Commit | Line | Data |
---|---|---|
2aff8b5c | 1 | <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> |
2 | <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" | |
3 | "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> | |
4 | <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> | |
5 | <head> | |
6 | <title>Do Not Accept the Weak State of Mind in Our Time</title> | |
7 | <meta name="generator" content="muse.el" /> | |
8 | <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" | |
9 | content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> | |
98266870 | 10 | <link href="https://feeds.unknownlamer.org/rss/site-updates" |
a7e21d41 | 11 | rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="Updates Feed" /> |
12 | ||
9dcdb59d | 13 | <link rel="stylesheet" href="default.css" /> |
2aff8b5c | 14 | </head> |
15 | <body> | |
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> | |
4863a6da | 30 | <dd> |
31 | <dl> | |
32 | <dt> | |
33 | <a href="#sec4">Healthcare <em>Reform</em></a> | |
34 | </dt> | |
35 | </dl> | |
36 | </dd> | |
2aff8b5c | 37 | <dt> |
4863a6da | 38 | <a href="#sec5">Capitalism is Intrinsically Evil</a> |
2aff8b5c | 39 | </dt> |
40 | </dl> | |
41 | </dd> | |
42 | <dt> | |
4863a6da | 43 | <a href="#sec6">Misc</a> |
2aff8b5c | 44 | </dt> |
45 | <dd> | |
46 | <dl> | |
47 | <dt> | |
4863a6da | 48 | <a href="#sec7">Long Term Copyright Causes Harm to Society (<code>Draft Revision 2</code>)</a> |
2aff8b5c | 49 | </dt> |
50 | <dt> | |
4863a6da | 51 | <a href="#sec8">Fewer Laws Are Better</a> |
2aff8b5c | 52 | </dt> |
53 | <dd> | |
54 | <dl> | |
55 | <dt> | |
4863a6da | 56 | <a href="#sec9">Individuals should not have their actions regulated</a> |
2aff8b5c | 57 | </dt> |
58 | <dt> | |
4863a6da | 59 | <a href="#sec10">Corporations must have their actions heavily regulated</a> |
2aff8b5c | 60 | </dt> |
61 | </dl> | |
62 | </dd> | |
63 | </dl> | |
64 | </dd> | |
65 | <dt> | |
4863a6da | 66 | <a href="#sec11">Social Ills</a> |
2aff8b5c | 67 | </dt> |
68 | <dd> | |
69 | <dl> | |
70 | <dt> | |
4863a6da | 71 | <a href="#sec12">Mass Culture</a> |
2aff8b5c | 72 | </dt> |
4863a6da | 73 | <dd> |
74 | <dl> | |
75 | <dt> | |
76 | <a href="#sec13">The Talking Heads</a> | |
77 | </dt> | |
78 | </dl> | |
79 | </dd> | |
2aff8b5c | 80 | <dt> |
4863a6da | 81 | <a href="#sec14">The Automobile</a> |
2aff8b5c | 82 | </dt> |
83 | <dt> | |
4863a6da | 84 | <a href="#sec15">Learned Ignorance and Weakness</a> |
2aff8b5c | 85 | </dt> |
86 | </dl> | |
87 | </dd> | |
88 | </dl> | |
89 | </div> | |
90 | ||
91 | ||
92 | <!-- 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> | |
93 | a liberal; nor am I a conservative. I do not buy into the traditional | |
94 | socieconomic dipole scale, and I also reject the <em>political compass</em> two | |
95 | dimensional scale; my political belief system could best be described | |
9dcdb59d | 96 | as <em>curmudgeonly bastard</em> if you must have a label for it. This is only |
c2a3216c | 97 | because being a curmudgeonly bastard isn't an ideology, but rather a |
9dcdb59d | 98 | broad set of ideas centered around the rejection of traditional |
c2a3216c | 99 | political and social structures (<em>i.e</em> hating everything). I reject the |
100 | <em>ressentiment</em> (lookit I'm Nietzsche) of traditional anarchism and | |
101 | believe not that every man should have no master (for then <em>all</em> would | |
4863a6da | 102 | be weak), but rather that he should be his own master (does that even |
103 | <em>mean</em> anything? Eh, it sounds nice so who cares).</p> | |
9dcdb59d | 104 | |
105 | <p>These short essays are mere stubs I wrote a long while ago, and each | |
106 | will perhaps be extended in the future.</p> | |
2aff8b5c | 107 | |
108 | <h2><a name="sec1" id="sec1"></a> | |
109 | <a href="Wisdom.html">The Basis of My Philosophy</a></h2> | |
110 | ||
9dcdb59d | 111 | <p class="first">I read some things and thought they were cool. Now I can make people |
