claim, not on the sentence highlighted, which was more a literary device.  Okay, I could have probably worded that better, definitely.  But it seemed to be clear what I was arguing.  Sorry for any miscommunication there.

I'd also suggest, in the future, that you begin by citing the problems with my argument before levying the character attacks.  I'll agree, you definitely cited one point at which my post missed your argument, to which I've already owned up.  The character attacks just distract from the legitimate arguments in your post.  Especially since it's very possible at least some of this may simply be a cultural language misunderstanding, at which point demonizing the other side would almost always achieve the exact opposite of what you hope to achieve.

*heavy breath*

This is actually the 5th time I wrote this post.  There's one other argument I will be putting here, in addition, once I get the time.

> xeno syndicated wrote:

> "Anyway, under the no-patent system, the inventor must first raise $50 million in order to work on the drug.  So that requires a good amount of time in money saved, investments, etc., in order to raise the money"

And if the invention were for a good cause, which actually helped society, they were would be plenty of donations.

Donations don't just grow out of trees, though.  From a decisionmaking point of view, individuals must make two distinct choices to actually donate.

1: Deciding to donate a specific amount.  There is no reason this amount is to increase under the xeno worldview, so this would remain constant.
2: Deciding to donate that amount to a specific cause.  Currently, donations go to food aid, animal rights, environmental preservation, homeless shelters, religious organizations... and now it's supposed to also fill the needs of every resource-intensive research project in the world?  Most charities perpetually have financial issues due to lack of donations, and need to spend a huge amount just to advertise that their program is better than the other programs just to get the funding to keep going... creating the problem that the competition for resources among charitable organizations for donations means that donations increasingly don't actually go where they're intended, paying for advertising and administration costs over the actual project.

The result: Researchers would have to increase their cost to consider advertising against others also advertising... and would have to advertise, wasting resources until the project itself became economically inefficient due to the cost to maintain the project.

> "Thus, he lost out on the motivation he was attempting to gain, because the satisfaction was delayed by the ability to create the product."

If he lost motivation simply because not enough money was raised or it took too long for the money to be raised, then obviously, support for the invention was not all the great to begin with, and, secondly, perhaps if he wasn't really that motivated to do the project he probably shouldn't have been the one to attempt it in the first place.  And because there would be no profit, persay, from the invention, he would then pass on the project to someone more motivated or more capable of garnering support for the project.

You also disregard the people (and most people are in this category) who have mixed interests.  It's easy to categorize people as either self-interested or public welfare-interested, but most people are a mix (I want to help others out, but also want to better myself)... so the individual gains utility from both sides of the equation.  That's why you have businesses that engage in ethics-oriented business activities, such as fair-trade coffee, free-range chickens, etc.  The ethical stance isn't enough in itself to encourage any of these industries, as evidenced by the fact that said industries attempt to make profits in the first place... but they still achieve the ethical ends desired.  As a result, your world would sacrifice the "ethical capitalists," able to utilize the tools and incentives of capitalism while guiding capitalism toward what they consider to be ethical ends.

Not to mention... you can't pick and choose who invents what.  Inventions are a product of ideas, which are a product of an individual's historic experiences... you can't just say "well, he should be the one to invent that, not you" because whoever you say "should" invent it may not have the knowledge to create the idea.  Thus, saying "X shouldn't invent that" is essentially abandoning the invention, even without knowing what the invention is.

> And let's remember that this no patent system would thrive in a civilization without a monetary system.

Because?  This is addressed in separate sections...

Actually, though, that leaves one question: Are you arguing that your proposal (no patent/copyright protection) would function both in the current world and in the no-currency world?  If so, where does the psychological shift occur in the status quo world?

> "Do you have an example of a legal, non-military grade, dangerous invention which would be prevented?"  Oh, I don't know, maybe the combustion engine?  Cigarettes?  Polluting means of mass production?  Some detergents, various household products which cause cancer?  The moment any invention which had been mass-produced and proven to have some ill-effects would be the moment that some inventor would alter the patent so as not to cause ill-effects and present that alternative product to the market.  The inventor certainly wouldn't have to buy the intellectual property of the offending producer simply to remedy the wrong of that particular product, for the patent would be publically available, innovative improvements to products widely supported.  Let me ask you this: why are we still using combustion engines when so many clearly better alternatives are possible?  Because the automotive industry does not want to have to revamp its production lines.  In an economy where every company would be free to use and improve upon any and ever patent out there, you would have real competition in the market.

First of all, most inventions aren't determined to be "dangerous" until after they are invented.  We didn't know about the effects of large-scale coal burning in factories until after coal burning was created and widely used.

That brings me to argument #2... you can't create a vaccine without knowing the disease exists.  Let's take the coal-burining factory.  Without the knowledge that the coal-burning factory, there wouldn't be a knowledge that there was a safe alternative, because there wasn't a need to develop the safe alternative.

