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You are increasingly nonsensical; it's also true that if wishes were ponies than beggars would ride, but what of it? I don't feel entitled to Joe's knowledge;

• anamax 17y ago
  You seem to think that other people are obliged to accept your premises and rules. You're wrong. It's easy to distinguish knowledge from ditches. The question is whether and when distinguishing various aspects makes sense. Your latest rant boils down to "here's a set of rules and definitions that leads to the conclusion that I like, so prove me wrong with them or I'll declare victory". Whatever floats your boat. The fact remains you "have" Joe's knowledge because it was disclosed under certain terms. You seem to think that you're not bound by those terms. That's like agreeing to pay Sam the ditch digger over time and then stiffing him after a couple of payments.
  • frig 17y ago
    Pot, kettle, etc. A short reply so as not to strain your reading comprehension: I've asked you to explain why you hold your premises and you haven't; you just continue reiterating that you hold them, and then point out that if I also held your beliefs I'd be in the wrong. I get that. If you can't justify your own premises -- why the obvious differences between a ditch and knowledge don't matter -- there's not much more to discuss.
    • anamax 17y ago
      Actually, you didn't. I pointed out that you were demanding that I play rhetorical calvinball using your premises and rules. I then declined. It's also interesting that your response to the fact that it's not the actual beneficiary who is using the knowledge, but a speculator, was to invoke realpolitik. One problem with that is that the means produce the ends. The other is that the speculator doesn't have the characteristics that you use to justify your conclusion, but your conclusion is unchanged.
      • frig 17y ago
        Actually I did, LOL. The request that you either: - explain how both ditches and knowledge share an identical classification along both of those axes (excludability and rivalry) - or explain not only that your little theory doesn't recognize distinctions about the above but also why your little theory ignores the distinction ...was an invitation to stop carping and actually state your premises. You declined, and just huffed that "duh they're different but I don't care".
      • frig 17y ago
        And I'll lead by example. My underlying moral intuitions as relevant to the specific situation at hand are as follows: - generally speaking I don't expect real-world moral dilemmas to have parties unambiguously in the right and in the wrong. It is convenient when things work out that way but not to be expected; what is to be expected is that a real-world moral dilemma will have convincing arguments on all sides. Consequently making a moral judgment is not playing "spot the villain!" but, instead, deciding which position has the most merit; that a particular position has the most merit says nothing about the merits (or lack thereof) of the other positions other than that what merit the other positions have is less than the position with the most merit. tl;dr: moral dilemmas involve hard choices. - generally speaking mortal peril -- the threat of losing one's life -- is a significant circumstance that effects how I judge someone's actions. For example: I think murder is wrong, but killing in self-defense is not wrong; most justice systems of the world recognize this principle, and I think they do so correctly. - there's nothing magical about contracts that exempts them from the previous point: when one party to a contract can only fulfill that contract at cost of that party's own life, the situation demands heavy scrutiny; expecting someone to place adherence to past agreements above self-preservation fails most common-sense morality tests (and is for example why killing in self-defense is considered differently from murder, and why bank employees aren't usually charged with theft when a bank robber sticks a gun in their face). Just having your life at risk isn't carte-blanche to do anything you want; it's simply a relevant fact that colors how I judge a person's decision to renege on past agreements - in the specific case of an individual suffering from a terminal illness with a single, patented cure who has tried-and-failed in good faith to negotiate a hardship discount from the patent holder I see nothing morally wrong in the individual using their own materials and knowledge to produce the patented substance thereby saving their own life (risking what consequences may come). This analysis is equal parts general moral principles -- not expecting people to go to their own graves for the general benefit of society -- and the specifics of the situation at hand (ignoring patents: fine; stealing stuff: not so fine) - (unsurprisingly) I also think that in the case of third-world nations facing national epidemics that a similar moral conclusion obtains: if after a good-faith effort to negotiate a price the nation can afford (where "afford" means "purchase in enough quantities to halt the epidemic / mass suffering / etc") then the nation cannot be faulted for ignoring the patents and self-manufacturing the substances in question (regardless of whether production is nationalized or farmed out to private-sector actors); I don't expect the patent holders to like this -- and I don't think they're wrong to dislike it -- but I also don't see anything wrong with the state's actions in that case. The morality-of-the-state does not immediately follow from the individual situation but I think that it does follow insofar as you view the state as obligated to advance its citizens' aggregate interests. I can understand why one might believe the state would better advance its citizens' aggregate interests by respecting the patent-holder's rights, and have already explained in great detail why I don't take that position. These are relevant moral intuitions; can you state yours?
  • frig 17y ago
    I also want to point this out: It's also interesting that your response to the fact that it's not the actual beneficiary who is using the knowledge, but a speculator, was to invoke realpolitik. One problem with that is that the means produce the ends. The other is that the speculator doesn't have the characteristics that you use to justify your conclusion, but your conclusion is unchanged. You've per usual mischaracterized what I said. Anatoly raised a valid point: the specific scenario I drew up isn't actually an accurate match for the scenario at hand, and explained that the moral calculations would probably come out differently in a situation that more closely resembled the situation on the ground. Unlike you, he very carefully sketched out his own situation, premises, and conclusions, and pointed out explicitly where our views of the world diverged. He then asked what the moral choice would be for Bob -- whether Bob ought to shut down Jim's off-brand pharma factory or whether Bob ought to let Jim stay in business. Given such a well-formed approach I felt it warranted a proper reply. I first explained why as a practical matter if Bob is an elected representative -- and thereby accountable to his constituents in some fashion -- the incentives for Bob almost certainly tip in favor of Bob's letting Jim continue. One thing I admittedly elided somewhat was the relationship between "Bob's incentives as his constituent's elected representative" and "Bob's moral obligations as his constituent's elected representative"; there are entire fields of political philosophy that try to nail that down and getting dragged into it in this context is pretty much a derail. Suffice to say that yes: Bob is clearly incentivized to allow Jim to continue operating due to the situation Bob is in -- whether Bob is being moral to do so -- and (unstated but implied) to the extent you think that the moral balance generally tips in favor of saving lives now (at the expense of ignoring some patents) instead of preserving the integrity of the patent system (at the expense of deaths) then Bob is, additionally, morally correct to act on those incentives. I then pointed out that that analysis only applied if Bob was an elected representative. The only mention of realpolitik was in one of the explanations for why Bob would be incentivized to allow Jim's explanation to continue; it was in the context of a hypothetical defense he might offer to his constituents after he shut down Jim's factory. The realpolitik-derived explanation Bob could offer was that even though he might personally approve of Jim's operation allowing the operation to continue would jeopardize other trade agreements, with worse consequences than whatever fallout derived from shutting down Jim. I then explained this was a politically weak explanation, as it made Bob look lame for having agreed to such crappy trade terms to begin with; given that it's a weak explanation that makes Bob look bad he'd be incentivized not to wind up in a situation in which he'd have to proffer that defense. If what you got from that response was "realpolitik! that's another word I don't like" I give up.