Politics.html

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