10 ms·

I know lawyers who do this on a regular basis and they, amazingly, think of themselves as good people. They even go to church, amazingly enough. I guess my poi

I know lawyers who do this on a regular basis and they, amazingly, think of themselves as good people. They even go to church, amazingly enough. I guess my point is never underestimate "incentive-caused bias"

izqui 10y ago
The curious thing is that patent trolls exist at all because lawyers are so expensive. The reason almost no company can afford to fight patent trolls is because the legal costs are so expensive. On a related note, I also find it incredible how people can make a living out of these kind of businesses and sleep well at night...
- Phemist 10y ago
  >> On a related note, I also find it incredible how people can make a living out of these kind of businesses and sleep well at night... What we do is legal, therefore it is not unethical; if it were unethical, it would be illegal.
  - Ar-Curunir 10y ago
    Legality != Morality. Some of the NSA surveillance is legal; that does not make it ethical.
    - jessaustin 10y ago
      The word "legal" is sort of meaningless for behavior that is never observed by legal authorities. Also, see irony.
    - 0xfeba 10y ago
      I think that's his point. A better example would be slavery. Since it was legal at some point, was it then ethical?
    - sireat 10y ago
      Depends on your sense of morals, I am sure there are many NSA employees who sleep well at night. Many people follow what I call Godfather's I ethics. Vito Corleone cares about his family and friends and will do rather mean things to those who threaten the well being of those around him. Tribalism has stayed with us over the millennia and is unlikely to go away any time soon.
  - izqui 10y ago
    I think your logic is failing there, the fact that something is legal doesn't make it ethical straightaway. You can do unethical things using legal loopholes without it being necessarily illegal.
    - omginternets 10y ago
      That's... exactly his point ...
  - hood_syntax 10y ago
    I think people missed the hidden /s in this post.
    - triplesec 10y ago
      If /s means sarcasm and you are correct, then GP is intending the opposite of what they say. That unsignalled irony will be missed by 95% of readers, and is probably ill-advised. I certainly didn't pick up on it, and I'm usually decent at that.
    - Ar-Curunir 10y ago
      Was a bit difficult to pick up on it.
      - Natanael_L 10y ago
        I found it obvious by context. I'm guessing this is a good example of Poe's law.
- baldfat 10y ago
  Seems like a business opportunity to me. If you can get people who are being sued by these people to buy patent troll insurance and pool the resources you could out resource the Patient Troll and make a profit.
  - Bartweiss 10y ago
    If I remember, that's one of the things Cheng has done. He tries to find companies currently facing threats from the same troll and share costs to drive the price of a suit under the (summed) price of settlement. There's no real way for the defenders to make a profit, since getting damages out of the troll is basically impossible. And unfortunately, that means that even with pooled resources, trolls are purely a drag on the economy. But at least this way, they tend to lose and stop being a drag for the next guy.
    - baldfat 10y ago
      Profit from the defenders! Though that feels dirty
    - intrasight 10y ago
      Losing more frequently than willing could shift the economics away from trolling. Even better would be court sanctions and/or having to pay defendants fees.
      - Bartweiss 10y ago
        Absolutely, and we might be starting to see that - I'm just mad that it's still purely negative for the defenders. Of course, it's hard because paying the opponent's fees opens up other kinds of abuse. If you get sued by Coca Cola, you can't just judge what lawyer you can afford, you have to realize that even a small decision against you could come with the million dollars in costs they paid to take the thing to court. I don't really know a good answer to "litigation is expensive, and that produces abuse". Sanctions or frequent invalidation of patents would be great, though. One other thing I would love to see is a change to the choice-of-venue rules - this would be less of a problem if we weren't seeing every case fought in East Texas where summary judgement is impossible to get.
jackmott 10y ago
church is a crazy place, so not surprising crazy people go there.
- benjohnson 10y ago
  The church is a hospital for sinners.
sqeaky 10y ago
What does a group spewing incorrect non-sense about reality have to do with morality? Many times these groups takes immortal stances because of their detachment from reality. For example there is a huge correlation in people who don't care about the suffering global warming causes and religion. Its not really hard to understand either, many modern day american think Jesus will come in their lifetime, so why bother caring about 100 years from now. It even works for things directly against rules in the book. Churchgoers are more likely to be for the death penalty even "thou shall not kill" is most of those religious books. I am not saying all religious people are bad, just that religion does not filter out bad people or bad behavior effectively.
- skj 10y ago
  It's tough to say things like this in public, because so many people feel so strongly about their religious beliefs (I'm sure if I had any I'd feel strongly about them too). But, the idea that morality is tied to or because of religion is, erm, pure applesauce. To me, morality appears to be the moving zeitgeist of opinions on what makes a proper society. At the risk of derailing this topic, the concept we have of privacy as a moral issue is likely to change as well. The common current idea (which I hold as well, please don't misunderstand) is that one's personal privacy, especially as related to communication, is sacrosanct. But, in a world where it's getting easier and easier to just not give a shit about that and (generally, for 99.9% of the population's personal lives) have no ill effects, people are going to care less and less about data privacy and security, and the zeitgeist will shift. I think that it will be the defining issue of the 21st century, and I have no idea how things will look coming out the other end.
  - Nursie 10y ago
