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  18     <h1>Do Not Accept the Weak State of Mind in Our Time</h1>
  19    <div class="contents">
  20 <dl>
  21 <dt>
  22 <a href="#sec1">The Basis of My Philosophy</a>
  23 </dt>
  24 <dt>
  25 <a href="#sec2">The Current Economic and Political Structure Is Broken</a>
  26 </dt>
  27 <dd>
  28 <dl>
  29 <dt>
  30 <a href="#sec3">The Government of the Unites States</a>
  31 </dt>
  32 <dd>
  33 <dl>
  34 <dt>
  35 <a href="#sec4">Healthcare <em>Reform</em></a>
  36 </dt>
  37 </dl>
  38 </dd>
  39 <dt>
  40 <a href="#sec5">Capitalism is Intrinsically Evil</a>
  41 </dt>
  42 </dl>
  43 </dd>
  44 <dt>
  45 <a href="#sec6">Misc</a>
  46 </dt>
  47 <dd>
  48 <dl>
  49 <dt>
  50 <a href="#sec7">Long Term Copyright Causes Harm to Society (<code>Draft Revision 2</code>)</a>
  51 </dt>
  52 <dt>
  53 <a href="#sec8">Fewer Laws Are Better</a>
  54 </dt>
  55 <dd>
  56 <dl>
  57 <dt>
  58 <a href="#sec9">Individuals should not have their actions regulated</a>
  59 </dt>
  60 <dt>
  61 <a href="#sec10">Corporations must have their actions heavily regulated</a>
  62 </dt>
  63 </dl>
  64 </dd>
  65 </dl>
  66 </dd>
  67 <dt>
  68 <a href="#sec11">Social Ills</a>
  69 </dt>
  70 <dd>
  71 <dl>
  72 <dt>
  73 <a href="#sec12">Mass Culture</a>
  74 </dt>
  75 <dd>
  76 <dl>
  77 <dt>
  78 <a href="#sec13">The Talking Heads</a>
  79 </dt>
  80 </dl>
  81 </dd>
  82 <dt>
  83 <a href="#sec14">The Automobile</a>
  84 </dt>
  85 <dt>
  86 <a href="#sec15">Learned Ignorance and Weakness</a>
  87 </dt>
  88 </dl>
  89 </dd>
  90 </dl>
  91 </div>
  92
  93
  94 <!-- Page published by Emacs Muse begins here -->
  95 <p>I have views that could perhaps be seen as odd. Do note that I am <strong>not</strong>
  96 a liberal; nor am I a conservative. I do not buy into the traditional
  97 socieconomic dipole scale, and I also reject the <em>political compass</em> two
  98 dimensional scale; my political belief system could best be described
  99 as <em>curmudgeonly bastard</em> if you must have a label for it. This is only
 100 because being a curmudgeonly bastard isn't an ideology, but rather a
 101 broad set of ideas centered around the rejection of traditional
 102 political and social structures (<em>i.e</em> hating everything). I reject the
 103 <em>ressentiment</em> (lookit I'm Nietzsche) of traditional anarchism and
 104 believe not that every man should have no master (for then <em>all</em> would
 105 be weak), but rather that he should be his own master (does that even
 106 <em>mean</em> anything? Eh, it sounds nice so who cares).</p>
 107
 108 <p>These short essays are mere stubs I wrote a long while ago, and each
 109 will perhaps be extended in the future.</p>
 110
 111 <h2><a name="sec1" id="sec1"></a>
 112 <a href="Wisdom.html">The Basis of My Philosophy</a></h2>
 113
 114 <p class="first">I read some things and thought they were cool. Now I can make people
 115 think I'm smarter than I really am.</p>
 116
 117
 118 <h2><a name="sec2" id="sec2"></a>
 119 The Current Economic and Political Structure Is Broken</h2>
 120
 121 <h3><a name="sec3" id="sec3"></a>
 122 The Government of the Unites States</h3>
 123
 124 <p class="first">I feel that the government in the United States is very close to being
 125 broken beyond repair (perhaps this is a bit conservative, but one must
 126 hope). As it stands the government above the local level (and even
 127 there!) ignores the individual citizen and instead is only forced to
 128 do anything by large scale action. As far as the individual is
 129 concerned we no longer live in a Republic, but rather in an Plutocracy
 130 which is quickly descending into something far worse.</p>
 131
 132 <h4><a name="sec4" id="sec4"></a>
 133 Healthcare <em>Reform</em></h4>
 134
 135 <p class="first">Upon airing my objections to the current Healthcare <em>Reform</em> bill, I was
 136 asked: did you read the bill? To which I replied with action and read
 137 <a href="http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=h111-3590&amp;tab=summary">the official summary of the bill</a>. And now I ask those who asked me if
 138 I had read it: have <em>you</em> read it. I received as a reply an unequivocal:
 139 <em>why should I have to</em>.</p>
 140
 141 <p>Fun fact: it isn't as bad as some people make it seem, but guess what?
