Subject:
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Re: Intellectual Property Question
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Thu, 25 Sep 2003 22:54:52 GMT
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Viewed:
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326 times
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Yeah, those are all good questions...
Capitalism is dead too, though.
I have given it long and serious thought and there’s a very good reason that
Roddenberry never really investigated the economy of the future in Star Trek --
the main thing is that capitalism will not work with the number of people on
earth today, much less the numbers of people to come. I think we are getting
very near the crunch between population expansion and available work. There was
a two-part Star Trek DS9 episode that dealt with this possible problem. A bad
sign of things to come is this article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4758235-103677,00.html
Edit: I posted about this the other day actually...here:
http://news.lugnet.com/off-topic/debate/?n=22184
I was reading a comment somewhere the other day on how the extreme wealth of
someone like Bill Gates is predicated on the man-hours of others -- that Gates
uniquely benefits at the expense of his employees’ man-hours and from
artificially inflated product prices paid by consumers (also paying in time, or
man-hours). I think these considerations are what’s missing from economic
discourse today. It’s not just what the market will bear, but also a question
of what is exchanged for the acquistition of certain experiences or goods. It’s
a question of value.
Most people probably don’t think this way, but when you buy something maybe the
issue shouldn’t be immediately abstracted into dollars -- instead maybe you
should consider everything in terms of your own man-hours. The new Snowspeeder
set is supposed to be $130 USD or so. How long does it take you to earn that
much money? 30 minutes? An hour? Two Hours? Four Hours? A whole day? Etc.
Lots of things seem overpriced when you start to think in terms of value in
man-hours.
Now consider how you live and how it comes to be that you live in that manner
and style. Is it fair? Is there some way that you are cheating someone else,
perhaps on the other side of the planet, out of their man-hours? I mean, it
doesn’t have to be a conscious choice -- maybe that person is being cheated out
of his man-hours because of the political situation where he is living. Just
don’t pretend that you are not benefitting from that fact.
-- Hop-Frog
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Intellectual Property Question
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| (...) Richard: use Bush’s tax cut to buy shares in these companies and live on the dividend. When you spend the income, your unemployed countrymen will get jobs flipping ‘burgers (say) for you! Have you never heard of “trickle-down-economics”?! (...) (21 years ago, 26-Sep-03, to lugnet.off-topic.debate, FTX)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: Intellectual Property Question
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| (...) I kind of agree with this. The question is how will the world proceed? What new mechanisms will arise to encourage artists to produce? I see a slight potential of a period of time where the availability of new art plummets. Another question is (...) (21 years ago, 23-Sep-03, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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