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6 | <title>Do Not Accept the Weak State of Mind in Our Time</title> |
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12 | <body> |
13 | <h1>Do Not Accept the Weak State of Mind in Our Time</h1> |
14 | <div class="contents"> |
15 | <dl> |
16 | <dt> |
17 | <a href="#sec1">The Basis of My Philosophy</a> |
18 | </dt> |
19 | <dt> |
20 | <a href="#sec2">The Current Economic and Political Structure Is Broken</a> |
21 | </dt> |
22 | <dd> |
23 | <dl> |
24 | <dt> |
25 | <a href="#sec3">The Government of the Unites States</a> |
26 | </dt> |
27 | <dt> |
28 | <a href="#sec4">Capitalism is Intrinsically Evil</a> |
29 | </dt> |
30 | </dl> |
31 | </dd> |
32 | <dt> |
33 | <a href="#sec5">Misc</a> |
34 | </dt> |
35 | <dd> |
36 | <dl> |
37 | <dt> |
38 | <a href="#sec6">Long Term Copyright Causes Harm to Society (<code>Draft Revision 2</code>)</a> |
39 | </dt> |
40 | <dt> |
41 | <a href="#sec7">Fewer Laws Are Better</a> |
42 | </dt> |
43 | <dd> |
44 | <dl> |
45 | <dt> |
46 | <a href="#sec8">Individuals should not have their actions regulated</a> |
47 | </dt> |
48 | <dt> |
49 | <a href="#sec9">Corporations must have their actions heavily regulated</a> |
50 | </dt> |
51 | </dl> |
52 | </dd> |
53 | </dl> |
54 | </dd> |
55 | <dt> |
56 | <a href="#sec10">Social Ills</a> |
57 | </dt> |
58 | <dd> |
59 | <dl> |
60 | <dt> |
61 | <a href="#sec11">Mass Culture</a> |
62 | </dt> |
63 | <dt> |
64 | <a href="#sec12">The Automobile</a> |
65 | </dt> |
66 | <dt> |
67 | <a href="#sec13">Learned Ignorance and Weakness</a> |
68 | </dt> |
69 | </dl> |
70 | </dd> |
71 | </dl> |
72 | </div> |
73 | |
74 | |
75 | <!-- Page published by Emacs Muse begins here --><p>I have views that could perhaps be seen as odd. Do note that I am <strong>not</strong> |
76 | a liberal; nor am I a conservative. I do not buy into the traditional |
77 | socieconomic dipole scale, and I also reject the <em>political compass</em> two |
78 | dimensional scale; my political belief system could best be described |
79 | as anarchism if you must have a label for it. Naturally this is only |
80 | because anarchism isn't an ideology, but rather a broad set of ideas |
81 | centered around the rejection of traditional heriarchial political and |
82 | social structures.</p> |
83 | |
84 | <p>These short essays are continually evolving, and each will be split |
85 | into its own page as the ideas contained within it are fleshed out in |
86 | my mind. Writing things down tends to help me to do this for there are |
87 | limits to how much information the top of my head can hold limiting |
88 | the usefulness of internal thought once an idea becomes complex |
89 | enough. Political and social beliefs are perhaps the most complicated |
90 | ideas a man can have because of our complex intertwined social |
91 | structures.</p> |
92 | |
93 | <h2><a name="sec1" id="sec1"></a> |
94 | <a href="Wisdom.html">The Basis of My Philosophy</a></h2> |
95 | |
96 | <p class="first">It is often helpful to know what someone considers as the basis of his |
97 | philosophy when interpeting what he has written. As such I have |
98 | compiled a page of links and quotations to reveal the inner secrets of |
99 | my mind.</p> |
100 | |
101 | |
102 | <h2><a name="sec2" id="sec2"></a> |
103 | The Current Economic and Political Structure Is Broken</h2> |
104 | |
105 | <h3><a name="sec3" id="sec3"></a> |
106 | The Government of the Unites States</h3> |
107 | |
108 | <p class="first">I feel that the government in the United States is very close to being |
109 | broken beyond repair. As it stands the government above the local |
110 | level ignores the individual citizen and instead is only affected by |
111 | large scale action. As far as the individual is concerned we no longer |
112 | live in a Republic, but rather in an Oligarchy which is quickly |
113 | descending into something far worse.</p> |
114 | |
115 | <p>I do feel that there is still some reform that could be made in the |
116 | near (ten years perhaps) future that could allow the government to |
117 | become tolerable again. We are, however, quite close to the edge where |
118 | there will be no fixing it. If that threshold is passed we are in for |
119 | terrible times.</p> |
120 | |
121 | |
122 | <h3><a name="sec4" id="sec4"></a> |
123 | Capitalism is Intrinsically Evil</h3> |
124 | |
125 | <p class="first">Cooperation is better than exploitation. How can one justify an |
126 | economic system based upon paying others as little as possible in an |
127 | attempt to make the most profit from their labor so as to make some |
128 | profit?</p> |
129 | |
130 | |
131 | |
132 | <h2><a name="sec5" id="sec5"></a> |
133 | Misc</h2> |
134 | |
135 | <h3><a name="sec6" id="sec6"></a> |
136 | Long Term Copyright Causes Harm to Society (<code>Draft Revision 2</code>)</h3> |
137 | |
138 | |
139 | |
140 | |
