On 18 August 2011 10:14, Roland Tepp <[email protected]> wrote: > A nice quote from a comment to an article related to the topic of software > patents, that I happen to be in strong agreement with: > > The idea of a "net benefit to society" is a utilitarian fantasy. There is > no such entity as society. A society is a collection of individuals. The > trap here is that there is some imaginary arbiter of what constitutes a > benefit to everyone simultaneously. But in reality everyone judges for > themselves what is or is not a benefit to them. > > > The article itself can be found at: > http://pchiusano.blogspot.com/2011/08/software-patents-dont-make-much.html > > > --
Society is easy, just substitute "all citizens", "mankind", "humanity", etc. as you see fit. The bigger problem is defining "benefit". Which is a combination of many factors, such as: - environmental impact - jobs created/lost - import/export levels - changes in income - affect on company sizes and number of companies - national debt level - long-term viability - education levels - health risks - some index of happiness - etc, etc. It's fair to say that getting any to people to agree completely on any given combination of factors would be almost impossible. Worse still is "net benefit", which could well include weighting factors. Do you measure the impact on a person's income as a % or as an absolute value? Is that net or gross? I'd far rather be challenged with defining "society" :) -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