    If that zeitgeisty soft morality issue changes I pray to god that our acceptance of flaws and realistic human behaviour from our political class changes too. Because in a world with no privacy, the only people who are going to be squeaky clean are thoae whose lives have been curated from day 1, either through privilege and iron-fisted parent s or through single-mindedness verging on psychosis. People who should in no way be taking power.
btilly 10y ago
...amazingly, think of themselves as good people. They even go to church, amazingly enough. Why would going to church be evidence that they are good people? Look at how people act, not what they say. When you look at crime rates, divorce statistics, and so on, atheists seem to behave more morally than evangelical Christians. I guess my point is never underestimate "incentive-caused bias" Take that a step farther. When you already believe yourself to be a worthless sinner who has a blank check of forgiveness from Jesus, what incentive do you have to not act like a worthless sinner?
- usaphp 10y ago
  "When you look at crime rates, divorce statistics, and so on, atheists seem to behave more morally than evangelical Christians." Do you have data source for this?
  - philh 10y ago
    ISTR looking into the divorce statistics once, and mostly finding articles that (through malice or stupidity) compared divorce rates per capita, instead of per marriage. Evangelicals had a higher divorce rate than atheists, but married evangelicals had a lower rate. Don't put too much weight on this.
  - btilly 10y ago
    First thing I found in Google is http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/382901/little-religion-terrible-marriage-heres-why-david-french http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/382901/little-religion-.... If you identify evangelical Christians by self-identification, my statement is clearly true. Digging into the difference between self-identification and religious practice is not something that I saw before, and is a fascinating data point.
    - philh 10y ago
      Like I warned about in my sibling comment, the map is comparing divorce rates per capita, not per marriage. It does not say what you claim. (Also, eyeballing it I couldn't even tell you whether the south has an unusually high divorce rate per capita. It's an awful presentation of the wrong data.) The bar chart is comparing divorce rates per marriage, and does not find that religious affiliation affects divorce rate; but churchgoing does, at least in some religious groups.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
noonespecial 10y ago
>They even go to church, amazingly enough. Why would that be amazing? Another set of rules to be co-opted and exploited against their fellows must be like catnip for this type of personality. Its the first place I'd go looking for them. Remember that the Jesus that they claim today was so unpopular for showing up at their churches and throwing down with exactly that type of personality in his day that they had him killed.
- reitanqild 10y ago
  And it is the same Jesus that the rest of Christianity claim. Of course it is bad, even ugly, when someone who has pledged to be follow Christ is an @$$, but do not however try to pretend like Christianity is what causes it. For any so-called Christian scumbag there is an even worse non-believer, just read up on the reign of terror or the various communist regimes. (And don't get me started on mainstream Christinity and its refusal to, - and I quote "Teaching them to observe all things whatever I have commanded you[...]")
  - noonespecial 10y ago
    I think we probably agree. Christianity is not the cause. But churches (and the legalism and hypocrisy within) sure can be by providing "moral cover" for bad behavior. If the Christians followed Christ everything would be great. The first thing Christ did was head for the church, point out the legalism and say "you're doing it all wrong."
    - reitanqild 10y ago
      I possibly agree more with a number of you than with a number of churchgoers yes, even if I am very much something like that myself (meaning I am a whole lot less tied to specific buildings and more to those I know that do practice it the way I do). That Jesus was quite radical in a number of ways though, all the way from being way stricter than the religious elite at the time ("It has been said... But I say to you...", going above and beyond what was commonly thought to be good behavior and into what people even today think is close to impossible), to pointing out how their hypocrisy was wrong - to then go ahead and die for them(!), so almost by definition the life of anyone who honestly tries to follow his teachings are still today quite unlike anything that passes for normal. That said I mostly don't bother anyone else with it, hoping instead that if my life stands out in a good way, those who are interested might ask. I do however defend my faith, I won't let people thrash the thing that has turned my and so many others life around for the better. That is the least I can do.
geofft 10y ago
If you actually believe in the moral correctness of the law being used, I don't think that's actually wrong, is it? "You are breaking this law. You and I will both spend a bunch of money getting the courts to stop you from doing it. Instead, you can choose to stop doing it and settle with my firm for the cost of tracking you down, which is strictly preferable for everyone involved." (I hold this opinion weakly, so please argue me out of it if it's dumb.)
- nitrogen 10y ago
  Most of the time laws are designed to prevent vigilantism, because vigilantes are not accountable to society and the punishments they give may be disproportionate or self-serving. Enforcing laws through private suits sounds a lot like officially sanctioned vigilantism, and points to a failure of the legal system.
  - johncolanduoni 10y ago
    > Most of the time laws are designed to prevent vigilantism That's quite a claim! I also don't see how that doesn't apply to virtually every law surrounding civil cases. If I pay for a service and you don't give it to me, I have to sue you. Why is that any less like officially sanctioned vigilantism than if I sue you over patent claims? Do you also advocate breach of contract being made legal?
nicklaf 10y ago
incentive-caused bias There is a literature on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-serving_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-serving_bias
jshevek 10y ago
> They even go to church, amazingly enough. I don't see why this would be amazing. Many terrible people go to church. Some even use it as a form of moral self licensing to rationalize doing evil.

