Hi Japp, Rick, and all, On 14 Aug 2004 at 11:51, Jaap Karssenberg wrote:
On Sat, 14 Aug 2004 02:18:06 -0400 Valence wrote: : Hello Pi, David M., and the other 8 people who voted for this topic : but haven't said a word yet: msh says: Sorry Rick. I've been over in the MD yard, playing kick the can with a bunch of rowdy tribalist-theists. It's hot dusty work. japp: I think that things like copyrights and patents are about politics and money, and thus can be found at the social level. Also I see that the "hacker world" has a tremendous energy on both social and intellectual levels, I think this can be related to DQ very easily. msh says: I agree completely. I notice that many in this thread are pushing the argument that it's necessary to protect "intellectual property" because we'll lose the input of all the "great thinkers" if we don't allow them to profit from the dissemination of their ideas or products. This is of course nonsense. The only "great thinkers" you'll lose are those wo are more interested in making money than in original thought and creativity, which goes a long way to separating the "great" from the "thinkers" as part of their self-description, IMO. For starters, compare Salk's refusal to patent his polio vaccine with today's pharm companies and their near-genocidal insistence on enforcing patents for AIDS drugs, even in foreign countries, where they try to prevent development of far less expensive generic equivalents. Years ago, at a college tavern, I got into it with a gorgeous pre-med student who insisted that the high salaries commanded by doctors were necessary to insure excellent medical care. She said, "What do you think would happen if doctors were limited in the amount of money they could earn in their practice?" I thought long and hard before answering, as this was a party, and she was beautiful, and it was approaching closing time. But my own sense of self-righteousness got the better of me and I said "You'd have doctors who chose their professions because they wanted to make a moral contribution to humanity, which is to say for the right reason." Anyway, she left with the bartender. There's an analogy here somewhere, but I'm too tired to flesh it out. Best to all, Mark Steven Heyman (msh) -- InfoPro Consulting - The Professional Information Processors Custom Software Solutions for Windows, PDAs, and the Web Since 1983 Web Site: http://www.infoproconsulting.com "Thought is only a flash between two long nights, but this flash is everything." -- Henri Poincare' MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_focus/ MF Queries - [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from moq_focus follow the instructions at: http://www.moq.org/mf/subscribe.html