 142 <em>It does nothing beneficial to the individual</em>. All it does it require
 143 that anyone over 30 purchase insurance, severely restricts the usage
 144 of Health Savings Accounts (which, may be not so bad&mdash;I have no
 145 opinion on their usefulness... but <em>Republicans</em> created them so they
 146 <em>must</em> be <em>evil</em>), and is generally a piece of hey-look-I-did-something
 147 (but nothing goes into effect until I am out of office)
 148 legislation. This has never happened before, obviously. We are on the
 149 surface of Mars now too didn't you know.</p>
 150
 151 <p>Meanwhile there is what amounts to no price controls, an actual <em>ban</em> on
 152 the formation of State run healthcare (until 2017, and then only at
 153 the discretion of the HHS secretary), and token (unfunded) support for
 154 the formation of healthcare cooperatives. There are some taxes on
 155 large drug makers, but the research required by the FDA for drug
 156 approval is <em>tax deductible</em> (and so the larger drug makers can avoid
 157 most of the new taxes, har). And... an excise tax on overly fancy
 158 healthcare plans... more or less, a nice bill that, if it manages to
 159 not be overturned by 2018, will do absolutely nothing one way or the
 160 other.</p>
 161
 162 <p>It is obvious that I am indeed a dirty Nazi redneck terrorist
 163 teabagger Republican piece of shit who hates the poor and black
 164 people. I guess it's time for my white ass to move to Iran and see how
 165 I like it there!</p>
 166
 167
 168
 169 <h3><a name="sec5" id="sec5"></a>
 170 Capitalism is Intrinsically Evil</h3>
 171
 172 <p class="first">Cooperation is better than exploitation. How can one justify an
 173 economic system based upon paying others as little as possible in an
 174 attempt to make the most profit from their labor so as to make some
 175 profit?</p>
 176
 177 <p>But then again, what does <em>evil</em> mean?</p>
 178
 179
 180
 181 <h2><a name="sec6" id="sec6"></a>
 182 Misc</h2>
 183
 184 <h3><a name="sec7" id="sec7"></a>
 185 Long Term Copyright Causes Harm to Society (<code>Draft Revision 2</code>)</h3>
 186
 187
 188
 189
 190
 191 <p>It is straightforward to calculate a fair cost for material goods. The
 192 material cost follows from the materials, and the labor cost generally
 193 derives from the complexity of construction. The fixed price for each
 194 item consists of both of these factors. Thus it is trivial to ensure
 195 that a craftsman is fairly compensated for his effort.</p>
 196
 197
 198
 199
 200 <p>Creative works must have their value calculated via a more circuitous
 201 route. The physical form of a creative work is of little importance;
 202 the ideas it represents are. The material and direct labor costs
 203 (printing, binding, etc.) are thus so small as to be of negligible
 204 importance when calculating value. There is effectively no objective
 205 way to place value on abstract work; all the value judgements we can
 206 make are subjective. We must then rely on irrational human valuations
 207 to determine the value on their own.</p>
 208
 209
 210
 211
 212
 213
 214
 215
 216
 217 <p>Creative works are fundamentally different from concrete works. A
 218 painting may inspire others start a new stylistic movement, the
 219 structure of a story may cause the formation of a new literary form,
 220 an essay may incite a new political movement, etc. Creative works
 221 weave themselves into the mental fabric of each individual exposed to
 222 them in a way that material goods cannot. A book may change your life;
 223 a table will never do that. This suggests that the abstract concepts
 224 which compose a work have a strange nature and great value. Those who
 225 control the distribution of creative works wield great power as a
 226 result of the ability of ideas to change the individual.</p>
 227
 228 <p>After a certain period of time the physical manifestation of a
 229 creative work loses commercial value. New art is being created
 230 continually, and no one can be expected to read every important book
 231 written, see every film, and so on for other areas. When a work ceases
 232 to be profitable to publish distribution ceases. Allowing abstract
 233 works to simply drop from the market creates a serious problem. New
 234 ideas are built upon old ones, and after ideas have assimilated into
 235 the collective concious it is important to be able to go back to the
 236 old ideas and analyze them to understand the present culture. If a
 237 work is no longer available it is impossible to do this. Thus works
 238 that are no longer being commercially exploited should become the
 239 property of the public so that any worth preserving will be preserved
 240 by <em>someone</em> and avoid death.</p>
 241
 242
 243
 244
 245 <p>Copyright manages to work fairly well for ensuring creators are
 246 compensated for their effort, preventing abuse of creator rights to
 247 the detriment of society, and ensuring that works will become public
 248 property after they are commercially unprofitable. Irrational human
 249 judgements over time often work well, and so giving exclusive right to
 250 copy a work makes sense for a period of time to allow society to
 251 determine its monetary value. The fair use provisions of copyright
 252 give society reasonable leeway in the use of the ideas contained
 253 within a work while the work is protected, and this allows society to
 254 continue enriching its creative culture. The limited term of copyright
 255 and ensuing reversion to the public domain prevents the cultural
 256 stagnation and the loss of history that would result from works