izqui 10y ago

The curious thing is that patent trolls exist at all because lawyers are so expensive. The reason almost no company can afford to fight patent trolls is because the legal costs are so expensive. On a related note, I also find it incredible how people can make a living out of these kind of businesses and sleep well at night...

Phemist 10y ago
>> On a related note, I also find it incredible how people can make a living out of these kind of businesses and sleep well at night... What we do is legal, therefore it is not unethical; if it were unethical, it would be illegal.
- Ar-Curunir 10y ago
  Legality != Morality. Some of the NSA surveillance is legal; that does not make it ethical.
  - jessaustin 10y ago
    The word "legal" is sort of meaningless for behavior that is never observed by legal authorities. Also, see irony.
  - 0xfeba 10y ago
    I think that's his point. A better example would be slavery. Since it was legal at some point, was it then ethical?
  - sireat 10y ago
    Depends on your sense of morals, I am sure there are many NSA employees who sleep well at night. Many people follow what I call Godfather's I ethics. Vito Corleone cares about his family and friends and will do rather mean things to those who threaten the well being of those around him. Tribalism has stayed with us over the millennia and is unlikely to go away any time soon.
- izqui 10y ago
  I think your logic is failing there, the fact that something is legal doesn't make it ethical straightaway. You can do unethical things using legal loopholes without it being necessarily illegal.
  - omginternets 10y ago
    That's... exactly his point ...
- hood_syntax 10y ago
  I think people missed the hidden /s in this post.
  - triplesec 10y ago
    If /s means sarcasm and you are correct, then GP is intending the opposite of what they say. That unsignalled irony will be missed by 95% of readers, and is probably ill-advised. I certainly didn't pick up on it, and I'm usually decent at that.
  - Ar-Curunir 10y ago
    Was a bit difficult to pick up on it.
    - Natanael_L 10y ago
      I found it obvious by context. I'm guessing this is a good example of Poe's law.
baldfat 10y ago
Seems like a business opportunity to me. If you can get people who are being sued by these people to buy patent troll insurance and pool the resources you could out resource the Patient Troll and make a profit.
- Bartweiss 10y ago
  If I remember, that's one of the things Cheng has done. He tries to find companies currently facing threats from the same troll and share costs to drive the price of a suit under the (summed) price of settlement. There's no real way for the defenders to make a profit, since getting damages out of the troll is basically impossible. And unfortunately, that means that even with pooled resources, trolls are purely a drag on the economy. But at least this way, they tend to lose and stop being a drag for the next guy.
  - baldfat 10y ago
    Profit from the defenders! Though that feels dirty
  - intrasight 10y ago
    Losing more frequently than willing could shift the economics away from trolling. Even better would be court sanctions and/or having to pay defendants fees.
    - Bartweiss 10y ago
      Absolutely, and we might be starting to see that - I'm just mad that it's still purely negative for the defenders. Of course, it's hard because paying the opponent's fees opens up other kinds of abuse. If you get sued by Coca Cola, you can't just judge what lawyer you can afford, you have to realize that even a small decision against you could come with the million dollars in costs they paid to take the thing to court. I don't really know a good answer to "litigation is expensive, and that produces abuse". Sanctions or frequent invalidation of patents would be great, though. One other thing I would love to see is a change to the choice-of-venue rules - this would be less of a problem if we weren't seeing every case fought in East Texas where summary judgement is impossible to get.

