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1 | #title Do Not Accept the Weak State of Mind in Our Time |
2 | |
3 | I have views that could perhaps be seen as odd. Do note that I am **not** |
4 | a liberal; nor am I a conservative. I do not buy into the traditional |
5 | socieconomic dipole scale, and I also reject the *political compass* two |
6 | dimensional scale; my political belief system could best be described |
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7 | as *positive anarchism* if you must have a label for it. This is only |
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8 | because anarchism isn't an ideology, but rather a broad set of ideas |
9 | centered around the rejection of traditional heriarchial political and |
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10 | social structures. I reject the *ressentiment* of traditional anarchism |
11 | and believe not that every man should have no master, but rather that |
12 | he should be his own master. |
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13 | |
14 | These short essays are continually evolving, and each will be split |
15 | into its own page as the ideas contained within it are fleshed out in |
16 | my mind. Writing things down tends to help me to do this for there are |
17 | limits to how much information the top of my head can hold limiting |
18 | the usefulness of internal thought once an idea becomes complex |
19 | enough. Political and social beliefs are perhaps the most complicated |
20 | ideas a man can have because of our complex intertwined social |
21 | structures. |
22 | |
23 | * [[Wisdom][The Basis of My Philosophy]] |
24 | |
25 | It is often helpful to know what someone considers as the basis of his |
26 | philosophy when interpeting what he has written. As such I have |
27 | compiled a page of links and quotations to reveal the inner secrets of |
28 | my mind. |
29 | |
30 | * The Current Economic and Political Structure Is Broken |
31 | |
32 | ** The Government of the Unites States |
33 | |
34 | I feel that the government in the United States is very close to being |
35 | broken beyond repair. As it stands the government above the local |
36 | level ignores the individual citizen and instead is only affected by |
37 | large scale action. As far as the individual is concerned we no longer |
38 | live in a Republic, but rather in an Oligarchy which is quickly |
39 | descending into something far worse. |
40 | |
41 | I do feel that there is still some reform that could be made in the |
42 | near (ten years perhaps) future that could allow the government to |
43 | become tolerable again. We are, however, quite close to the edge where |
44 | there will be no fixing it. If that threshold is passed we are in for |
45 | terrible times. |
46 | |
47 | ** Capitalism is Intrinsically Evil |
48 | |
49 | Cooperation is better than exploitation. How can one justify an |
50 | economic system based upon paying others as little as possible in an |
51 | attempt to make the most profit from their labor so as to make some |
52 | profit? |
53 | |
54 | * Misc |
55 | |
56 | ** Long Term Copyright Causes Harm to Society (=Draft Revision 2=) |
57 | |
58 | ; maybe reinsert intro [[clintons-plans#Writing]] |
59 | |
60 | ; - Craft work compensated directly |
61 | |
62 | It is straightforward to calculate a fair cost for material goods. The |
63 | material cost follows from the materials, and the labor cost generally |
64 | derives from the complexity of construction. The fixed price for each |
65 | item consists of both of these factors. Thus it is trivial to ensure |
66 | that a craftsman is fairly compensated for his effort. |
67 | |
68 | ; - Creative work indirectly |
69 | ; - Harder to regain effort spent on creating |
70 | |
71 | Creative works must have their value calculated via a more circuitous |
72 | route. The physical form of a creative work is of little importance; |
73 | the ideas it represents are. The material and direct labor costs |
74 | (printing, binding, etc.) are thus so small as to be of negligible |
75 | importance when calculating value. There is effectively no objective |
76 | way to place value on abstract work; all the value judgements we can |
77 | make are subjective. We must then rely on irrational human valuations |
78 | to determine the value on their own. |
79 | |
80 | ; - Works contain ideas |
81 | ; - Focus on written works |
82 | ; - Inherent nature of ideas |
83 | ; - Absorbed into the mind of the reader |
84 | ; - Freely copied orally, libraries, ... |
85 | ; - Absorbed into the culture |
86 | |
87 | |
88 | Creative works are fundamentally different from concrete works. A |
89 | painting may inspire others start a new stylistic movement, the |
