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16 <h1>Do Not Accept the Weak State of Mind in Our Time</h1>
17 <div class="contents">
18<dl>
19<dt>
20<a href="#sec1">The Basis of My Philosophy</a>
21</dt>
22<dt>
23<a href="#sec2">The Current Economic and Political Structure Is Broken</a>
24</dt>
25<dd>
26<dl>
27<dt>
28<a href="#sec3">The Government of the Unites States</a>
29</dt>
30<dt>
31<a href="#sec4">Capitalism is Intrinsically Evil</a>
32</dt>
33</dl>
34</dd>
35<dt>
36<a href="#sec5">Misc</a>
37</dt>
38<dd>
39<dl>
40<dt>
41<a href="#sec6">Long Term Copyright Causes Harm to Society (<code>Draft Revision 2</code>)</a>
42</dt>
43<dt>
44<a href="#sec7">Fewer Laws Are Better</a>
45</dt>
46<dd>
47<dl>
48<dt>
49<a href="#sec8">Individuals should not have their actions regulated</a>
50</dt>
51<dt>
52<a href="#sec9">Corporations must have their actions heavily regulated</a>
53</dt>
54</dl>
55</dd>
56</dl>
57</dd>
58<dt>
59<a href="#sec10">Social Ills</a>
60</dt>
61<dd>
62<dl>
63<dt>
64<a href="#sec11">Mass Culture</a>
65</dt>
66<dt>
67<a href="#sec12">The Automobile</a>
68</dt>
69<dt>
70<a href="#sec13">Learned Ignorance and Weakness</a>
71</dt>
72</dl>
73</dd>
74</dl>
75</div>
76
77
78<!-- 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>
79a liberal; nor am I a conservative. I do not buy into the traditional
80socieconomic dipole scale, and I also reject the <em>political compass</em> two
81dimensional scale; my political belief system could best be described
a7e21d41 82as <em>positive anarchism</em> if you must have a label for it. This is only
2aff8b5c 83because anarchism isn't an ideology, but rather a broad set of ideas
84centered around the rejection of traditional heriarchial political and
a7e21d41 85social structures. I reject the <em>ressentiment</em> of traditional anarchism
86and believe not that every man should have no master, but rather that
87he should be his own master.</p>
2aff8b5c 88
89<p>These short essays are continually evolving, and each will be split
90into its own page as the ideas contained within it are fleshed out in
91my mind. Writing things down tends to help me to do this for there are
92limits to how much information the top of my head can hold limiting
93the usefulness of internal thought once an idea becomes complex
94enough. Political and social beliefs are perhaps the most complicated
95ideas a man can have because of our complex intertwined social
96structures.</p>
97
98<h2><a name="sec1" id="sec1"></a>
99<a href="Wisdom.html">The Basis of My Philosophy</a></h2>
100
101<p class="first">It is often helpful to know what someone considers as the basis of his
102philosophy when interpeting what he has written. As such I have
103compiled a page of links and quotations to reveal the inner secrets of
104my mind.</p>
105
106
107<h2><a name="sec2" id="sec2"></a>
108The Current Economic and Political Structure Is Broken</h2>
109
110<h3><a name="sec3" id="sec3"></a>
111The Government of the Unites States</h3>
112
113<p class="first">I feel that the government in the United States is very close to being
114broken beyond repair. As it stands the government above the local
115level ignores the individual citizen and instead is only affected by
116large scale action. As far as the individual is concerned we no longer
117live in a Republic, but rather in an Oligarchy which is quickly
118descending into something far worse.</p>
119
120<p>I do feel that there is still some reform that could be made in the
121near (ten years perhaps) future that could allow the government to
122become tolerable again. We are, however, quite close to the edge where
123there will be no fixing it. If that threshold is passed we are in for
124terrible times.</p>
125
126
127<h3><a name="sec4" id="sec4"></a>
128Capitalism is Intrinsically Evil</h3>
129
130<p class="first">Cooperation is better than exploitation. How can one justify an
131economic system based upon paying others as little as possible in an
132attempt to make the most profit from their labor so as to make some
133profit?</p>
134
135
136
137<h2><a name="sec5" id="sec5"></a>
138Misc</h2>
139
140<h3><a name="sec6" id="sec6"></a>
141Long Term Copyright Causes Harm to Society (<code>Draft Revision 2</code>)</h3>
142
143
144
145
146
147<p>It is straightforward to calculate a fair cost for material goods. The
148material cost follows from the materials, and the labor cost generally
149derives from the complexity of construction. The fixed price for each
150item consists of both of these factors. Thus it is trivial to ensure
151that a craftsman is fairly compensated for his effort.</p>
152
153
154
155
156<p>Creative works must have their value calculated via a more circuitous
157route. The physical form of a creative work is of little importance;
158the ideas it represents are. The material and direct labor costs
159(printing, binding, etc.) are thus so small as to be of negligible
160importance when calculating value. There is effectively no objective
161way to place value on abstract work; all the value judgements we can
162make are subjective. We must then rely on irrational human valuations
163to determine the value on their own.</p>
164
165
166
167
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171
172
173<p>Creative works are fundamentally different from concrete works. A
174painting may inspire others start a new stylistic movement, the
175structure of a story may cause the formation of a new literary form,
176an essay may incite a new political movement, etc. Creative works
177weave themselves into the mental fabric of each individual exposed to
178them in a way that material goods cannot. A book may change your life;
179a table will never do that. This suggests that the abstract concepts
180which compose a work have a strange nature and great value. Those who
181control the distribution of creative works wield great power as a
182result of the ability of ideas to change the individual.</p>
183
184<p>After a certain period of time the physical manifestation of a
185creative work loses commercial value. New art is being created
186continually, and no one can be expected to read every important book
187written, see every film, and so on for other areas. When a work ceases
188to be profitable to publish distribution ceases. Allowing abstract
189works to simply drop from the market creates a serious problem. New
190ideas are built upon old ones, and after ideas have assimilated into
191the collective concious it is important to be able to go back to the
