> ~Wornstrum~ wrote:

> "That they had to kill near 140 million doubters and people who wanted other paths to try it..."

Would like to see a source on that figure...

"These bills, PIPA and SOPA are sabotaging the innovation resulting from altruism and entrenching those systems derived from self-interest motivation; systems which are harmful to / threaten the survival of our civilization."

Why stop with this? Why not allow plagerism? Perhaps the use of others items should also be allowed? I mean my neighbour wont mind if I use his pool will he? I can just borrow anyone's car so long as I return it right?

What I find funny Xeno, is that almost everyone in this thread (expect me, I agree with the intention of these Bills) is actually against SOPA/PIPA. What they are disputing, is your concept that patents are bad! Well from an individual perspective, I am glad that if I have an idea it will be protected.

"Language is entirely arbitrary, derived from common cultural acceptance"

Trolling into a discussion of postmodernism are we now?

My GOD, Zarf.  WHY are you insisting on trolling?"

Why do you keep trying to refer to his comments as a troll simply to avoid acknowledging what he writes? In fact these sorts of comments are more of a troll than someone who is directly answering your questions...

What would NOT be trolling in this case would be showing how someone who cannot afford to see a doctor should die simply because they cannot afford the $50 / month membership fee required to be a member of the website which outlines available treatments for his or her easily curable condition.

"What would NOT be trolling in this case would be showing how someone who cannot afford to see a doctor should die simply because they cannot afford the $50 / month membership fee required to be a member of the website which outlines available treatments for his or her easily curable condition."

So someone cannot afford medical care, but they can afford the internet? (this would really make me question their priorities). Furthermore, I do not believe Zarf once used this as an example...you are now making up points that people are making in order to justify being upset with them.

"Hundreds of millions could die because of these bills, and Zarf wants to argue semantics of the word capitalism.  Einstein accuses me of being a communist; you and others attacking me for standing up for what's right.

Why?
To win an argument and boost your ego.

Shame."

You are simply looking for people to agree with you, not looking at a debate, nor looking to have a discussion. You brought up the argument over the description of capitalism, which Zarf backed up his arguments with the definition both he found, as well as using YOUR source for the definition.

Furthermore, you are associating communism as a very bad system, however in theory it is a wonderful system. Much like what you are suggesting (I do not draw the link to communism here, but I still think that your view point is about doing the best for society without expecting any reward for doing so, which is what socialism is about, not necessarily the political structure). I quite like the ideology that you are suggesting, it would solve alot of problems, but what the comments in this thread have outlined, is that such a system cannot work in todays society because the presence of greed. You cannot stamp out greed by making it easier to be greedy, in fact such a methodology would make the consumer even more greedy (which it is considering the level of piracy, and thus the purpose of SOPA/PIPA).

I also mentioned that neither Zarf or Flint agree with SOPA/PIPA and Flint is rather voiced about stopping the Bills also, so neither is advocating the introduction of the bill, but the right to maintain intellectual property/recognition. You seem to be arguing against giant corporations (looking back over your posts), but you are still forgetting about the little inventors, for they will rely heavily on the contribution of others.

Furthermore, you have called upon semantics to ignore comments/points raised by other posters in this thread. You are also taking this discussion very personally. We dispute your idea of a no patent/copyright system, not you, and I think you should understand this. In order to have an intellectual discussion on a topic, you need to understand that it is not personal, I do not take comments regarding my ideas personally (even though on previous discussions you have called me a perpetrator of the most heinous of crimes against humanity), nor is anyone here trying to insult you personally. I would go as far to say that people are trying very hard to understand your point-of-view. I would stop, take a breathe, and restructure your argument to better help people understand what you are trying to say.

I most certainly am against Sipa Pipa.

I made calls to my own party identifying my candidacy and voculizing my severe hatred of the bills and that I would advocate ending career of any supporting it.

"Alright.  I take offense, personally, to those who would continue to argue for systems that continue the trend of what's going on in our world: nuclear proliferation, 1/3 of the population of our species malnourished or starving, species extinction the likes this planet hasn't experienced since perhaps the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs, major wars every 20 years or so, monetary inflation at levels which virtually make everyone a slave to the banks; the list goes on and on and on..."

