*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?

Wow, Zarf, do you simply argue for the sake of arguing, regardless of how irrational your position is?  Your post attempts to detract from the point, attempts to make me defend issues that have no bearing on this discussion.  I'm finding this tactic to be disingenuous. 

re: cost of advertising

No need to advertise if the cause is pertinent enough to people's situations - word of mouth (or rather text in our information age) would suffice for any significantly beneficial endeavor.

So, before you continue painting me into a corner and accuse me of being a communist by claiming I am against advertising now, please consider the following point:

The means of production may not have changed since the onset of the information age, but the means of distribution certainly have, especially with regards to information / data.  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.  Instead, they seek to subvert free market capitalism to regulate markets so as to retain their redundant links in OUR (the customers') supply chains.

They use corrupt, unethical, illegal means to do so, and do so purely because of their self-interest, greed, and pathological disdain for humanity.  It is despicable what they are doing; contemptible.

You're on the wrong side of history, Zarf.

> xeno syndicated wrote:

"Wow, Zarf, do you simply argue for the sake of arguing, regardless of how irrational your position is?  Your post attempts to detract from the point, attempts to make me defend issues that have no bearing on this discussion.  I'm finding this tactic to be disingenuous."

This doesn't dispute what he says, but is trying to make the argument personal...

"No need to advertise if the cause is pertinent enough to people's situations - word of mouth (or rather text in our information age) would suffice for any significantly beneficial endeavor."

Word of mouth would not be sufficient for a multi-million dollar project, as it would get no where near the required attention. Furthermore, "text" also requires money (resources) to spread via the internet, email, SMS. This also does not dispute what Zarf has written regarding the pure nature of people when it involves giving donations. Furthemore, anyone in a world where greed is NOT present, noone should have any extra resources/money to spare past their own personal needs. Maybe to make such a system work, all excess resources go into a large pool, and all inventors/researchers apply for resources from this pool? Everyone would be able to know about the fund (since it would be universal) and such a body can then decide what is valuable and what is not?

"So, before you continue painting me into a corner and accuse me of being a communist by claiming I am against advertising now"

Your opinion that everyone should be working together for the better of mankind and not personal gain is why you are being accused of being a communist, it has nothing to do with the advertising position. The advertising comments are to show you that in your utopia, the inventions would no longer be invented, due to the nature of greed\compassion, and that advertising would be required to raise the necessary funds (detracting away from the invention). Furthermore, if I was to come up with my intention to find a vaccine for HIV, and I can not find the funds for it (I am from Australia, and pretty sure with such a low population density, that by word-of-mouth I will not reach enough investors) should it mean that the invention goes uninvented? It would clearly help millions around the world...what if my invention was to also only help the poor, who do not have any disposable resources to commit to the project, where would I get the funds from? Some wealth person who would be interested in inventions that help himself? You are trying to change the very nature of humanity now, and trying to fight a system that has evolved to be as it is for a reason...

"The means of production may not have changed since the onset of the information age, but the means of distribution certainly have, especially with regards to information / data.  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.  Instead, they seek to subvert free market capitalism to regulate markets so as to retain their redundant links in OUR (the customers') supply chains."

I thought people are able to buy the rights to things like music/movies for the purpose of distribution? I mean it is not like companies such as Telstra are hiring movies downloaded through the Internet to your TV....oh wait, they are? Free-to-air TV also show copyrighted movies...the fact is you don't even need to pay for those...There are competitors already competing for shares in the online market of music/movies...

"They use corrupt, unethical, illegal means to do so, and do so purely because of their self-interest, greed, and pathological disdain for humanity.  It is despicable what they are doing; contemptible."

Illegal??? I thought the conversation of this post was because you were against the legality of copyright/patents...

"You're on the wrong side of history, Zarf."

The dying nature of the economics in communism would suggest you are on the wrong side of history actually...

"The only system that can survive scrutiny is Capitalism and Republics."

They have their flaws too...

OMG.  Some of the most successful businesses of these bad economic times, use no mainstream advertising:

When have you seen Facebook advertise anywhere?
Wikipedia?
Google?

Debate your weak points for once

@einstein:
"In response to Little Paul... when did you become a socialist?"
Someone who wants to PREVENT to much gov intervention in the economy can hardly be called a socialist.

"Your denying most patent makers the ability to profit from their inventions if two years, all in the name of society?"
I don't want the gov to intervene in the market this way, hell no! Its another example of bad gov intervention corrupting a free market system.

@zarf:
You have to reply to my post as off yet. If you already did, my apologies as I cannot read all of the forum because I simply lack the time.

I wrote a massive post and lost it due to a stupid computer (so angry, spent more than an hour on the post and BOOM, gone)

I did salvage some, so I am just going to put it in here and you can work out its relevance.

So the caveman/tribesman that spend their day hunting, and then afterwards seek to gain from the tribe do not have their own interests at heart? I am pretty sure that the hunter in a tribe seeks to gain from the rest of the village, and if he no longer gains clothing, cooking, sexual favours from the women in the tribe you think he would still provide them with food? It is a barter system, "I do this chore for you, because you do this chore for me". In your truly altruistic society, I would need to provide without a garauntee of anything in return (and not change my habits when that happens). This is also the point that you are making with the patent laws, that an inventor should be seeking to better mankind, and if he is not able to support himself off the invention then he should still be inventing it. You also recognise that altruism works in situations like families, but somehow expect this to extend to the community as a large, yet you have yet to even provide supporting evidence for that.

