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6 <title>Do Not Accept the Weak State of Mind in Our Time</title>
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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>
76a liberal; nor am I a conservative. I do not buy into the traditional
77socieconomic dipole scale, and I also reject the <em>political compass</em> two
78dimensional scale; my political belief system could best be described
79as anarchism if you must have a label for it. Naturally this is only
80because anarchism isn't an ideology, but rather a broad set of ideas
81centered around the rejection of traditional heriarchial political and
82social structures.</p>
83
84<p>These short essays are continually evolving, and each will be split
85into its own page as the ideas contained within it are fleshed out in
86my mind. Writing things down tends to help me to do this for there are
87limits to how much information the top of my head can hold limiting
88the usefulness of internal thought once an idea becomes complex
89enough. Political and social beliefs are perhaps the most complicated
90ideas a man can have because of our complex intertwined social
91structures.</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
97philosophy when interpeting what he has written. As such I have
98compiled a page of links and quotations to reveal the inner secrets of
99my mind.</p>
100
101
102<h2><a name="sec2" id="sec2"></a>
103The Current Economic and Political Structure Is Broken</h2>
104
105<h3><a name="sec3" id="sec3"></a>
106The 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
109broken beyond repair. As it stands the government above the local
110level ignores the individual citizen and instead is only affected by
111large scale action. As far as the individual is concerned we no longer
112live in a Republic, but rather in an Oligarchy which is quickly
113descending into something far worse.</p>
114
115<p>I do feel that there is still some reform that could be made in the
116near (ten years perhaps) future that could allow the government to
117become tolerable again. We are, however, quite close to the edge where
118there will be no fixing it. If that threshold is passed we are in for
119terrible times.</p>
120
121
122<h3><a name="sec4" id="sec4"></a>
123Capitalism is Intrinsically Evil</h3>
124
125<p class="first">Cooperation is better than exploitation. How can one justify an
126economic system based upon paying others as little as possible in an
127attempt to make the most profit from their labor so as to make some
128profit?</p>
129
130
131
132<h2><a name="sec5" id="sec5"></a>
133Misc</h2>
134
135<h3><a name="sec6" id="sec6"></a>
136Long 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
143material cost follows from the materials, and the labor cost generally
144derives from the complexity of construction. The fixed price for each
145item consists of both of these factors. Thus it is trivial to ensure
146that 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
152route. The physical form of a creative work is of little importance;
153the ideas it represents are. The material and direct labor costs
154(printing, binding, etc.) are thus so small as to be of negligible
155importance when calculating value. There is effectively no objective
156way to place value on abstract work; all the value judgements we can
157make are subjective. We must then rely on irrational human valuations
158to determine the value on their own.</p>
159
160
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164
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166
167
168<p>Creative works are fundamentally different from concrete works. A
169painting may inspire others start a new stylistic movement, the
170structure of a story may cause the formation of a new literary form,
171an essay may incite a new political movement, etc. Creative works
172weave themselves into the mental fabric of each individual exposed to
173them in a way that material goods cannot. A book may change your life;
174a table will never do that. This suggests that the abstract concepts
175which compose a work have a strange nature and great value. Those who
176control the distribution of creative works wield great power as a
177result of the ability of ideas to change the individual.</p>
178
179<p>After a certain period of time the physical manifestation of a
180creative work loses commercial value. New art is being created
181continually, and no one can be expected to read every important book
182written, see every film, and so on for other areas. When a work ceases
183to be profitable to publish distribution ceases. Allowing abstract
184works to simply drop from the market creates a serious problem. New
185ideas are built upon old ones, and after ideas have assimilated into
186the collective concious it is important to be able to go back to the
187old ideas and analyze them to understand the present culture. If a
188work is no longer available it is impossible to do this. Thus works
189that are no longer being commercially exploited should become the
190property of the public so that any worth preserving will be preserved
191by <em>someone</em> and avoid death.</p>
192
193
194
195
196<p>Copyright manages to work fairly well for ensuring creators are
197compensated for their effort, preventing abuse of creator rights to
198the detriment of society, and ensuring that works will become public