112 | think I'm smarter than I really am.</p> | |
2aff8b5c | 113 | |
114 | ||
115 | <h2><a name="sec2" id="sec2"></a> | |
116 | The Current Economic and Political Structure Is Broken</h2> | |
117 | ||
118 | <h3><a name="sec3" id="sec3"></a> | |
119 | The Government of the Unites States</h3> | |
120 | ||
121 | <p class="first">I feel that the government in the United States is very close to being | |
9dcdb59d | 122 | broken beyond repair (perhaps this is a bit conservative, but one must |
123 | hope). As it stands the government above the local level (and even | |
124 | there!) ignores the individual citizen and instead is only forced to | |
125 | do anything by large scale action. As far as the individual is | |
126 | concerned we no longer live in a Republic, but rather in an Plutocracy | |
127 | which is quickly descending into something far worse.</p> | |
2aff8b5c | 128 | |
4863a6da | 129 | <h4><a name="sec4" id="sec4"></a> |
130 | Healthcare <em>Reform</em></h4> | |
131 | ||
132 | <p class="first">Upon airing my objections to the current Healthcare <em>Reform</em> bill, I was | |
133 | asked: did you read the bill? To which I replied with action and read | |
134 | <a href="http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-3590&tab=summary">the official summary of the bill</a>. And now I ask those who asked me if | |
135 | I had read it: have <em>you</em> read it. I received as a reply an unequivocal: | |
136 | <em>why should I have to</em>.</p> | |
137 | ||
138 | <p>Fun fact: it isn't as bad as some people make it seem, but guess what? | |
139 | <em>It does nothing beneficial to the individual</em>. All it does it require | |
140 | that anyone over 30 purchase insurance, severely restricts the usage | |
141 | of Health Savings Accounts (which, may be not so bad—I have no | |
142 | opinion on their usefulness... but <em>Republicans</em> created them so they | |
143 | <em>must</em> be <em>evil</em>), and is generally a piece of hey-look-I-did-something | |
144 | (but nothing goes into effect until I am out of office) | |
145 | legislation. This has never happened before, obviously. We are on the | |
146 | surface of Mars now too didn't you know.</p> | |
147 | ||
148 | <p>Meanwhile there is what amounts to no price controls, an actual <em>ban</em> on | |
149 | the formation of State run healthcare (until 2017, and then only at | |
150 | the discretion of the HHS secretary), and token (unfunded) support for | |
151 | the formation of healthcare cooperatives. There are some taxes on | |
152 | large drug makers, but the research required by the FDA for drug | |
153 | approval is <em>tax deductible</em> (and so the larger drug makers can avoid | |
154 | most of the new taxes, har). And... an excise tax on overly fancy | |
155 | healthcare plans... more or less, a nice bill that, if it manages to | |
156 | not be overturned by 2018, will do absolutely nothing one way or the | |
157 | other.</p> | |
158 | ||
159 | <p>It is obvious that I am indeed a dirty Nazi redneck terrorist | |
160 | teabagger Republican piece of shit who hates the poor and black | |
161 | people. I guess it's time for my white ass to move to Iran and see how | |
162 | I like it there!</p> | |
163 | ||
164 | ||
165 | ||
166 | <h3><a name="sec5" id="sec5"></a> | |
2aff8b5c | 167 | Capitalism is Intrinsically Evil</h3> |
168 | ||
169 | <p class="first">Cooperation is better than exploitation. How can one justify an | |
170 | economic system based upon paying others as little as possible in an | |
171 | attempt to make the most profit from their labor so as to make some | |
172 | profit?</p> | |
173 | ||
9dcdb59d | 174 | <p>But then again, what does <em>evil</em> mean?</p> |
175 | ||
2aff8b5c | 176 | |
177 | ||
4863a6da | 178 | <h2><a name="sec6" id="sec6"></a> |
2aff8b5c | 179 | Misc</h2> |
180 | ||
4863a6da | 181 | <h3><a name="sec7" id="sec7"></a> |