You advocate "work for the greater good" by suggesting that everyone should have altruistic values, yet you seem offended when people suggest that such a system already exists...socialism. You also imply that you are not sacrificing capitalism by rejecting patents/copyright, yet this would quite literally spell the death of many recording artists/inventors because they do not get enough back from their invention to survive (since there is no protection). Furthermore you suggested that such inventions won't need advertising because word of mouth will benefit the inventor, but this also affects the inventor negatively (as Flint pointed out). I invent something new and cool, the flying car. Now someone sees this idea, and goes "GREAT, I will make it and market it to my 'connections' (such as families and friends)" and by doing such, gain acess to their goods/services. Now because that person has more friends than me, I no longer can give my car to as many people, meaning I get less in return (through my connections). As mentioned above, altruism does not exist when your very survival is in question, you would not support people if you are getting nothing in return/dying.

Furthermore, in regards to advertising (I cannot find any examples regarding Facebook, because, well I am in China):

"OMG.  Some of the most successful businesses of these bad economic times, use no mainstream advertising:"

"When have you seen Facebook advertise anywhere?"

Well I have no way to look this information up...

"Wikipedia?"

Wikipedia was looking to add advertising to its own website in order to gain enough money so they can actually advertise in mainstream media.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Advertisements#Possible_uses_for_additional_income

"Google?"

What's this? A link to a TV commercial for Google?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lq2Nvs0va2g

Have any more examples?

@LP

You're right, I haven't gotten to your post.

> 1.) Creator rights vs patents
Making a law to protect creators rights is something different as making a law giving artificial ownership.

Care to define what this means?  What "creator rights," and what would this entail?

> 2.) Duration:
The duration of the patent is as important as the law itself. If you give the creator eg 1 or 2 years of ownership, you benefit both the money input as well as the advantage of everybody using it.

Oh, I have no argument with the idea that an arbitrary 20-year patent is good for all inventions.  That being said, you have to take into consideration the specific inventions before considering the patent.

Probably the most important aspect would be the good's market elasticity.  If we're talking about, for example, a cure for cancer, people must buy the product no matter what the price... so the original producer is able to require a higher surcharge to compensate for prior research.  Thus, it's more likely this would be on the lower end of the patent structure.

But this obviously creates a problem.  If, for example, a .01 pill was being sold at $200 per pill under a 20 year patent, reducing the patent length to 2 years would require an arbitrarily high (maybe $2000 or more) price for the pill... and because the good is inelastic, people have little choice but to accept.

However, if we're talking about a post-it note, something people really don't "need," the surcharge an individual would be able to place on the item during the patent period would be lower, because more people will avoid the product in response to higher prices... thus, it's likely this would require the longer of terms for patent lengths.

Now, this would obviously have the problem that individuals would have to either classify each type of good's elasticity or create broad categories based on market elasticity.  But, in terms of economic efficiency, yeah, I do recognize reforms could take place changing the term of the patent.

Also recognize, though, that patent lengths aren't created at the national level.  The terms are constructed as an international standard for the sake of establishing continuity in international trade.  So if there is a reform, it's much more difficult even than Schoolhouse Rock suggests. 

> 3.) Ownership rights themselves:
If you invent something, you shouldn't be able to prevent people using it. There is also the question of how much someone should earn then in return. A (low) percentage would be logical thing to do.

Why?

> 4.) Competition between distributors
If you only create rights for the creator, there will be no state intervention artificially giving money to the holder of a monopoly at the distributors side. Competition will start a price war. (this one is already adressed by xeno.)

Except that the competition already puts the inventor at a disadvantage.  If rights are not given to the creator, how is the creator supposed to recoup the losses from the initial research?  If your thesis is that some rights (such as the 2-year patent) should be given... that's state intervention, no matter how small.  Where's the compromise going to happen?

Dysfunctional debate; partisan debaters; not constructive; irrational.

I would like an objective venue to discuss this topic.

Honestly, I'm just going to find another forum.  What is with Einstein posting so many topics, anyway?  A conservative, partisan, group ruining discussions here.

Ok run away from our debate. You cannot answer my retort, nor satisfy Zarfs, and the topics is cause I am aware of issues and wish to bring attention to them.

The HUMAN FACTOR!

@Xeno

>>When most people who ever lived on this planet ever did work, they did so for the benefit of their family members, their village, their tribe, not themselves.

Okay, I concede this point; primarily because I believe parents work for the benefit for their children who work for the benefit of their children and so on. I previously (still) do not consider kin selection true altruism, but definition disagrees with me. I would say that it is a lot less likely for two random individuals on the planet to want to work for each other.

>> This post is where he began to insult my intelligence with his implications that I am "sacrificing capitalism", disregarding "ethical" capitalism.

This is hardly fair to Zarf. All he did was point out a potential issue in your utopia, poke at your logic, but that's what a debate is all about. He did not call you any names.

>> From his post, I doubt he even knows what capitalism is.

Can you tell us your definition?

>> For even in a purely altruistic-driven society, there would be capitalism. Capitalism is in no way associated with greed or the self-interest paradigm.  Altruistic capitalism is commonplace regardless.  For example: you need to buy something, but you can't get a loan from a bank.  You borrow from a friend or family member.  In an altruistic society, you would simply to the reverse.  If you can't get a loan from a family member or a friend, you get it from a bank.

I think few, if any, would consider a bank altruistic. Altruism implies no gain, hardly the case for a bank, an insititution which surely expects the loan to be paid back and then some.

>> 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

By preventing changes to existing technology, does that not force altruistic inventors to seek alternative technology, thereby improving innovation overall?

>> And this metaphore is a horrible illustration of your point, for the virus is a naturally occurring phenomenon.

A virus might be natural, but a vaccine is certainly man-made. Tobacco is natural, but a cigarette is certainly man-made.