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This is very nice! Politicians will only solve a problem after it becomes a calamity. If the problem gets bad enough, they might start paying attention.
by diego_moita 15y ago
This is very nice!
Politicians will only solve a problem after it becomes a calamity. If the problem gets bad enough, they might start paying attention.
- fleitz 15y agoI thought politicians just made things worse after problems become calamities. The calamity just alerts them to the fact that there is money to be made being part of the problem. Watch for campaign contributions to start flowing before these companies start suing regular people.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- Astrohacker 15y agoPoliticians created the problem by creating IP laws. If they "solve" it, they will undoubtedly just introduce some new problem.
- MartinCron 15y agoThat's a really cynical view, isn't it? Implying that the people, through their democratically elected governments, can't ever improve upon things that have come before.
- kevingadd 15y agoCynicism is rarely proven wrong in cases like this.
- dasil003 15y agoThe cynic can only take pleasure in saying "I told you so," but can never take credit for any improvement, which does occasionally happen against all odds.
- MartinCron 15y agoMaybe so, but I can think of a few high profile examples where things did change for the better. Think civil rights, women's suffrage. I honestly feel that this current patent perversion is a temporary thing. It just can't be sustainable in its current state.
- Astrohacker 15y agoGovernment isn't effective, democratic or otherwise. But I'm not a cynic. I have high hopes for humanity, long term. The sooner we get rid of the institutionalized use of force (government) the better.
- MartinCron 15y agoI don't normally press people for alternatives, but extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If we were to get rid of "institutionalized use of force", what would we replace it with? Can you give me a single example of a large-scale society without effective government that hasn't devolved into a nightmare scenario?
- Astrohacker 15y agoYou wouldn't replace it with anything. You'd need a cultural change where people recognized that stealing is always wrong, even if they call it taxes and declare it legal. Police and courts would be businesses like any other and not funded by force. As for examples, America was founded in liberty. Unfortunately the nightmare scenario is playing out in real time as the US evolves from the tiny government of two centuries ago into the police state of tomorrow (today?). All libertarian societies I'm aware of eventually give way to the nightmare of the state. So, nope, I can't give you any examples of a libertarian society that lasted indefinitely. But brief liberty is better than none. The only way I can see liberty playing out in a sustainable way is if the entire planet becomes libertarian so that there are no giant concentrations of force capable of taking it over and turning it back into a state. And I think this will eventually happen since it would continue the slow but steady moral advance of humanity.
- MartinCron 15y agoAre you really making the claim that we have less liberty today than we did two hundred years ago? Maybe if you're a white male landowner. For everyone else, things have been getting progressively better over the last few hundred years.
- adestefan 15y agoWarning US-centric Content. If you're not from the US, then you might not know this. Patents are the only thing that are specifically addressed in the US Constitution besides the form and function of the Federal government. It was and is a pretty big deal.
- prawn 15y agoPoliticians would notice more quickly if they were ever reliant on coffee shop wireless and not working from expensive Blackberry accounts.