 257 becoming unavailable.</p>
 258
 259
 260
 261
 262
 263
 264 <p>The term of copyright must be finely balanced between the need to
 265 ensure creators have enough time to receive fair compensation for
 266 their effort, and the desire to avoid cultural stagnation from
 267 unavailable works. The term must be short enough that a work will not
 268 be unavailable for too long after commercial interest dies. Every year
 269 that passes where the work isn't being published tends to reduce the
 270 number of copies in existence. It must also be long enough that a
 271 creator can profit according to the value that society puts upon his
 272 work.</p>
 273
 274 <p>A term should be just long enough that a work will fall out of
 275 copyright when physical copies are still likely to exist. A man may
 276 keep his book collection unto his death, but his children may simply
 277 sell them off or discard them after he departs the mortal
 278 coil. Intuitive judgement says that things that are worth entering the
 279 public domain will be preserved by someone for at least his life. A
 280 person who has creative works in his posession is often attached to
 281 them and will keep the ones he likes the most for as long as possible
 282 (e.g. my music collection is backed up in flac so that I will be able
 283 to listen to my music forever). After he dies there is a large
 284 increase in the chance that the works will perish unless he by chance
 285 made special arrangements to have them preserved.</p>
 286
 287 <p>A generation then seems to be a reasonable term; how many things are
 288 really commercially viable after thirty years? Some works may be
 289 relevant to the children of the generation who created them; it seems
 290 reasonable then that if a work is still commercially viable after a
 291 generation then the creator deserves to retain copyright for a second
 292 generation. It is questionable whether more terms would be good
 293 (issues of supression of information, right to profit, etc. come into
 294 play), but they can't quite be ruled out. A renewal system with a span
 295 of roughly thirty years ensures that a work will be out of publication
 296 for at most a generation's time. This appears to be a good balance
 297 between the right of the creator and the desire to keep knowledge from
 298 dying (from my eyes).</p>
 299
 300 <p>The works of the current generation, their parents, their
 301 grandparents, and their great-grandparents are still copyrighted in
 302 the US. Works created in the present will be copyrighted for the
 303 lifetime of the author and seventy years after; a span of roughly six
 304 generations.</p>
 305
 306
 307 <h3><a name="sec8" id="sec8"></a>
 308 Fewer Laws Are Better</h3>
 309
 310 <h4><a name="sec9" id="sec9"></a>
 311 Individuals should not have their actions regulated</h4>
 312
 313
 314 <h4><a name="sec10" id="sec10"></a>
 315 Corporations must have their actions heavily regulated</h4>
 316
 317 <p class="first">Corporate power disrupts the functioning of a free society. If the
 318 power wielded by a corporation were merely the sum of the individuals
 319 that composed it there would be little issue; the fundamental problem
 320 is that the benefits of gaining access to mass production facilities
 321 and a huge workforce that can be forced to cooperate on certain goals
 322 gives a large corporation much more than this.</p>
 323
 324 <h5>Corporate Personhood should be revoked</h5>
 325
 326
 327 <h5>Corporations should not be allowed to influence politics</h5>
 328
 329
 330
 331
 332
 333 <h2><a name="sec11" id="sec11"></a>
 334 Social Ills</h2>
 335
 336 <h3><a name="sec12" id="sec12"></a>
 337 Mass Culture</h3>
 338
 339 <p class="first">American culture in the early 1900s began to homogenize, and now there
 340 is a single massive culture that almost all three hundred million
 341 people in the country share. This presents problems to those who do
 342 not fit in; in the days of the self sufficient village one could move
 343 to another location to find people similar to him, but now there is
 344 nowhere to go. Everywhere a <em>social deviant</em> goes he will feel alienated
 345 and have his social options severely limited.</p>
 346
 347 <p>A monoculture reduces the rate of idea formation, and ours is actively
 348 hostile toward anything not falling in line with the
 349 mainstream. People are trained to act as a mass instead of as
 350 individuals; this results in far less creative people. Critical
 351 thinking is not encouraged; no, it is far worse! Critical thinking is
 352 discouraged, and those of us who wish to argue our points with logic
 353 are met with the undefeatable enemy of a closed mind that has been
 354 exposed to propaganda from birth.</p>
 355
 356 <h4><a name="sec13" id="sec13"></a>
 357 The Talking Heads</h4>
 358
 359 <p class="first">Poison the well. Burn a strawman.</p>
 360
 361 <p>This is real argument. Real thought.</p>
 362
 363
 364
 365 <h3><a name="sec14" id="sec14"></a>
 366 The Automobile</h3>
 367
 368
 369
 370
 371
 372
 373
 374
 375
 376
 377
 378
 379
 380
 381
 382
 383
 384
 385
 386
 387
 388
 389
 390
 391
 392
 393 <h3><a name="sec15" id="sec15"></a>
 394 Learned Ignorance and Weakness</h3>
 395
 396 <p><a href="Old%20Viewpoints.html">obsolete</a></p>
 397
 398 <p><a href="TRUTH.html">TRUTH</a></p>
 399
 400
 401
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 427
 428 <p class="cke-footer">Mike: I WAS NOT MICROWAVED.
 429 </p>
 430 <p class="cke-timestamp">Last Modified:
 431     January 21, 2013</p>
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