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[SalmonGod]

Anarchy = No Rulers

Profit = the money you gain from selling something in excess of what it took to make that thing = consolidation of wealth = rulership.

Capitalism is just an abstract method of electing informal rulers via concentration of resource control.  I understand the reasoning behind it, but even if it has ever been a good idea, it is incompatible with today's realities.  Piracy is a natural process of people realizing new and very positive capabilities, and the only way to stop it is via sheer brute force that lays bare this reality.

I believe that the root of our worst problems is the concept of property, which is anything an entity claims ownership of that they do not directly relate to or depend upon.  Socialism/communism still operate on this concept, except property is owned by the state to be distributed as it sees fit.  I see this as identical to late capitalism, where the ultra wealthy are the state, and the same elements of control simply move from the market into politics.

I think we need make use of the new capabilities we've found through mass communications technology (especially social media and a proper understanding of memetics) to facilitate de-centralized self-organization of individuals via consensus decision making processes.

And yes... if you want to take this further, we'll take it to another thread or PM.

[G-Flex]

Anarchy = No Rulers

Profit = the money you gain from selling something in excess of what it took to make that thing = consolidation of wealth = rulership.

I think the key point here is that wherever there's power to be held and concentrated, people will hold and concentrate it, no matter what you call it, and intentionally lacking any formalized system to distribute that power doesn't change a thing except possibly making the situation more volatile and unpredictable.

[KaelGotDwarves]

Anarchy = No Rulers

Profit = the money you gain from selling something in excess of what it took to make that thing = consolidation of wealth = rulership.

I think the key point here is that wherever there's power to be held and concentrated, people will hold and concentrate it, no matter what you call it, and intentionally lacking any formalized system to distribute that power doesn't change a thing except possibly making the situation more volatile and unpredictable.

Not always. There were cases of european explorers who docked within native islander's land, and the natives came aboard and started taking stuff right off the explorers' boat. Of course, to stop this the europeans reacted by killing those walking off with their gear and starting a bloodbath, when in reality, the local structure was such that there was no sense of private property and they were just sharing stuff - had communication been clear at first, there would have been no misunderstanding.

So society without inherent ownership and power structures can exist, the problem is that society with power structures comes along and overpowers it

[MrWiggles]

Oh, sure, Communism and anarchy could work, but with small numbers, where labor doesnt require years of eduction and experience.

Though, to my knowledge there been no civilization that has worked under that model.

[Montague]

I think Pol Pot probably had the best idea to impliment Communism. His idea was to restart civilization entirely, from the ground up as a communist system, where people would have no cultural obstacles and the concepts of property, profit, inequality have no meaning in people's minds.

Of course, he tried to restart civilization by killing everyone with any education or intellect. Maybe we should give that method another go.

[ed boy]

Very nice post, but there's one thing that I would like clarification on.

Information is really unique, because its value is proportional to the number of people who have access to it.  Other things decrease in value as they become abundant.  Information increases in value.  This applies to every kind of information.

So does this mean that you believe that privacy should not exist?

[MrWiggles]

Very nice post, but there's one thing that I would like clarification on.

Information is really unique, because its value is proportional to the number of people who have access to it.  Other things decrease in value as they become abundant.  Information increases in value.  This applies to every kind of information.

So does this mean that you believe that privacy should not exist?

What I think that Ed Boy, is getting at, is that not all information increases in value with whom holds there. There is information, which decreases in value the more folks know it. Secret Knowledge, classified, industrial secrets, ect, is all valuable, and highly because its not known by very many.

Heck, look at Coke Cola, they advertise their Coke Forumla as being very secretive, and therefore even more special. More valuable.

[GlyphGryph]

So does this mean that you believe that privacy should not exist?

I certainly do, at least, though I'm not an anarchist like he is, or even share many of his beliefs.

Implementation would be a bitch though, so its not really practical. As an ideal, though? Yes, definitely.

Also, since none of you pro-copyright is theft people have yet to respond to this, let me repeat my question for a fourth fucking time
If I go to the store and buy a cup of yogurt, and then use that to grow my own for the next several months and distribute it to my friends, am I stealing yogurt

[MrWiggles]

So does this mean that you believe that privacy should not exist?

I certainly do, at least, though I'm not an anarchist like he is, or even share many of his beliefs.

Implementation would be a bitch though, so its not really practical. As an ideal, though? Yes, definitely.

Also, since none of you pro-copyright is theft people have yet to respond to this, let me repeat my question for a fourth fucking time
If I go to the store and buy a cup of yogurt, and then use that to grow my own for the next several months and distribute it to my friends, am I stealing yogurt

Yes.
You dont have permissions to grow that culture of yogurt, or hand it out. Its not yours to do so with.

[ed boy]

Very nice post, but there's one thing that I would like clarification on.

Information is really unique, because its value is proportional to the number of people who have access to it.  Other things decrease in value as they become abundant.  Information increases in value.  This applies to every kind of information.

So does this mean that you believe that privacy should not exist?

What I think that Ed Boy, is getting at, is that not all information increases in value with whom holds there. There is information, which decreases in value the more folks know it. Secret Knowledge, classified, industrial secrets, ect, is all valuable, and highly because its not known by very many.

Heck, look at Coke Cola, they advertise their Coke Forumla as being very secretive, and therefore even more special. More valuable.

That is not what I was getting at. What you are describing is that there is some information such that, when it spreads, it is worth less to each person that owns it. That is not being argued. What I believe SalmonGod was describing was that, all other thing being equal, if you sum the total value of human experience over all humanity, you will find that it increases as the total number of people knowing a given piece of knowledge increases. Using the coke example, consider if everybody knew how to make coke by themselves. Those that wanted to do it could, at a lower cost than buying it, whereas those who couldn't be bothered could still buy it.

What I was getting at is that privacy seems to be very important to lots of people. Getting rid of the concept of intellectual property would be a very major overhaul of modern society, but to implement it properly would require also getting rid of the concept of privacy, which I reckon would be an even bigger change.

[ChairmanPoo]

The way IP control attempts are going, it is the mass media who are the biggest threat to privacy, not those advocating for easening up the copyright laws.

[Nadaka]

Being against copyright is by no means the same thing as being against privacy. I don't even really know how you can possibly draw that conclusion.

In other news

http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp1110652

Copyright claims against a standardized cognitive impairment test are causing a setback in that medical field.

[GlyphGryph]

Or vice versa, since I'm pro-copyright (although I do not like the current implementation at all) and anti-privacy.

The two don't really have a whole lot to do with one another.

[Nadaka]

In this age, advocating a rational copyright law is being anti-copyright because the current law is ridiculous. I am very much pro privacy for everyone except corporations, government agencies and elected officials.

I to don't want to eliminate it completely, its just royally screwed up right now.

[Zangi]

So does this mean that you believe that privacy should not exist?

I certainly do, at least, though I'm not an anarchist like he is, or even share many of his beliefs.

Implementation would be a bitch though, so its not really practical. As an ideal, though? Yes, definitely.

Also, since none of you pro-copyright is theft people have yet to respond to this, let me repeat my question for a fourth fucking time
If I go to the store and buy a cup of yogurt, and then use that to grow my own for the next several months and distribute it to my friends, am I stealing yogurt

Yes.
You dont have permissions to grow that culture of yogurt, or hand it out. Its not yours to do so with.

No problem when you keep it within the circle.  Noone outside needs to know about it anyways.