jackmott 10y ago

church is a crazy place, so not surprising crazy people go there.

benjohnson 10y ago
The church is a hospital for sinners.

sqeaky 10y ago

What does a group spewing incorrect non-sense about reality have to do with morality? Many times these groups takes immortal stances because of their detachment from reality. For example there is a huge correlation in people who don't care about the suffering global warming causes and religion. Its not really hard to understand either, many modern day american think Jesus will come in their lifetime, so why bother caring about 100 years from now. It even works for things directly against rules in the book. Churchgoers are more likely to be for the death penalty even "thou shall not kill" is most of those religious books. I am not saying all religious people are bad, just that religion does not filter out bad people or bad behavior effectively.

skj 10y ago
It's tough to say things like this in public, because so many people feel so strongly about their religious beliefs (I'm sure if I had any I'd feel strongly about them too). But, the idea that morality is tied to or because of religion is, erm, pure applesauce. To me, morality appears to be the moving zeitgeist of opinions on what makes a proper society. At the risk of derailing this topic, the concept we have of privacy as a moral issue is likely to change as well. The common current idea (which I hold as well, please don't misunderstand) is that one's personal privacy, especially as related to communication, is sacrosanct. But, in a world where it's getting easier and easier to just not give a shit about that and (generally, for 99.9% of the population's personal lives) have no ill effects, people are going to care less and less about data privacy and security, and the zeitgeist will shift. I think that it will be the defining issue of the 21st century, and I have no idea how things will look coming out the other end.
- Nursie 10y ago
  If that zeitgeisty soft morality issue changes I pray to god that our acceptance of flaws and realistic human behaviour from our political class changes too. Because in a world with no privacy, the only people who are going to be squeaky clean are thoae whose lives have been curated from day 1, either through privilege and iron-fisted parent s or through single-mindedness verging on psychosis. People who should in no way be taking power.

btilly 10y ago

...amazingly, think of themselves as good people. They even go to church, amazingly enough. Why would going to church be evidence that they are good people? Look at how people act, not what they say. When you look at crime rates, divorce statistics, and so on, atheists seem to behave more morally than evangelical Christians. I guess my point is never underestimate "incentive-caused bias" Take that a step farther. When you already believe yourself to be a worthless sinner who has a blank check of forgiveness from Jesus, what incentive do you have to not act like a worthless sinner?