None of these specifics were brought up, nor is anyone arguing that they benefit...all this points out is that there are problems with society (some of the above I feel would be solved with population control...doesn't mean that everyone would agree with me). Now to understand that you are taking this personally, you should then understand that you are taking this away from a discussion and more into a realm where you are trying to lecture to people (because you do not want people offering alternatives/discussing flaws, you just seek to have people to agree with you).

"Freely available knowledge has the potential to remedy so many of our social ills, by which millions die or live in strife every day.  The horrible state of the human condition could be remedied significantly by giving individuals the power and freedom to educate themselves vis a vis the free flow of information, and  PIPA and SOPA have the potential to ruin this opportunity for millions to actually improve significantly their condition, for once."

Well the free-flowing access to the Internet is the reason Flint is against SOPA/PIPA (check the other forum) but this thread was about patents/copyright. You came up with an opinion that patents/copyright is bad, you cannot accept that people would accept this on face value. It is a new ideology, and I remember Flint commenting that you actually think about the criticism, and then rework your model/proposal in order to address such problems. In fact when you look at the comments by both Zarf and Flint, both have been constructive in trying to point out flaws, to which you should be looking at addressing to make your ideology to work. You appear to be very anti-communism, and if you look at the reason communism failed, it is because it attempted to reconstruct people's attitudes towards society. You are attempting a similar practice by completely removing the patent system. Any large jump in any system (this was my argument to Flint regarding civil war in China) is that it will hurt more people that it helps initially, and this is why such a change should be bad. Subtle changes that eventually lead to long term changes are needed (especially if you attempt to change people's behaviour). Zarf and Flint are not wrong in the information they presented (on a purely facts basis) and, although I cannot speak for Flint, Zarf is detached from his argument (ie. he is not looking at his own personal greed, but how economics function in society today, and the need that arose of such a system). There is a reason that the patent system was originally established, and I do not think it was for large corporations to maintain monopolies, but to protect the individual from greedy corporations who would simply copy the idea for mass production once it is invented (understand that without a patent/copyright, a large corporation can simply copy the idea and begin mass production one they have access to the designs. This is why I mentioned about ideas not being released to extended networks). Furthermore, before you bring up altruistic values again, that these are not the present day norms, and will not magically spring up upon the abolishen (is this even a word?) of the patent system.

You have the right values/heart, I do not dispute that, but in practice in present day society, it simply would lead to problems (as stated above and by other posters). You can still have your intellectual discussion, you just need to acknowledge the arguments presented, do not dismiss them using excuses, and present an argument or develop a solution that actually addresses this (instead of taking it personally, which their arguments are NOT! They argue an ideology, NOT arguing to upset/disadvantage you).

"I take it personally, as a human being, when someone argues in favor of maintaining what is in essence a global, humanitarian horror being perpetuated."

I wonder if people like Zarf should take it personally that you insulted his use of the English language, which was not incorrect, and upon proving this you insulted him further by insinuating that he was trolling/detracting from the argument? I wonder if those involved in this argument should take it personally when you insinuating that we all educated stupid (especially when you referred that we were not having an "academic discussion")? Everyone has kept this discussion on the facts at hand (except this post which is actually a post directed at your attitudes, not the topic at hand). If your argument is solid, you should be able to support it to the point that everyone here will accept it (this is actually how academic articles work). If there are holes, people make changes and then resubmit their articles. Furthermore, academic articles are also peer-reviewed, where people are actually encouraged to pick the argument apart. Since people here are able to raise concerns, do you think that everyone else will accept your ideology? You could use the information here constructively...

> ~Wornstrum~ wrote:

<blah, blah, blah - nothing about PIPA / SOPA, addressing none of the issues at hand>

For my argument to be solid, then, should I now follow your trolling to discuss how I may have insulted Zarf by calling him out on his misnomer of "capitalism" and calling him out for derailing the topic?  Oops, did I just insult you now, wornstrum, for accusing you of trolling / derailing this thread now? 