2aff8b5c | 182 | Long Term Copyright Causes Harm to Society (<code>Draft Revision 2</code>)</h3> |
183 | ||
184 | ||
185 | ||
186 | ||
187 | ||
188 | <p>It is straightforward to calculate a fair cost for material goods. The | |
189 | material cost follows from the materials, and the labor cost generally | |
190 | derives from the complexity of construction. The fixed price for each | |
191 | item consists of both of these factors. Thus it is trivial to ensure | |
192 | that a craftsman is fairly compensated for his effort.</p> | |
193 | ||
194 | ||
195 | ||
196 | ||
197 | <p>Creative works must have their value calculated via a more circuitous | |
198 | route. The physical form of a creative work is of little importance; | |
199 | the ideas it represents are. The material and direct labor costs | |
200 | (printing, binding, etc.) are thus so small as to be of negligible | |
201 | importance when calculating value. There is effectively no objective | |
202 | way to place value on abstract work; all the value judgements we can | |
203 | make are subjective. We must then rely on irrational human valuations | |
204 | to determine the value on their own.</p> | |
205 | ||
206 | ||
207 | ||
208 | ||
209 | ||
210 | ||
211 | ||
212 | ||
213 | ||
214 | <p>Creative works are fundamentally different from concrete works. A | |
215 | painting may inspire others start a new stylistic movement, the | |
216 | structure of a story may cause the formation of a new literary form, | |
217 | an essay may incite a new political movement, etc. Creative works | |
218 | weave themselves into the mental fabric of each individual exposed to | |
219 | them in a way that material goods cannot. A book may change your life; | |
220 | a table will never do that. This suggests that the abstract concepts | |
221 | which compose a work have a strange nature and great value. Those who | |
222 | control the distribution of creative works wield great power as a | |
223 | result of the ability of ideas to change the individual.</p> | |
224 | ||
225 | <p>After a certain period of time the physical manifestation of a | |
226 | creative work loses commercial value. New art is being created | |
227 | continually, and no one can be expected to read every important book | |
228 | written, see every film, and so on for other areas. When a work ceases | |
229 | to be profitable to publish distribution ceases. Allowing abstract | |
230 | works to simply drop from the market creates a serious problem. New | |
231 | ideas are built upon old ones, and after ideas have assimilated into | |
232 | the collective concious it is important to be able to go back to the | |
233 | old ideas and analyze them to understand the present culture. If a | |
234 | work is no longer available it is impossible to do this. Thus works | |
235 | that are no longer being commercially exploited should become the | |
236 | property of the public so that any worth preserving will be preserved | |
237 | by <em>someone</em> and avoid death.</p> | |
238 | ||
239 | ||
240 | ||
241 | ||
242 | <p>Copyright manages to work fairly well for ensuring creators are | |
243 | compensated for their effort, preventing abuse of creator rights to | |
244 | the detriment of society, and ensuring that works will become public | |
245 | property after they are commercially unprofitable. Irrational human | |
246 | judgements over time often work well, and so giving exclusive right to | |
247 | copy a work makes sense for a period of time to allow society to | |
248 | determine its monetary value. The fair use provisions of copyright | |
249 | give society reasonable leeway in the use of the ideas contained | |
250 | within a work while the work is protected, and this allows society to | |
251 | continue enriching its creative culture. The limited term of copyright | |
252 | and ensuing reversion to the public domain prevents the cultural | |
