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Sorry, but I don't see an answer to my question, so I'll ask it again: What makes you think some other new system will be less abusable?

opportune 3y ago
For starters we can learn from the failings of our current system - it does some things well, but clearly it incentivizes things we should not be incentivizing, and I argue it disincentivizes some of what it think it’s incentivizing (entrepreneurship). Second-mover advantage and all that. Another potential reason a replacement would be less abusable is that, if the replacement does away with IP middlemen (patent trolls, record labels making huge profits off what are effectively payday loans to artists, conglomerates like Disney acquiring as much IP in some domains as they can) we could avoid the situation where extractive elements lobby for increasingly more extractive laws or policies or throw their weight around in a way to create unfair outcomes. I’d like to add our current system is something we’ve progressively iterated towards through centuries of common law (originating from before the Industrial Revolution and even such radical concepts as “widespread literacy” or “less than 90% of people being farmers”). It has accumulated cruft and crap and comes from a time where creative work was proportionately a less important part of the economy, and is a product of centuries of influence from incumbents seeking regulatory capture. Just weakening those incumbents and giving them less of a snowball to roll down the hill would lessen abuse for the time being.
- wpietri 3y ago
  Sorry, but as I said, those people will still exist on day 1 of the new regime. And they'll be lobbying hard between now and day 1. It's at least as plausible to me that starting fresh will be more abuseable, because you're going from a situation with lots of data on abuse modes to one with no data. It's a bet that you (or somebody) is going to be smarter than the real world, which is a bet that rarely works out.
int_19h 3y ago
It would be if we make it explicit that there is no right to profit from creativity - the sole purpose of the system should be to maximize the total creative output for the benefit of the commons.

opportune 3y ago

For starters we can learn from the failings of our current system - it does some things well, but clearly it incentivizes things we should not be incentivizing, and I argue it disincentivizes some of what it think it’s incentivizing (entrepreneurship). Second-mover advantage and all that. Another potential reason a replacement would be less abusable is that, if the replacement does away with IP middlemen (patent trolls, record labels making huge profits off what are effectively payday loans to artists, conglomerates like Disney acquiring as much IP in some domains as they can) we could avoid the situation where extractive elements lobby for increasingly more extractive laws or policies or throw their weight around in a way to create unfair outcomes. I’d like to add our current system is something we’ve progressively iterated towards through centuries of common law (originating from before the Industrial Revolution and even such radical concepts as “widespread literacy” or “less than 90% of people being farmers”). It has accumulated cruft and crap and comes from a time where creative work was proportionately a less important part of the economy, and is a product of centuries of influence from incumbents seeking regulatory capture. Just weakening those incumbents and giving them less of a snowball to roll down the hill would lessen abuse for the time being.

wpietri 3y ago
Sorry, but as I said, those people will still exist on day 1 of the new regime. And they'll be lobbying hard between now and day 1. It's at least as plausible to me that starting fresh will be more abuseable, because you're going from a situation with lots of data on abuse modes to one with no data. It's a bet that you (or somebody) is going to be smarter than the real world, which is a bet that rarely works out.

int_19h 3y ago

It would be if we make it explicit that there is no right to profit from creativity - the sole purpose of the system should be to maximize the total creative output for the benefit of the commons.