So f-mods are permitted to troll and derail threads and make partisan issues out of academic ones, and can get away with accusing anyone who dares call them out on it as insulting?  Is this proper forum posting etiquette?

Just to be clear, here, you can have the audacity to lecture me about not lecturing, and heaven forbid I point out your hypocrisy, lest I get banned from this oh so prestigious discussion forum?

Heh. I wanted to write a reply earlier today but didn't have time. The thread grew quite a bit while I was gone and after reading the new posts I think I'm done with this thread too. I applaud your patience and trying, Zarf, Worn, and Flint.

"Pretty sure I have seen no specific party support, so perhaps you would care to explain how you came to this conclusion?"

Yes, sure, the republican stance, which accuses anyone who offers a different point of view outside the narrow spectrum of liberalism as either a communist, anarchist, facist, or some other derogatory label, simply because it threatens their narrow-minded fundamentalist, narrow assumptions, especially when it is suggested that such fundamental beliefs are unethical or immoral.  For them, their fundamental beliefs trump morality.  This is a moral issue, ultimately; naturally they misinterpret it as ideological, as you said, "you have not built an argument but have merely stated an ideology".  This is exactly the nature of your trolling.

"You have ignored/belittled responses simple because they do not support your ideology"

No, I belittled the responses because they were detracting from the issue at hand by accusing me of being a communist.

"Me trying to derail this thread?"

Yes.  You are derailing this right now.

"I am trying to work with you to bring this forum BACK to its original purpose"

By lecturing me about how I shouldn't call out people who derail topics?  How does this help?

"So how do you deal with greed as a motivator for all of us, whilst protecting the intellectual property of an inventor?"

Finally.  Thank for you stopping your trolling.  Alright.  Greed as a motivator is easily replaced by altruistic motivation when there are close-knit communities.  Take the "strata" concept in an apartment building, or gated community.  Amenities and services like cafes restaurants and shops, health care centers, spas, fitness centers, parks, etc. are all available exclusively to the residents of that particular community.  Imagine also that basic needs in addition to shelter: much of the food, electricity, water are all provided by the community (vertical / roof-top poly-culture agriculture).  Now imagine if every resident worked where they lived, and their business was closely associated in providing services to the other residents of the community in which they reside - no commuters who because they drive 1 or 2 hours to work every day and at the end of which are so tired that they simply flake out on the couch for an hour or two before going to sleep - no one is disenfranchised from the community in which they live. 

Now, how do I suggest protecting intellectual property / patents?  I don't.  I believe it is immoral for ideas which could solve peoples problems to be withheld from those who have the capability and drive to produce products from those ideas simply because patent holders want profit for these ideas, ideas which for the most part the patent holders did not come up with themselves anyway; ideas for products which could save lives, improve standards of living, education, etc.; by withholding these patents / intellectual property millions would needlessly suffer.  This makes it a moral issue, an issue of ethics.

The argument has been presented that without patent holders being able to profit from selling their rights to intellectual property, there would be no motivation for innovating; no motivation for further intention.  But as I have suggested on numerous occasions this need not be the case for a number of reasons.  I am not going to repeat myself in this regard.

Instead, why don't you Zarf, Einstein, Wornstrum, adequately address reasons I have presented, and do so without trolling or derailing this thread nor accusing me of being a communist.

I repeat.  This a moral issue, ultimately, for my argument that patent laws and the intellectual property laws hinder the advancement of technology in those directions which would break the current cycle of current trends: war, unnecessary depletion of increasingly scarce resources, environmental degradation, systemic, immoral economic opportunity inequalities, which ultimately endanger the survival of our species.   Solve our social ills by allowing for increased altruism in communities, and permit these communities free access to patents and intellectual property that they could use to build innovative products to address their own communities needs, and thereby their survival.

I hate to suggest it, but lets ignore this thread, aka no replies until he adequately addresses all three of our arguments.

Agreed.  Done.

*cashes his chips in*