90 | structure of a story may cause the formation of a new literary form, |
91 | an essay may incite a new political movement, etc. Creative works |
92 | weave themselves into the mental fabric of each individual exposed to |
93 | them in a way that material goods cannot. A book may change your life; |
94 | a table will never do that. This suggests that the abstract concepts |
95 | which compose a work have a strange nature and great value. Those who |
96 | control the distribution of creative works wield great power as a |
97 | result of the ability of ideas to change the individual. |
98 | |
99 | After a certain period of time the physical manifestation of a |
100 | creative work loses commercial value. New art is being created |
101 | continually, and no one can be expected to read every important book |
102 | written, see every film, and so on for other areas. When a work ceases |
103 | to be profitable to publish distribution ceases. Allowing abstract |
104 | works to simply drop from the market creates a serious problem. New |
105 | ideas are built upon old ones, and after ideas have assimilated into |
106 | the collective concious it is important to be able to go back to the |
107 | old ideas and analyze them to understand the present culture. If a |
108 | work is no longer available it is impossible to do this. Thus works |
109 | that are no longer being commercially exploited should become the |
110 | property of the public so that any worth preserving will be preserved |
111 | by *someone* and avoid death. |
112 | |
113 | ; - Copyright helps authors |
114 | ; - Gives reasonable period for ideas to be commercially exploited |
115 | |
116 | Copyright manages to work fairly well for ensuring creators are |
117 | compensated for their effort, preventing abuse of creator rights to |
118 | the detriment of society, and ensuring that works will become public |
119 | property after they are commercially unprofitable. Irrational human |
120 | judgements over time often work well, and so giving exclusive right to |
121 | copy a work makes sense for a period of time to allow society to |
122 | determine its monetary value. The fair use provisions of copyright |
123 | give society reasonable leeway in the use of the ideas contained |
124 | within a work while the work is protected, and this allows society to |
125 | continue enriching its creative culture. The limited term of copyright |
126 | and ensuing reversion to the public domain prevents the cultural |
127 | stagnation and the loss of history that would result from works |
128 | becoming unavailable. |
129 | |
130 | ; - Copyright should be short |
131 | ; - Purpose is to give the creator time to compensate himself for the |
132 | ; effort spent writing |
133 | ; - Works often have short commercial life (cite) |
134 | |
135 | The term of copyright must be finely balanced between the need to |
136 | ensure creators have enough time to receive fair compensation for |
137 | their effort, and the desire to avoid cultural stagnation from |
138 | unavailable works. The term must be short enough that a work will not |
139 | be unavailable for too long after commercial interest dies. Every year |
140 | that passes where the work isn't being published tends to reduce the |
141 | number of copies in existence. It must also be long enough that a |
142 | creator can profit according to the value that society puts upon his |
143 | work. |
144 | |
145 | A term should be just long enough that a work will fall out of |
146 | copyright when physical copies are still likely to exist. A man may |
147 | keep his book collection unto his death, but his children may simply |
148 | sell them off or discard them after he departs the mortal |
149 | coil. Intuitive judgement says that things that are worth entering the |
150 | public domain will be preserved by someone for at least his life. A |
151 | person who has creative works in his posession is often attached to |
152 | them and will keep the ones he likes the most for as long as possible |
153 | (e.g. my music collection is backed up in flac so that I will be able |
154 | to listen to my music forever). After he dies there is a large |
155 | increase in the chance that the works will perish unless he by chance |
156 | made special arrangements to have them preserved. |
157 | |
158 | A generation then seems to be a reasonable term; how many things are |
159 | really commercially viable after thirty years? Some works may be |
160 | relevant to the children of the generation who created them; it seems |
161 | reasonable then that if a work is still commercially viable after a |
162 | generation then the creator deserves to retain copyright for a second |
163 | generation. It is questionable whether more terms would be good |
