4 ms·

Intellectual property isn't.

chefandy 3y ago
The problem is that our society has no other viable widespread mechanism to support the many millions of people who do intellectual work, and lots of intellectual work is really important for our society-- far more important than would make sense to relegate to hobbyists and volunteers. And this is coming from someone who's contributed well over 10k coding hours to FOSS software.
- teddyh 3y ago
  > The problem is that our society has no other viable widespread mechanism to support Except, of course, UBI.
  - BobaFloutist 3y ago
    We don't have that. Maybe we should, but we don't.
    - chefandy 3y ago
      Yep. Order of operations matters. This isn’t a theoretical “future problem” for a lot of people.
falcolas 3y ago
Yup. It accounts for some 41% of the US' GDP, and a minimum of 47 million jobs. It's also growing at a fairly fast rate. That's too much money for anybody in charge to let die. They're much more likely to nuke AI.
- chefandy 3y ago
  > minimum of 47 million jobs What would you propose the US workforce did with some 47 million knowledge workers with suddenly useless skills if you removed the only widespread economic mechanism our society has to support them?
  - falcolas 3y ago
    In my Star Trek-esque ideal world, post-scarcity sharing of the resources required to live. Realistically, it's a part of the reason IP is "too big to fail". The fallout would effectively destroy the US.
    - chefandy 3y ago
      Yeah but we need the Star Trek society first. In principle, I absolutely agree that IP is bullshit. The problem that many people in the “smash IP” camp tend to ignore is that people needing to eat, have a place to live, not having a stage 1 cancer diagnosis be an instant death sentence, and things like that aren’t merely “regrettable collateral damage” on the road to freeing data. I’ve encountered many people over the years that hardline shit like that—they’re almost exclusively middle to upper middle class suburbanites that are edge lording that stuff to subconsciously quiet their deep-seated insecurities about how incredibly soft their comparatively unchallenged existence has made them.

The problem is that our society has no other viable widespread mechanism to support the many millions of people who do intellectual work, and lots of intellectual work is really important for our society-- far more important than would make sense to relegate to hobbyists and volunteers. And this is coming from someone who's contributed well over 10k coding hours to FOSS software.

teddyh 3y ago
> The problem is that our society has no other viable widespread mechanism to support Except, of course, UBI.
- BobaFloutist 3y ago
  We don't have that. Maybe we should, but we don't.
  - chefandy 3y ago
    Yep. Order of operations matters. This isn’t a theoretical “future problem” for a lot of people.

falcolas 3y ago

Yup. It accounts for some 41% of the US' GDP, and a minimum of 47 million jobs. It's also growing at a fairly fast rate. That's too much money for anybody in charge to let die. They're much more likely to nuke AI.

chefandy 3y ago
> minimum of 47 million jobs What would you propose the US workforce did with some 47 million knowledge workers with suddenly useless skills if you removed the only widespread economic mechanism our society has to support them?
- falcolas 3y ago
  In my Star Trek-esque ideal world, post-scarcity sharing of the resources required to live. Realistically, it's a part of the reason IP is "too big to fail". The fallout would effectively destroy the US.
  - chefandy 3y ago
    Yeah but we need the Star Trek society first. In principle, I absolutely agree that IP is bullshit. The problem that many people in the “smash IP” camp tend to ignore is that people needing to eat, have a place to live, not having a stage 1 cancer diagnosis be an instant death sentence, and things like that aren’t merely “regrettable collateral damage” on the road to freeing data. I’ve encountered many people over the years that hardline shit like that—they’re almost exclusively middle to upper middle class suburbanites that are edge lording that stuff to subconsciously quiet their deep-seated insecurities about how incredibly soft their comparatively unchallenged existence has made them.