We "can't eliminate them"?
We "can't eliminate them"?
Posted Nov 6, 2012 18:23 UTC (Tue) by markh (subscriber, #33984)Parent article: Let’s Limit the Effect of Software Patents, Since We Can’t Eliminate Them (Wired)
Any change that threatens the existing monopolies will be a huge battle to pass, and proposals that attempt to adjust the balance based on utilitarian arguments tend to be decided based on "favors" (i.e. the largest bribe, although it may not be monetary). Although I feel that the utilitarian arguments against software patents strongly outweigh those in favor of them, that matters not to politicians as long as there exists some utilitarian argument that they can point to in order to justify their position. They only need enough justification for a soundbite, not a rigorous debate. Therefore a change like the one proposed by RMS seems unlikely to be successful.
There is another way forward, and that is to embrace the moral arguments to eliminate patents altogether. It may seem crazy; if ending software patents is so difficult, eliminating all patents would seem to be much more difficult. However, moral arguments trump utilitarian arguments. Politicians cannot effectively counter a moral argument by simply pointing at a utilitarian argument. It is simply wrong to make a person legally liable for using their own property in a manner that they would have no reasonable way of knowing infringes on the so-called "rights" of others. Of course there is much more to the moral arguments, but this doesn't seem like the right forum for that discussion so I will leave it at that.
The problem is especially acute for software because ideas are developed so quickly in software, but I find it to be shortsighted to be focusing on a software-only solution.
Posted Nov 6, 2012 22:09 UTC (Tue)
by Rudd-O (guest, #61155)
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Politics itself is absurd. In an absurd world, sensible ideas are absurd, and absurd ideas are sensible. Hence what Stallman said.
Posted Nov 6, 2012 22:39 UTC (Tue)
by pboddie (guest, #50784)
[Link] (3 responses)
But they do this all the time, and it's very easy for them to do. Take the following strong argument that I, in fact, totally agree with: The way a politician refutes this moral argument is to disbelieve that anyone could have independently discovered some wizardry that some company has claimed as their "invention", because the company or lobbyist representing that company tells them that they spend lots of money doing really hard stuff and that if they couldn't "recoup their investment" then it would "hurt profitable business". Besides, people working for companies need paying or they don't have jobs, right? That scares the politician. Just look how elections frequently revolve around the economy, even though there are plenty of other pressing issues and it's not as if any government is deliberately going to sabotage the economy or neglect it. So, the politician transforms the moral argument into something that must be hypothetical and not a real concern; they then sleep better believing that a moral crisis has been averted because it simply "doesn't happen in practice". Contrary to the "governments must be evil" ranting that appears to have dominated the comments on this article (and is largely unwelcome and for the most part uninformative), the way to deal with this is to educate your representatives by giving them material that questions the assertions fed to them by those voicing the opposing point of view. Although some politicians are corrupt, I suspect that most of them don't really have strong opinions on many issues. Playing it safe by subscribing to "broad brush" economic perspectives is the easiest way for them to keep their job, and they will probably buy into the argument that something is needed - patents in this case - to "keep jobs in this country". I actually agree with you really: a moral argument should override any utilitarian argument. But we have to remove the excuses frequently made to not believe in the moral argument along with the willingness to take the easy option and to believe in the usual scaremongering of businesses looking only after themselves. That means engaging with and educating our representatives.
Posted Nov 6, 2012 22:42 UTC (Tue)
by Rudd-O (guest, #61155)
[Link] (2 responses)
Your representatives will be duly re-educated through bribes, er, campaign contributions.
There is a reason they became politicians, instead of career engineers or doctors. Contrary to what they would have you believe, the reason isn't because they wanted to contribute to human advancement. Think about that.
Posted Nov 7, 2012 11:34 UTC (Wed)
by pboddie (guest, #50784)
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Anyone who has paid a couple of minutes' attention to student politics and who has seen student politicians go on to high-level political careers (or at least attempt to do so) is aware that for some people, politics and policy is more interesting than actually doing the things that policy influences and controls, and that they will happily avoid doing any other kind of work (including, quite probably, completing their studies) in order to have that influence over other people. Do you really believe that no-one else has noticed?
For the vast majority of people, not engaging with politicians or politics - presumably choosing instead to barter with their fellow survivalists off the grid in a manner reminiscent of a badly-written Kevin Costner production - is not a luxury they can afford. Those people have jobs to do and businesses to run and cannot simply brush off threats to those things from aggressive entities, empowered by the government or otherwise, by merely refusing to accept the power of any authority, or whatever the war cry is supposed to be. Those people have to live with the situation that exists for them right now and use whatever influence they can muster to improve it.
Think about that.
Posted Nov 7, 2012 13:54 UTC (Wed)
by vonbrand (subscriber, #4458)
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I seriously doubt any mayority of politicians (or any other random breed of human) is intrinsecally corrupt. People are smarter than is generally thought, somebody who lies all day long is found out long before running for any meaningful office. Sure, for a corruptor is pays off to convince somebody in a position to do something, trying to influence even our Most Esteemed Editor to work pro-software-patents is kind of useless (even if it succeeded). Never forget Hanlon's razor: Don't attibute to malice what is adequately explained by stupidity. Government (or any other largeish group of people) offers plenty of entertaining examples. People (including politicians) are lazy, don't have all the relevant facts, don't have the drive to find out (or the resources, or the time), and end up muddling their way out of anything that requires decisions. Plus we are intrinsecally tinted by some ideology, of which I believe Carter said recently that it makes up an opinion before looking for the facts.
We "can't eliminate them"?
We "can't eliminate them"?
Politicians cannot effectively counter a moral argument by simply pointing at a utilitarian argument.
It is simply wrong to make a person legally liable for using their own property in a manner that they would have no reasonable way of knowing infringes on the so-called "rights" of others.
We "can't eliminate them"?
We "can't eliminate them"?
We "can't eliminate them"?