Consider, again, the factory.  There's a pattern.  Coal-burning factories started up... then pollution happened... people protested to the government about pollution, and the government would end up establishing regulations demanding reductions in pollution... then businesses, to meet the demand set by regulations, researches cost-effective alternatives... using the resources gained from the polluting production!  Without that destructive growth, the resources to produce the non-destructive equivalent often cannot be matured in a cost-effective manner.  The alternative to that destruction is to stymie growth entirely.

Third... how does the computer virus operate in your world?  Not the "take credit card numbers" viruses... if people were willing to forego creating because others would be mad as a result of the creation, the purely destructive computer virus would never exist, because people would worry about public outcry that the virus was bad for the welfare of society, and the virus has absolutely no economic self-interest gain for the producer... the only benefit is that the individual gets to watch the destruction.

> "Fourth, the fact that a person is profit-motivated doesn't mean their invention is bad.  Your interpretation would leave out many inventions which are profit-motivated, yet would not be harmful."

What would be the point of inventing a product that did not improve someone's life, even if it weren't harmful?  I don't think the world would be any worse off if those products which neither improved nor worsened our way of life were invented.  In fact, I think we would be better off if we didn't have to waste our increasingly scarce resources on producing useless products.

1: There's products that have no use on their own, but result in derivative products.  What is the use of a can opener on its own?  Not much.  But once another invention is made (the can), it becomes a tool to collectively preserve food much longer than would otherwise be possible.

2: What about products which are just there for individual amusement?  There is no utilitarian reason why a new video game, toy, designer shirt, etc., benefits society... except that they're around for us to enjoy life.  They're relatively utility-neutral.

3: Considering that, overall, invention helps spread the use of natural resources further among the society... you've gotta give specific examples of what we should be worried about... exactly what resources are we worried about spreading too thin, which non-utilitarian inventions from which purely aesthetic inventions take away?

> As for your 5th point, high-cost inventions would not be left out.  First of all there wouldn't be high cost or low cost projects anymore, since money would be taken out of the equation.  There would only be large-scale projects and small scale projects.  Large scale inventions would have to garner support from a wide segment of the the majority so as to attract the necessary labor to produce them.

In a world without money, though, there would be no funds with which to entice people to endeavor on projects they did not actually believe in, and thus only those endeavors which were actually supported the best interests of the civilization would attract the necessary labor to produce them.

This is just wrong.  The "money is the root of all evil" saying is just a red herring.  Even before the concept of money existed, greed existed because natural resources (natural resources, labor, and capital resources) still existed.  Money only functions as a medium of exchange between items.  Greed would still exist, except instead of people valuing the "almighty dollar," value would be redirected to the "almighty oil well," or the "almighty bar of gold," or whatever other commodities are determined to be the definitions of wealth.  Native American tribes, Somali warlords, the Mongol hordes, Hunnic tribes, and any number of other tribal governments existed without currencies.  Did hierarchies, power struggles, witholding of resources, and outright neglect of the common good exist?  Yes... because people who controlled the distribution (not necessarily the production) of important resources would control the society.  Mohammad Adid in Somalia controlled UN food aid (yes, I just watched Black Hawk Down... good movie), the male hierarchy in the Iroquois tribes had authority over who received food (despite the women being the producers)... the list goes on.

I would get more into the currency debate in general, but if you think that distracts from the debate at hand (patents in general), we can save that for another time, unless necessary.

In addition, a couple general notes.

First, you have yet to answer the question of copyrights.  All my arguments in this thread apply equally to copyrights and patents (people still have greed+societal welfare incentives to produce both, etc.).  However, unlike patents, copyrights deal largely with items which have relatively little hard welfare to society (the latest Harry Potter book is unlikely to increase food output, for example).  However, these people still have costs which need to be compensated, especially in Hollywood, but also prevalent in video game, book and software industries.

Could you really imagine the movie industry trying to obtain $50 million in donations (or, in your no-currency worldview, the equivalent of what $50 million would be required to obtain in labor, natural resources, and capital required for the action) in order to make Star Wars, especially since Star Wars would be competing with every other movie, video game, book, invention, and charitable organization in the world... a donor would have to actually decide "watching this movie is more important than a cure for cancer," inevitably meaning that, for the copyright industry to exist, we have to acknowledge that the very motivation you are trying to eradicate to sustain your society (greed) exists, and is necessary for the industry.

This would easily collapse most of the higher-end literature creation, simply because you want to apply the same rules which may work for patents.

Also, let me get one thing straight.  In the xeno worldview, are we living in a world where people who don't invent things (workers included) get to exploit the benefits of inventors, and the inventors are just not allowed to have the same interests that other workers have?

Question: Is it possible to combat file sharing by creating enough impediments, such as DRM, not to make it impossible to file share, but to make it expensive enough to outweigh the benefits of file sharing (i.e., if it costs me $20 in resources and effort to overcome DRM, it would be in my interest to simply not file share, even if I'm not caught)?