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Once you have eaten an apple, it cannot be eaten again. If you plant a crop of wheat on your field this season, your brother cannot also plant a crop of barley

Once you have eaten an apple, it cannot be eaten again. If you plant a crop of wheat on your field this season, your brother cannot also plant a crop of barley there. When you ride your bicycle to work for the day, your neighbour cannot ride the same bicycle to the gym at midday. The quality of scarceness does not come from law, it is inherent. Through owning your house, you get to decide what goes on there and have the use of it. IP does not work that way because there is no inherent scarcity. A million and one people can listen to the same music track, and the first listener loses no value from its use by the other million.

slver 6y ago
It's full of empty houses and free land over the entire country. If I live alone in a big house with 5 rooms, I could host at least 10-15 people there. They would surely rather live in that nice house, and not on the street. What causes that scarcity that I live alone in a big house, while homeless people roam the streets? Property rights. Property rights cause scarcity way before "natural scarcity" kicks in. To think otherwise is to lie to yourself. The reason we can't rely just on natural scarcity is because it reduces us to living like animals. Rights protection, in balance, is what allows society to rise above a pile of people consuming everything to scarcity and filling everything to capacity, with no ability to take a long-term view other mere existence.
- cturner 6y ago
  "If I live alone in a big house with 5 rooms, I could host at least 10-15 people there. They would surely rather live in that nice house, and not on the street." Would it still be a nice house if 10-15 people with no kinship were crammed into it? We can see from the way that people chose to spend and live that most people regard privacy as important to their idea of home. "What causes that scarcity that I live alone in a big house, while homeless people roam the streets? Property rights." No, scarcity is inherent, as explained earlier. With your home example, the land itself is scarce. Somebody has invested to build and maintain the building. The house would quickly be ruined and stripped if not for care and property protections. "Rights protection, in balance, is what allows society to rise above a pile of people consuming everything to scarcity and filling everything to capacity, with no ability to take a long-term view other mere existence." At the start of the thread, you were using the language of real property to argue for IP. But here, you reveal that you are in fact opposed to real property.
  - slver 6y ago
    > Would it still be a nice house if 10-15 people with no kinship were crammed into it? You're currently arguing in favor of artificial scarcity through property rights. Are you sure that's your thesis. /s > No, scarcity is inherent, as explained earlier. There's nothing "inherent" in having the right to keep those 10-15 people away from your nice house. I think you're so used to having the right of property, you can't even realize none of this is inherent. Rights, laws and law enforcement gave you that. Without this artificial scarcity, there would be zero homeless people. And there would also be zero people owning houses. But I'm sure nice houses will just keep being built anyway. /s > At the start of the thread, you were using the language of real property to argue for IP. But here, you reveal that you are in fact opposed to real property. I'm not opposed to real property at all. I'm just showing you what a world without property rights looks like. You seem to not like it. QED.
mousepilot 6y ago
Its not the listener who we serve with intellectual property, its the creator. Of course the listener loses no value, because they in fact do not own the intellectual property, they possess the ability to benefit from it. If there is no protection for intellectual property, its not the listener who loses utility, its the owner of the intellectual property who would like to be rewarded for his work.
- cturner 6y ago
  The GP post had a sole purpose, to explain scarcity.
  - mousepilot 6y ago
    I was just correcting your statement that there is no inherent scarcity with intellectual property.

slver 6y ago

It's full of empty houses and free land over the entire country. If I live alone in a big house with 5 rooms, I could host at least 10-15 people there. They would surely rather live in that nice house, and not on the street. What causes that scarcity that I live alone in a big house, while homeless people roam the streets? Property rights. Property rights cause scarcity way before "natural scarcity" kicks in. To think otherwise is to lie to yourself. The reason we can't rely just on natural scarcity is because it reduces us to living like animals. Rights protection, in balance, is what allows society to rise above a pile of people consuming everything to scarcity and filling everything to capacity, with no ability to take a long-term view other mere existence.

cturner 6y ago
"If I live alone in a big house with 5 rooms, I could host at least 10-15 people there. They would surely rather live in that nice house, and not on the street." Would it still be a nice house if 10-15 people with no kinship were crammed into it? We can see from the way that people chose to spend and live that most people regard privacy as important to their idea of home. "What causes that scarcity that I live alone in a big house, while homeless people roam the streets? Property rights." No, scarcity is inherent, as explained earlier. With your home example, the land itself is scarce. Somebody has invested to build and maintain the building. The house would quickly be ruined and stripped if not for care and property protections. "Rights protection, in balance, is what allows society to rise above a pile of people consuming everything to scarcity and filling everything to capacity, with no ability to take a long-term view other mere existence." At the start of the thread, you were using the language of real property to argue for IP. But here, you reveal that you are in fact opposed to real property.
- slver 6y ago
  > Would it still be a nice house if 10-15 people with no kinship were crammed into it? You're currently arguing in favor of artificial scarcity through property rights. Are you sure that's your thesis. /s > No, scarcity is inherent, as explained earlier. There's nothing "inherent" in having the right to keep those 10-15 people away from your nice house. I think you're so used to having the right of property, you can't even realize none of this is inherent. Rights, laws and law enforcement gave you that. Without this artificial scarcity, there would be zero homeless people. And there would also be zero people owning houses. But I'm sure nice houses will just keep being built anyway. /s > At the start of the thread, you were using the language of real property to argue for IP. But here, you reveal that you are in fact opposed to real property. I'm not opposed to real property at all. I'm just showing you what a world without property rights looks like. You seem to not like it. QED.

mousepilot 6y ago

Its not the listener who we serve with intellectual property, its the creator. Of course the listener loses no value, because they in fact do not own the intellectual property, they possess the ability to benefit from it. If there is no protection for intellectual property, its not the listener who loses utility, its the owner of the intellectual property who would like to be rewarded for his work.

cturner 6y ago
The GP post had a sole purpose, to explain scarcity.
- mousepilot 6y ago
  I was just correcting your statement that there is no inherent scarcity with intellectual property.