3 ms·

If an idea is in my head, nobody else but me should should be able to control this idea. the rights of the owner of the idea should never reach inside my head.

If an idea is in my head, nobody else but me should should be able to control this idea. the rights of the owner of the idea should never reach inside my head. going further, if a file is in my personal disk which I physically control, the rights of the file's creator should never reach into my personal disk. specially given that the file can exist in any number of disks.

MrLeap 8y ago
That's an unrealistic forward standard as society is now. There's more money to be made eroding your ownership of your own thoughts and ideas than there is societal will to defend you. We've graduated from an "information economy" to an "attention economy" after all. Since attention is a resource to be pumped out of our skulls just like oil, what should prevent the rest of us from being farmed? For now, keeping things in your internal disk will protect them, but I can't imagine that's a permanent status quo. If we keep advancing brain-computer interfaces, eventually you might not even be able to hide your dreams from your employer! Think about how much money companies will save on loss prevention if they have perfect, autonomous loss prevention built right into your brain stem! It'll be great for the economy.
- njarboe 8y ago
  This is one of the major plot lines in Snow Crash. Trying to control employees pesky minds. Quite a fun book to read.
  - airstrike 8y ago
    I read it when I was far too young to have done so, but thoroughly enjoyed it. After seeing it mentioned twice on this thread and Seveneves mentioned on /. yesterday, I'm more than inclined to reread the former or pick up the latter this Summer.
- naringas 8y ago
  >That's an unrealistic forward standard as society is now. I agree that it is, and in my opinion that's really terrible. > There's more money to be made eroding your ownership of your own thoughts... and what about real value? what happens to our collective hability to create novelty (and new value) if we double down on this path?
ams6110 8y ago
> If an idea is in my head, nobody else but me should should be able to control this idea. It's not quite that simple. What if that idea occurs as a result of work you've done for, or things you've learned from your, employer? Do they have NO claim to that, even if you decide to use it to compete against them?
- oldandtired 8y ago
  Do they have a claim? Maybe. But they do have a moral claim? This is the interesting area. From my perspective, they have no more claim over your use of any ideas that you may have picked up from your time with them as you can claim from them picking up your ideas from your time with them. All interactions are multi-way. No one person or group can really claim the high ground in these interactions as all parties are part of the interaction and in some way or another contribute to the idea generation process.
- quantum_magpie 8y ago
  >Do they have NO claim to that, even if you decide to use it to compete against them? Of course! The whole notion of a company owning every and all, things and thoughts, has to just die off. Everything outside the scope of the specific project is off-limits. Ideas that occur as a result of the work I've done and things I've learned are mine! Ideas that are a part of the work I do are theirs. A Square wheel, inc. tasks me with improvement on their design of Square wheel tech. I do that during my working hours, and I happily work on reducing the friction of the wheel. However, why would Square wheel, inc. have any claim to my novel idea of a vastly superior Round wheel tech that I thought up as I kicked a rock on a road? They didn't pay me to invent a new type of wheel, they asked me to improve their current one. I can choose to tell them the new idea, based on their sense of ethics and morals, i.e. whether I would receive a significant percentage of the proceeds, but the corporation has absolutely no entitlement to anything outside the scope. Well, should not have, since apparently the greedy crooks actually feel that they control everything and everyone and have to have everything.
- ljw1001 8y ago
  If you're in an enlightened state like CA, you may think things are not so bad. In MA, a low-level programmer working on, say, banking software, can be prevented for up to three years from working at another banking software company. Keep in mind, that experience is the prime driver of a person's ability to earn more money over time. I'm not talking about stealing secrets or brilliant insights. I'm talking about basic knowledge of how the banking industry works. Of course now I've seen news stories about fast-food workers having similar non-competes, so i guess it can always be worse.

MrLeap 8y ago

That's an unrealistic forward standard as society is now. There's more money to be made eroding your ownership of your own thoughts and ideas than there is societal will to defend you. We've graduated from an "information economy" to an "attention economy" after all. Since attention is a resource to be pumped out of our skulls just like oil, what should prevent the rest of us from being farmed? For now, keeping things in your internal disk will protect them, but I can't imagine that's a permanent status quo. If we keep advancing brain-computer interfaces, eventually you might not even be able to hide your dreams from your employer! Think about how much money companies will save on loss prevention if they have perfect, autonomous loss prevention built right into your brain stem! It'll be great for the economy.

njarboe 8y ago
This is one of the major plot lines in Snow Crash. Trying to control employees pesky minds. Quite a fun book to read.
- airstrike 8y ago
  I read it when I was far too young to have done so, but thoroughly enjoyed it. After seeing it mentioned twice on this thread and Seveneves mentioned on /. yesterday, I'm more than inclined to reread the former or pick up the latter this Summer.
naringas 8y ago
>That's an unrealistic forward standard as society is now. I agree that it is, and in my opinion that's really terrible. > There's more money to be made eroding your ownership of your own thoughts... and what about real value? what happens to our collective hability to create novelty (and new value) if we double down on this path?

ams6110 8y ago

> If an idea is in my head, nobody else but me should should be able to control this idea. It's not quite that simple. What if that idea occurs as a result of work you've done for, or things you've learned from your, employer? Do they have NO claim to that, even if you decide to use it to compete against them?

oldandtired 8y ago
Do they have a claim? Maybe. But they do have a moral claim? This is the interesting area. From my perspective, they have no more claim over your use of any ideas that you may have picked up from your time with them as you can claim from them picking up your ideas from your time with them. All interactions are multi-way. No one person or group can really claim the high ground in these interactions as all parties are part of the interaction and in some way or another contribute to the idea generation process.
quantum_magpie 8y ago
>Do they have NO claim to that, even if you decide to use it to compete against them? Of course! The whole notion of a company owning every and all, things and thoughts, has to just die off. Everything outside the scope of the specific project is off-limits. Ideas that occur as a result of the work I've done and things I've learned are mine! Ideas that are a part of the work I do are theirs. A Square wheel, inc. tasks me with improvement on their design of Square wheel tech. I do that during my working hours, and I happily work on reducing the friction of the wheel. However, why would Square wheel, inc. have any claim to my novel idea of a vastly superior Round wheel tech that I thought up as I kicked a rock on a road? They didn't pay me to invent a new type of wheel, they asked me to improve their current one. I can choose to tell them the new idea, based on their sense of ethics and morals, i.e. whether I would receive a significant percentage of the proceeds, but the corporation has absolutely no entitlement to anything outside the scope. Well, should not have, since apparently the greedy crooks actually feel that they control everything and everyone and have to have everything.
ljw1001 8y ago
If you're in an enlightened state like CA, you may think things are not so bad. In MA, a low-level programmer working on, say, banking software, can be prevented for up to three years from working at another banking software company. Keep in mind, that experience is the prime driver of a person's ability to earn more money over time. I'm not talking about stealing secrets or brilliant insights. I'm talking about basic knowledge of how the banking industry works. Of course now I've seen news stories about fast-food workers having similar non-competes, so i guess it can always be worse.