141 | |
142 | <p>It is straightforward to calculate a fair cost for material goods. The |
143 | material cost follows from the materials, and the labor cost generally |
144 | derives from the complexity of construction. The fixed price for each |
145 | item consists of both of these factors. Thus it is trivial to ensure |
146 | that a craftsman is fairly compensated for his effort.</p> |
147 | |
148 | |
149 | |
150 | |
151 | <p>Creative works must have their value calculated via a more circuitous |
152 | route. The physical form of a creative work is of little importance; |
153 | the ideas it represents are. The material and direct labor costs |
154 | (printing, binding, etc.) are thus so small as to be of negligible |
155 | importance when calculating value. There is effectively no objective |
156 | way to place value on abstract work; all the value judgements we can |
157 | make are subjective. We must then rely on irrational human valuations |
158 | to determine the value on their own.</p> |
159 | |
160 | |
161 | |
162 | |
163 | |
164 | |
165 | |
166 | |
167 | |
168 | <p>Creative works are fundamentally different from concrete works. A |
169 | painting may inspire others start a new stylistic movement, the |
170 | structure of a story may cause the formation of a new literary form, |
171 | an essay may incite a new political movement, etc. Creative works |
172 | weave themselves into the mental fabric of each individual exposed to |
173 | them in a way that material goods cannot. A book may change your life; |
174 | a table will never do that. This suggests that the abstract concepts |
175 | which compose a work have a strange nature and great value. Those who |
176 | control the distribution of creative works wield great power as a |
177 | result of the ability of ideas to change the individual.</p> |
178 | |
179 | <p>After a certain period of time the physical manifestation of a |
180 | creative work loses commercial value. New art is being created |
181 | continually, and no one can be expected to read every important book |
182 | written, see every film, and so on for other areas. When a work ceases |
183 | to be profitable to publish distribution ceases. Allowing abstract |
184 | works to simply drop from the market creates a serious problem. New |
185 | ideas are built upon old ones, and after ideas have assimilated into |
186 | the collective concious it is important to be able to go back to the |
187 | old ideas and analyze them to understand the present culture. If a |
188 | work is no longer available it is impossible to do this. Thus works |
189 | that are no longer being commercially exploited should become the |
190 | property of the public so that any worth preserving will be preserved |
191 | by <em>someone</em> and avoid death.</p> |
192 | |
193 | |
194 | |
195 | |
196 | <p>Copyright manages to work fairly well for ensuring creators are |
197 | compensated for their effort, preventing abuse of creator rights to |
198 | the detriment of society, and ensuring that works will become public |
199 | property after they are commercially unprofitable. Irrational human |
200 | judgements over time often work well, and so giving exclusive right to |
201 | copy a work makes sense for a period of time to allow society to |
202 | determine its monetary value. The fair use provisions of copyright |
203 | give society reasonable leeway in the use of the ideas contained |
204 | within a work while the work is protected, and this allows society to |
205 | continue enriching its creative culture. The limited term of copyright |
206 | and ensuing reversion to the public domain prevents the cultural |
207 | stagnation and the loss of history that would result from works |
208 | becoming unavailable.</p> |
209 | |
210 | |
211 | |
212 | |
213 | |
214 | |
215 | <p>The term of copyright must be finely balanced between the need to |
216 | ensure creators have enough time to receive fair compensation for |
217 | their effort, and the desire to avoid cultural stagnation from |
218 | unavailable works. The term must be short enough that a work will not |
219 | be unavailable for too long after commercial interest dies. Every year |
220 | that passes where the work isn't being published tends to reduce the |
221 | number of copies in existence. It must also be long enough that a |
222 | creator can profit according to the value that society puts upon his |
223 | work.</p> |
224 | |
225 | <p>A term should be just long enough that a work will fall out of |
226 | copyright when physical copies are still likely to exist. A man may |
227 | keep his book collection unto his death, but his children may simply |
228 | sell them off or discard them after he departs the mortal |
229 | coil. Intuitive judgement says that things that are worth entering the |
230 | public domain will be preserved by someone for at least his life. A |