199property after they are commercially unprofitable. Irrational human
200judgements over time often work well, and so giving exclusive right to
201copy a work makes sense for a period of time to allow society to
202determine its monetary value. The fair use provisions of copyright
203give society reasonable leeway in the use of the ideas contained
204within a work while the work is protected, and this allows society to
205continue enriching its creative culture. The limited term of copyright
206and ensuing reversion to the public domain prevents the cultural
207stagnation and the loss of history that would result from works
208becoming unavailable.</p>
209
210
211
212
213
214
215<p>The term of copyright must be finely balanced between the need to
216ensure creators have enough time to receive fair compensation for
217their effort, and the desire to avoid cultural stagnation from
218unavailable works. The term must be short enough that a work will not
219be unavailable for too long after commercial interest dies. Every year
220that passes where the work isn't being published tends to reduce the
221number of copies in existence. It must also be long enough that a
222creator can profit according to the value that society puts upon his
223work.</p>
224
225<p>A term should be just long enough that a work will fall out of
226copyright when physical copies are still likely to exist. A man may
227keep his book collection unto his death, but his children may simply
228sell them off or discard them after he departs the mortal
229coil. Intuitive judgement says that things that are worth entering the
230public domain will be preserved by someone for at least his life. A
231person who has creative works in his posession is often attached to
232them 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
234to listen to my music forever). After he dies there is a large
235increase in the chance that the works will perish unless he by chance
236made special arrangements to have them preserved.</p>
237
238<p>A generation then seems to be a reasonable term; how many things are
239really commercially viable after thirty years? Some works may be
240relevant to the children of the generation who created them; it seems
241reasonable then that if a work is still commercially viable after a
242generation then the creator deserves to retain copyright for a second
243generation. It is questionable whether more terms would be good
244(issues of supression of information, right to profit, etc. come into
245play), but they can't quite be ruled out. A renewal system with a span
246of roughly thirty years ensures that a work will be out of publication
247for at most a generation's time. This appears to be a good balance
248between the right of the creator and the desire to keep knowledge from
249dying (from my eyes).</p>
250
251<p>The works of the current generation, their parents, their
252grandparents, and their great-grandparents are still copyrighted in
253the US. Works created in the present will be copyrighted for the
254lifetime of the author and seventy years after; a span of roughly six
255generations.</p>
256
257
258<h3><a name="sec7" id="sec7"></a>
259Fewer Laws Are Better</h3>
260
261<h4><a name="sec8" id="sec8"></a>
262Individuals should not have their actions regulated</h4>
263
264
265<h4><a name="sec9" id="sec9"></a>
266Corporations must have their actions heavily regulated</h4>
267
268<p class="first">Corporate power disrupts the functioning of a free society. If the
269power wielded by a corporation were merely the sum of the individuals
270that composed it there would be little issue; the fundamental problem
271is that the benefits of gaining access to mass production facilities
272and a huge workforce that can be forced to cooperate on certain goals
273gives a large corporation much more power than the simple sum of its
274members.</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>
286Social Ills</h2>
287
288<h3><a name="sec11" id="sec11"></a>
289Mass Culture</h3>
290
291<p class="first">American culture in the early 1900s began to homogenize, and now there
292is a single massive culture that almost all three hundred million
293people in the country share. This presents problems to those who do
294not fit in; in the days of the self sufficient village one could move
295to another location to find people similar to him, but now there is
296nowhere to go. Everywhere a <em>social deviant</em> goes he will feel alienated
297and have his social options severely limited.</p>
298
299<p>A monoculture reduces the rate of idea formation, and ours is actively
300hostile toward anything not falling in line with the
301mainstream. People are trained to act as a mass instead of as
302individuals; this results in far less creative people. Critical
303thinking is not encouraged; no, it is far worse! Critical thinking is
304discouraged, and those of us who wish to argue our points with logic
305are met with the undefeatable enemy of a closed mind that has been
306exposed to propaganda from birth.</p>
307
308
309<h3><a name="sec12" id="sec12"></a>
310The Automobile</h3>
311
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336
337<h3><a name="sec13" id="sec13"></a>
338Learned 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
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cb44b69b 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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