253 | stagnation and the loss of history that would result from works | |
254 | becoming unavailable.</p> | |
255 | ||
256 | ||
257 | ||
258 | ||
259 | ||
260 | ||
261 | <p>The term of copyright must be finely balanced between the need to | |
262 | ensure creators have enough time to receive fair compensation for | |
263 | their effort, and the desire to avoid cultural stagnation from | |
264 | unavailable works. The term must be short enough that a work will not | |
265 | be unavailable for too long after commercial interest dies. Every year | |
266 | that passes where the work isn't being published tends to reduce the | |
267 | number of copies in existence. It must also be long enough that a | |
268 | creator can profit according to the value that society puts upon his | |
269 | work.</p> | |
270 | ||
271 | <p>A term should be just long enough that a work will fall out of | |
272 | copyright when physical copies are still likely to exist. A man may | |
273 | keep his book collection unto his death, but his children may simply | |
274 | sell them off or discard them after he departs the mortal | |
275 | coil. Intuitive judgement says that things that are worth entering the | |
276 | public domain will be preserved by someone for at least his life. A | |
277 | person who has creative works in his posession is often attached to | |
278 | them and will keep the ones he likes the most for as long as possible | |
279 | (e.g. my music collection is backed up in flac so that I will be able | |
280 | to listen to my music forever). After he dies there is a large | |
281 | increase in the chance that the works will perish unless he by chance | |
282 | made special arrangements to have them preserved.</p> | |
283 | ||
284 | <p>A generation then seems to be a reasonable term; how many things are | |
285 | really commercially viable after thirty years? Some works may be | |
286 | relevant to the children of the generation who created them; it seems | |
287 | reasonable then that if a work is still commercially viable after a | |
288 | generation then the creator deserves to retain copyright for a second | |
289 | generation. It is questionable whether more terms would be good | |
290 | (issues of supression of information, right to profit, etc. come into | |
291 | play), but they can't quite be ruled out. A renewal system with a span | |
292 | of roughly thirty years ensures that a work will be out of publication | |
293 | for at most a generation's time. This appears to be a good balance | |
294 | between the right of the creator and the desire to keep knowledge from | |
295 | dying (from my eyes).</p> | |
296 | ||
297 | <p>The works of the current generation, their parents, their | |
298 | grandparents, and their great-grandparents are still copyrighted in | |
299 | the US. Works created in the present will be copyrighted for the | |
300 | lifetime of the author and seventy years after; a span of roughly six | |
301 | generations.</p> | |
302 | ||
303 | ||
4863a6da | 304 | <h3><a name="sec8" id="sec8"></a> |
2aff8b5c | 305 | Fewer Laws Are Better</h3> |
306 | ||
4863a6da | 307 | <h4><a name="sec9" id="sec9"></a> |
2aff8b5c | 308 | Individuals should not have their actions regulated</h4> |
309 | ||
310 | ||
4863a6da | 311 | <h4><a name="sec10" id="sec10"></a> |
2aff8b5c | 312 | Corporations must have their actions heavily regulated</h4> |
313 | ||
314 | <p class="first">Corporate power disrupts the functioning of a free society. If the | |
315 | power wielded by a corporation were merely the sum of the individuals | |
316 | that composed it there would be little issue; the fundamental problem | |
317 | is that the benefits of gaining access to mass production facilities | |
318 | and a huge workforce that can be forced to cooperate on certain goals | |
9dcdb59d | 319 | gives a large corporation much more than this.</p> |
2aff8b5c | 320 | |