192old ideas and analyze them to understand the present culture. If a
193work is no longer available it is impossible to do this. Thus works
194that are no longer being commercially exploited should become the
195property of the public so that any worth preserving will be preserved
196by <em>someone</em> and avoid death.</p>
197
198
199
200
201<p>Copyright manages to work fairly well for ensuring creators are
202compensated for their effort, preventing abuse of creator rights to
203the detriment of society, and ensuring that works will become public
204property after they are commercially unprofitable. Irrational human
205judgements over time often work well, and so giving exclusive right to
206copy a work makes sense for a period of time to allow society to
207determine its monetary value. The fair use provisions of copyright
208give society reasonable leeway in the use of the ideas contained
209within a work while the work is protected, and this allows society to
210continue enriching its creative culture. The limited term of copyright
211and ensuing reversion to the public domain prevents the cultural
212stagnation and the loss of history that would result from works
213becoming unavailable.</p>
214
215
216
217
218
219
220<p>The term of copyright must be finely balanced between the need to
221ensure creators have enough time to receive fair compensation for
222their effort, and the desire to avoid cultural stagnation from
223unavailable works. The term must be short enough that a work will not
224be unavailable for too long after commercial interest dies. Every year
225that passes where the work isn't being published tends to reduce the
226number of copies in existence. It must also be long enough that a
227creator can profit according to the value that society puts upon his
228work.</p>
229
230<p>A term should be just long enough that a work will fall out of
231copyright when physical copies are still likely to exist. A man may
232keep his book collection unto his death, but his children may simply
233sell them off or discard them after he departs the mortal
234coil. Intuitive judgement says that things that are worth entering the
235public domain will be preserved by someone for at least his life. A
236person who has creative works in his posession is often attached to
237them and will keep the ones he likes the most for as long as possible
238(e.g. my music collection is backed up in flac so that I will be able
239to listen to my music forever). After he dies there is a large
240increase in the chance that the works will perish unless he by chance
241made special arrangements to have them preserved.</p>
242
243<p>A generation then seems to be a reasonable term; how many things are
244really commercially viable after thirty years? Some works may be
245relevant to the children of the generation who created them; it seems
246reasonable then that if a work is still commercially viable after a
247generation then the creator deserves to retain copyright for a second
248generation. It is questionable whether more terms would be good
249(issues of supression of information, right to profit, etc. come into
250play), but they can't quite be ruled out. A renewal system with a span
251of roughly thirty years ensures that a work will be out of publication
252for at most a generation's time. This appears to be a good balance
253between the right of the creator and the desire to keep knowledge from
254dying (from my eyes).</p>
255
256<p>The works of the current generation, their parents, their
257grandparents, and their great-grandparents are still copyrighted in
258the US. Works created in the present will be copyrighted for the
259lifetime of the author and seventy years after; a span of roughly six
260generations.</p>
261
262
263<h3><a name="sec7" id="sec7"></a>
264Fewer Laws Are Better</h3>
265
266<h4><a name="sec8" id="sec8"></a>
267Individuals should not have their actions regulated</h4>
268
269
270<h4><a name="sec9" id="sec9"></a>
271Corporations must have their actions heavily regulated</h4>
272
273<p class="first">Corporate power disrupts the functioning of a free society. If the
274power wielded by a corporation were merely the sum of the individuals
275that composed it there would be little issue; the fundamental problem
276is that the benefits of gaining access to mass production facilities
277and a huge workforce that can be forced to cooperate on certain goals
278gives a large corporation much more power than the simple sum of its
279members.</p>
280
281<h5>Corporate Personhood should be revoked</h5>
282
283
284<h5>Corporations should not be allowed to influence politics</h5>
285
286
287
288
289
290<h2><a name="sec10" id="sec10"></a>
291Social Ills</h2>
292
293<h3><a name="sec11" id="sec11"></a>
294Mass Culture</h3>
295
296<p class="first">American culture in the early 1900s began to homogenize, and now there
297is a single massive culture that almost all three hundred million
298people in the country share. This presents problems to those who do
299not fit in; in the days of the self sufficient village one could move
300to another location to find people similar to him, but now there is
301nowhere to go. Everywhere a <em>social deviant</em> goes he will feel alienated
302and have his social options severely limited.</p>
303
304<p>A monoculture reduces the rate of idea formation, and ours is actively
305hostile toward anything not falling in line with the
306mainstream. People are trained to act as a mass instead of as
307individuals; this results in far less creative people. Critical
308thinking is not encouraged; no, it is far worse! Critical thinking is
309discouraged, and those of us who wish to argue our points with logic
310are met with the undefeatable enemy of a closed mind that has been
311exposed to propaganda from birth.</p>
312
313
314<h3><a name="sec12" id="sec12"></a>
315The Automobile</h3>
316
317
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341
342<h3><a name="sec13" id="sec13"></a>
343Learned Ignorance and Weakness</h3>
344
345<p><a href="Old%20Viewpoints.html">obsolete</a></p>
346
347<p><a href="TRUTH.html">TRUTH</a></p>
348
349
350
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cb44b69b 377<p class="cke-footer"> We live in a time of revolution
378 We swim the silent seas of sanity gone
2aff8b5c 379</p>
380<p class="cke-timestamp">Last Modified:
a7e21d41 381 September 26, 2008</p>
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