usaphp 10y ago
"When you look at crime rates, divorce statistics, and so on, atheists seem to behave more morally than evangelical Christians." Do you have data source for this?
- philh 10y ago
  ISTR looking into the divorce statistics once, and mostly finding articles that (through malice or stupidity) compared divorce rates per capita, instead of per marriage. Evangelicals had a higher divorce rate than atheists, but married evangelicals had a lower rate. Don't put too much weight on this.
- btilly 10y ago
  First thing I found in Google is http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/382901/little-religion-terrible-marriage-heres-why-david-french http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/382901/little-religion-.... If you identify evangelical Christians by self-identification, my statement is clearly true. Digging into the difference between self-identification and religious practice is not something that I saw before, and is a fascinating data point.
  - philh 10y ago
    Like I warned about in my sibling comment, the map is comparing divorce rates per capita, not per marriage. It does not say what you claim. (Also, eyeballing it I couldn't even tell you whether the south has an unusually high divorce rate per capita. It's an awful presentation of the wrong data.) The bar chart is comparing divorce rates per marriage, and does not find that religious affiliation affects divorce rate; but churchgoing does, at least in some religious groups.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

noonespecial 10y ago

>They even go to church, amazingly enough. Why would that be amazing? Another set of rules to be co-opted and exploited against their fellows must be like catnip for this type of personality. Its the first place I'd go looking for them. Remember that the Jesus that they claim today was so unpopular for showing up at their churches and throwing down with exactly that type of personality in his day that they had him killed.

reitanqild 10y ago
And it is the same Jesus that the rest of Christianity claim. Of course it is bad, even ugly, when someone who has pledged to be follow Christ is an @$$, but do not however try to pretend like Christianity is what causes it. For any so-called Christian scumbag there is an even worse non-believer, just read up on the reign of terror or the various communist regimes. (And don't get me started on mainstream Christinity and its refusal to, - and I quote "Teaching them to observe all things whatever I have commanded you[...]")
- noonespecial 10y ago
  I think we probably agree. Christianity is not the cause. But churches (and the legalism and hypocrisy within) sure can be by providing "moral cover" for bad behavior. If the Christians followed Christ everything would be great. The first thing Christ did was head for the church, point out the legalism and say "you're doing it all wrong."
  - reitanqild 10y ago
    I possibly agree more with a number of you than with a number of churchgoers yes, even if I am very much something like that myself (meaning I am a whole lot less tied to specific buildings and more to those I know that do practice it the way I do). That Jesus was quite radical in a number of ways though, all the way from being way stricter than the religious elite at the time ("It has been said... But I say to you...", going above and beyond what was commonly thought to be good behavior and into what people even today think is close to impossible), to pointing out how their hypocrisy was wrong - to then go ahead and die for them(!), so almost by definition the life of anyone who honestly tries to follow his teachings are still today quite unlike anything that passes for normal. That said I mostly don't bother anyone else with it, hoping instead that if my life stands out in a good way, those who are interested might ask. I do however defend my faith, I won't let people thrash the thing that has turned my and so many others life around for the better. That is the least I can do.

geofft 10y ago

If you actually believe in the moral correctness of the law being used, I don't think that's actually wrong, is it? "You are breaking this law. You and I will both spend a bunch of money getting the courts to stop you from doing it. Instead, you can choose to stop doing it and settle with my firm for the cost of tracking you down, which is strictly preferable for everyone involved." (I hold this opinion weakly, so please argue me out of it if it's dumb.)

nitrogen 10y ago
Most of the time laws are designed to prevent vigilantism, because vigilantes are not accountable to society and the punishments they give may be disproportionate or self-serving. Enforcing laws through private suits sounds a lot like officially sanctioned vigilantism, and points to a failure of the legal system.
- johncolanduoni 10y ago
  > Most of the time laws are designed to prevent vigilantism That's quite a claim! I also don't see how that doesn't apply to virtually every law surrounding civil cases. If I pay for a service and you don't give it to me, I have to sue you. Why is that any less like officially sanctioned vigilantism than if I sue you over patent claims? Do you also advocate breach of contract being made legal?

nicklaf 10y ago

incentive-caused bias There is a literature on this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-serving_bias https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-serving_bias

jshevek 10y ago

> They even go to church, amazingly enough. I don't see why this would be amazing. Many terrible people go to church. Some even use it as a form of moral self licensing to rationalize doing evil.