321 | <h5>Corporate Personhood should be revoked</h5> | |
322 | ||
323 | ||
324 | <h5>Corporations should not be allowed to influence politics</h5> | |
325 | ||
326 | ||
327 | ||
328 | ||
329 | ||
4863a6da | 330 | <h2><a name="sec11" id="sec11"></a> |
2aff8b5c | 331 | Social Ills</h2> |
332 | ||
4863a6da | 333 | <h3><a name="sec12" id="sec12"></a> |
2aff8b5c | 334 | Mass Culture</h3> |
335 | ||
336 | <p class="first">American culture in the early 1900s began to homogenize, and now there | |
337 | is a single massive culture that almost all three hundred million | |
338 | people in the country share. This presents problems to those who do | |
339 | not fit in; in the days of the self sufficient village one could move | |
340 | to another location to find people similar to him, but now there is | |
341 | nowhere to go. Everywhere a <em>social deviant</em> goes he will feel alienated | |
342 | and have his social options severely limited.</p> | |
343 | ||
344 | <p>A monoculture reduces the rate of idea formation, and ours is actively | |
345 | hostile toward anything not falling in line with the | |
346 | mainstream. People are trained to act as a mass instead of as | |
347 | individuals; this results in far less creative people. Critical | |
348 | thinking is not encouraged; no, it is far worse! Critical thinking is | |
349 | discouraged, and those of us who wish to argue our points with logic | |
350 | are met with the undefeatable enemy of a closed mind that has been | |
351 | exposed to propaganda from birth.</p> | |
352 | ||
4863a6da | 353 | <h4><a name="sec13" id="sec13"></a> |
354 | The Talking Heads</h4> | |
2aff8b5c | 355 | |
4863a6da | 356 | <p class="first">Poison the well. Burn a strawman.</p> |
357 | ||
358 | <p>This is real argument. Real thought.</p> | |
359 | ||
360 | ||
361 | ||
362 | <h3><a name="sec14" id="sec14"></a> | |
2aff8b5c | 363 | The Automobile</h3> |
364 | ||
365 | ||
366 | ||
367 | ||
368 | ||
369 | ||
370 | ||
371 | ||
372 | ||
373 | ||
374 | ||
375 | ||
376 | ||
377 | ||
378 | ||
379 | ||
380 | ||
381 | ||
382 | ||
383 | ||
384 | ||
385 | ||
386 | ||
387 | ||
388 | ||
389 | ||
4863a6da | 390 | <h3><a name="sec15" id="sec15"></a> |
2aff8b5c | 391 | Learned Ignorance and Weakness</h3> |
392 | ||
393 | <p><a href="Old%20Viewpoints.html">obsolete</a></p> | |
394 | ||
395 | <p><a href="TRUTH.html">TRUTH</a></p> | |
396 | ||
397 | ||
398 | ||
399 | <!-- Page published by Emacs Muse ends here --> | |
400 | ||
401 | <p class="cke-buttons"> | |
402 | <!-- validating badges, any browser, etc --> | |
98266870 CE |
403 | <a href="https://validator.w3.org/check/referer"><img |
404 | src="https://www.w3.org/Icons/valid-xhtml10" | |
2aff8b5c | 405 | alt="Valid XHTML 1.0!" /></a> |
406 | ||
98266870 | 407 | <a href="https://www.anybrowser.org/campaign/"><img |
2aff8b5c | 408 | src="img/buttons/w3c_ab.png" alt="[ Viewable With Any Browser |
409 | ]" /></a> | |
410 | ||
98266870 | 411 | <a href="https://www.debian.org/"><img |
2aff8b5c | 412 | src="img/buttons/debian.png" alt="[ Powered by Debian ]" /></a> |
413 | ||
98266870 | 414 | <a href="https://hcoop.net/"> |
2aff8b5c | 415 | <img src="img/buttons/hcoop.png" |
416 | alt="[ Hosted by HCoop]" /> | |
417 | </a> | |
418 | ||
98266870 | 419 | <a href="https://www.fsf.org/register_form?referrer=114"> |
2aff8b5c | 420 | <img src="img/buttons/fsf_member.png" |
421 | alt="[ FSF Associate Member ]" /> | |
422 | </a> | |
423 | </p> | |
424 | ||
98266870 CE |
425 | <p class="cke-footer"><ascii_phil> There once was a man named Bertold |
426 | <ascii_phil> Who drank beer when the weather grew cold | |
427 | <ascii_phil> As he reached for his cup... | |
428 | <ascii_phil> "NEEEEVER GONNA GIVE YOU UP!!!" | |
429 | <ascii_phil> Oh, snap! You just got limerickrolled! | |
2aff8b5c | 430 | </p> |
431 | <p class="cke-timestamp">Last Modified: | |
f6d19803 | 432 | January 21, 2013</p> |
2aff8b5c | 433 | </body> |
434 | </html> |