164 | (issues of supression of information, right to profit, etc. come into |
165 | play), but they can't quite be ruled out. A renewal system with a span |
166 | of roughly thirty years ensures that a work will be out of publication |
167 | for at most a generation's time. This appears to be a good balance |
168 | between the right of the creator and the desire to keep knowledge from |
169 | dying (from my eyes). |
170 | |
171 | The works of the current generation, their parents, their |
172 | grandparents, and their great-grandparents are still copyrighted in |
173 | the US. Works created in the present will be copyrighted for the |
174 | lifetime of the author and seventy years after; a span of roughly six |
175 | generations. |
176 | |
177 | ** Fewer Laws Are Better |
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178 | |
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179 | *** Individuals should not have their actions regulated |
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180 | |
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181 | *** Corporations must have their actions heavily regulated |
182 | |
183 | Corporate power disrupts the functioning of a free society. If the |
184 | power wielded by a corporation were merely the sum of the individuals |
185 | that composed it there would be little issue; the fundamental problem |
186 | is that the benefits of gaining access to mass production facilities |
187 | and a huge workforce that can be forced to cooperate on certain goals |
188 | gives a large corporation much more power than the simple sum of its |
189 | members. |
190 | |
191 | **** Corporate Personhood should be revoked |
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192 | |
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193 | **** Corporations should not be allowed to influence politics |
194 | |
195 | * Social Ills |
196 | |
197 | ** Mass Culture |
198 | |
199 | American culture in the early 1900s began to homogenize, and now there |
200 | is a single massive culture that almost all three hundred million |
201 | people in the country share. This presents problems to those who do |
202 | not fit in; in the days of the self sufficient village one could move |
203 | to another location to find people similar to him, but now there is |
204 | nowhere to go. Everywhere a *social deviant* goes he will feel alienated |
205 | and have his social options severely limited. |
206 | |
207 | A monoculture reduces the rate of idea formation, and ours is actively |
208 | hostile toward anything not falling in line with the |
209 | mainstream. People are trained to act as a mass instead of as |
210 | individuals; this results in far less creative people. Critical |
211 | thinking is not encouraged; no, it is far worse! Critical thinking is |
212 | discouraged, and those of us who wish to argue our points with logic |
213 | are met with the undefeatable enemy of a closed mind that has been |
214 | exposed to propaganda from birth. |
215 | |
216 | ** The Automobile |
217 | |
218 | ; How far is your average trip in a car? If you don't often go further |
219 | ; than twenty miles have you thought about getting rid of your car? |
220 | ; Twenty miles! Quite the distance, isn't it? In reality it is a short |
221 | ; [[Bicycle][bicycle]] ride that is often under or only slightly longer than an hour |
222 | ; long! If this pathetic nerd can do it so can you! |
223 | |
224 | ; We have finite natural resources, and oil is a resource that we have |
225 | ; foolishly exploited to the point of exhaustion. Ethanol and other |
226 | ; biofuels are pipe dreams, and you **shall** have no choice but to learn to |
227 | ; live without a car as oil is going to increase in cost substantially |
228 | ; over the next twenty years. Why wait until you are forced to give up |
229 | ; your car to do so? It makes more economic sense to give it up now |
230 | ; rather than spend more and more of your income every year just to |
231 | ; travel. Even ignoring that aspect the confidence it fills you with is |
232 | ; quite wonderful; there was a time when I walked staring at the ground |
233 | ; fearful of the world, and now I stand tall and can stare a driver in |
234 | ; the eyes and tell him to go ahead and try to run into me because I'm |
235 | ; not giving up my ground. |
236 | |
237 | ; Try self transport; it is good for your body and mind. The relative |
238 | ; low cost of automobiles has forced us into a false sense of needing to |
239 | ; be transported by machine. We are humans; the lone bipedal upon this |
240 | ; planet. We were born to transport ourselves! |
241 | |
242 | ** Learned Ignorance and Weakness |
243 | |
244 | [[Old Viewpoints][obsolete]] |
245 | |
246 | [[TRUTH]] |