231 | person who has creative works in his posession is often attached to |
232 | them and will keep the ones he likes the most for as long as possible |
233 | (e.g. my music collection is backed up in flac so that I will be able |
234 | to listen to my music forever). After he dies there is a large |
235 | increase in the chance that the works will perish unless he by chance |
236 | made special arrangements to have them preserved.</p> |
237 | |
238 | <p>A generation then seems to be a reasonable term; how many things are |
239 | really commercially viable after thirty years? Some works may be |
240 | relevant to the children of the generation who created them; it seems |
241 | reasonable then that if a work is still commercially viable after a |
242 | generation then the creator deserves to retain copyright for a second |
243 | generation. It is questionable whether more terms would be good |
244 | (issues of supression of information, right to profit, etc. come into |
245 | play), but they can't quite be ruled out. A renewal system with a span |
246 | of roughly thirty years ensures that a work will be out of publication |
247 | for at most a generation's time. This appears to be a good balance |
248 | between the right of the creator and the desire to keep knowledge from |
249 | dying (from my eyes).</p> |
250 | |
251 | <p>The works of the current generation, their parents, their |
252 | grandparents, and their great-grandparents are still copyrighted in |
253 | the US. Works created in the present will be copyrighted for the |
254 | lifetime of the author and seventy years after; a span of roughly six |
255 | generations.</p> |
256 | |
257 | |
258 | <h3><a name="sec7" id="sec7"></a> |
259 | Fewer Laws Are Better</h3> |
260 | |
261 | <h4><a name="sec8" id="sec8"></a> |
262 | Individuals should not have their actions regulated</h4> |
263 | |
264 | |
265 | <h4><a name="sec9" id="sec9"></a> |
266 | Corporations must have their actions heavily regulated</h4> |
267 | |
268 | <p class="first">Corporate power disrupts the functioning of a free society. If the |
269 | power wielded by a corporation were merely the sum of the individuals |
270 | that composed it there would be little issue; the fundamental problem |
271 | is that the benefits of gaining access to mass production facilities |
272 | and a huge workforce that can be forced to cooperate on certain goals |
273 | gives a large corporation much more power than the simple sum of its |
274 | members.</p> |
275 | |
276 | <h5>Corporate Personhood should be revoked</h5> |
277 | |
278 | |
279 | <h5>Corporations should not be allowed to influence politics</h5> |
280 | |
281 | |
282 | |
283 | |
284 | |
285 | <h2><a name="sec10" id="sec10"></a> |
286 | Social Ills</h2> |
287 | |
288 | <h3><a name="sec11" id="sec11"></a> |
289 | Mass Culture</h3> |
290 | |
291 | <p class="first">American culture in the early 1900s began to homogenize, and now there |
292 | is a single massive culture that almost all three hundred million |
293 | people in the country share. This presents problems to those who do |
294 | not fit in; in the days of the self sufficient village one could move |
295 | to another location to find people similar to him, but now there is |
296 | nowhere to go. Everywhere a <em>social deviant</em> goes he will feel alienated |
297 | and have his social options severely limited.</p> |
298 | |
299 | <p>A monoculture reduces the rate of idea formation, and ours is actively |
300 | hostile toward anything not falling in line with the |
301 | mainstream. People are trained to act as a mass instead of as |
302 | individuals; this results in far less creative people. Critical |
303 | thinking is not encouraged; no, it is far worse! Critical thinking is |
304 | discouraged, and those of us who wish to argue our points with logic |
305 | are met with the undefeatable enemy of a closed mind that has been |
306 | exposed to propaganda from birth.</p> |
307 | |
308 | |
309 | <h3><a name="sec12" id="sec12"></a> |
310 | The Automobile</h3> |
311 | |
312 | |
313 | |
314 | |
315 | |
316 | |
317 | |
318 | |
319 | |
320 | |
321 | |
322 | |
323 | |
324 | |
325 | |
326 | |
327 | |
328 | |
329 | |
330 | |
331 | |
332 | |
333 | |
334 | |
335 | |
336 | |
337 | <h3><a name="sec13" id="sec13"></a> |
338 | Learned Ignorance and Weakness</h3> |
339 | |
340 | <p><a href="Old%20Viewpoints.html">obsolete</a></p> |
341 | |
342 | <p><a href="TRUTH.html">TRUTH</a></p> |
343 | |
344 | |
345 | |
346 | <!-- Page published by Emacs Muse ends here --> |
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372 | <p class="cke-footer"> We live in a time of revolution |
373 | We swim the silent seas of sanity gone |
2aff8b5c |
374 | </p> |
375 | <p class="cke-timestamp">Last Modified: |
376 | March 13, 2008</p> |
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