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When it costs zero to produce a copy of a novel is the moral choice to create artificial scarcity to preserve it's value in our current system of value assignme
by thot_experiment 3y ago
When it costs zero to produce a copy of a novel is the moral choice to create artificial scarcity to preserve it's value in our current system of value assignment, or is the moral choice to fight to change and improve the system to more align with the reality that novels exist in a post-scarcity world?
Do we really want to deny people something that costs nothing in order to preserve the status quo? Perhaps it's the system of value assignment that's broken.
- harimau777 3y agoNovels don't exist in a post scarcity world because their writers still need money to live. I'm not necessarily opposed to moving to a post scarcity model without IP, but we need to actually be post scarcity first.
- robertlagrant 3y agoDoes that mean novel writing would only be for those who are already independently wealthy? How would that actually work?
- thot_experiment 3y agoI'm not claiming to have worked out how to make this all function. I'm just pointing out that the cost of duplicating a novel approaches zero and the assumption that the way we're assigning value is the only one that works leads to a world where we must deny people things they could have in order to preserve their value. This does not seem morally correct to me. I do not need to have a solution in order to identify a problem. Perhaps we could make strides toward a future where you don't need to be independently wealthy to write a novel by having some sort of a UBI scheme.
- robertlagrant 3y ago> I do not need to have a solution in order to identify a problem I'm the only one who's identified a problem. You haven't. Production costs aren't the only type of cost.
- thot_experiment 3y agoWhat? Let me spell it out for you. Artificial scarcity is bad. I am not comfortable denying people things that cost nothing to reproduce. This is a problem.
- carlosjobim 3y agoThat's the basic argument that hackers make. Creativity shouldn't be a way to make a living, but a cool hobby for people who are already employed with comfortable salaries and their real estate paid off. Trying to sell your creativity is grifting. In fact, the novel writer should pay the hacker if the hacker pleases to read the novel, because the novel writer is using the hacker's valuable attention. Or at least I've heard around here that attention is very valuable.
- Kim_Bruning 3y agoI wonder if traditional novels have been out-paced by free online texts that people write in their free time (fan-fics and/or original-fics) ? It'd be interesting to crunch the numbers. Productivity is enormous, though quality isn't always as high. Of course with sufficient monkeys on keyboards, there's bound to be a few Shakespeares out there.