I’m just curious for the new or existing people? Lemmy.ml has taken a hard turn to the right since the reddit exodus. There’s been a lot of pro-imperialist propaganda being posted on world news, and a lot less diversity of opinion. It feels more neoliberal and neo-con to me.
Does anyone want to share what their political leanings are?
I’ll start; I’m anti-imperialist pro-state regulated capitalism. I believe we should have usage based taxes (toll roads, carbon tax) and luxury taxes, and I disagree with wealth taxes for people with less than $250 million. The state should spend more money on consumer protection in all industries (environment, health, finance, etc.) I believe in multipolarity vs. US hegemony.
I’m a libertarian, leftist, socialist, and I’m strongly against digital copyright, politics and patents. I believe in freedom and free competition, and government investment in education, technology, and quality of life.
Libertarian: People are overwhelmingly good, and freedom allows the good people to reliability outmenuver the bad. People should have every freedom in so far as they are not encroaching on the equal or greater freedoms of anyone else. No technology is inherently bad, tech in the hands all results in the victory of the good. A notable acception is weapons of mass destruction, as any use against any population is very bad morally. In general when tech is outlawed the good loose the ability to use it against the bad or for the betterment of humanity, and the bad maintain access and use it against the good. When only the bad guys have Drugs, Encryption, Guns, The internet, etc … the society is much worse off for it.
Leftist: When governments invest tax money into the common good of the people, via things like education, technology, and quality of life, then societies are healther, wealthier, more innovative, and the people are happier for it. No one wants to be homeless, sick, or stupid, or to be surrounded by people who are. Government investment stimulates the economy, and if money is spent domestically it lands right back in the pockets of working tax payers.
Socialist: When workers own stake in the companiess they work for, companies act in the interest of the workers (socialism). When companies are owned by investors, they act in the interst of the investors, usually against the interest of workers (capitalism). When companies act in the interst of the workers, wages are higher, workers are more free, and cost of living is lower. The people are happier. Governments does not need to be so big to keep the peace like they do today.
Digital copyright: the belief in the lie that copying and or improving upon an ethereal digital resource constitutes theft, is a massive detriment to society. It is clearly false because no one looses anything. It is defended by perpetuating the fear that it it would be harder to profit if information was free. It would be a different world, but you can still make a profit through art on a physical medium, and in other ways. The lie is used to justify unjust control of software vendors over their customers, and to justify fake sales in which the physical computer hardware is sold but the ability to actually control it is not part of the sale. And sales where a book or movie is sold, but the user is never given the copy they purchased. It is also used to deprive the poor access to educational material, and to justify the destruction of cultural archives for future generations.
Politics: Politicians are lower quality than ordinary people, because they are the people who wanted to rule, not the people who understand the impact of positive and negative of every singe decision. A monarchy has better chances of honest leadership because the quality if the monarch is random, instead of picked by might of advertising dollars out of a list of the worst people. The way to make a real good government involves a little lotocracy and a little meritocracy. My vision in short: a console, selected at random from the population, chooses qualification criteria for voting on a proposition, and a console is selected at random from the qualified public to make a decision.
Pattents: A temporary government issued monopoly on a process or mechanism. Patents were the single worst lapse in logic of our society, they are anticompetitive and slow innovation (the incredibly successful free software community, operating on very little time and money, is a glimpse of what a patenless society could be). A free market cannot coexist with patents. Arguments for pattens boil down to, if i invest as though i have patent protection from competition and i don’t have it, my investment won’t pan out. In a society without patents, companies build and improve on each others work, making R&D cheaper and faster. Sure, billion dollar research investments would not pan out, but they would also be completely unnecessary, because starting from scratch or waiting a decade would not be required to participate in innovation.
A while ago I watched a great video on Youtube explaining how a system without copyright could work for commercial software development (specifically for games), advocating for a “pay for production” model instead of “pay for access”. Unfortunately I can’t find the video anymore.
Whats the solution to the issue small startups would face w.o patents when the mega-corps just take their innovation and package it differently?
Don’t detail exactly what the innovation is before its ready to sell, it takes time to get something into a product and to get that product into production. Name recognition is everything, for some time the small starup is the name of the innovation, and that recognition does not just vanish. Other companies have built comparable or beter electric cars by now, but you know who im talking about when i say that electric car company.
Alternateivly copy something a large corporation is doing, or better yet, build on something they are doing.
Also employee owned companies tend not to aggressively expand. And governments need to break up the kind of company that is large enough to destroy all competition. That leads me to another opinion, buying another company should not be allowed in a capitalist economy, because that only ever makes the market less free.
I’m unsure why the invention is safe from piracy simply because it was sold - any company can claim they did it first and w.o patents, or at the very least something else documented contemporaneously, how does the original inventor prove their claim?
Second, I can imagine innovators being uncomfortable having to withhold their contributions/knowledge in order to profit - surely that’s the primary benefit of the patent system? i.e., a way where the information is provided to the public while protecting their ability to say the inventor is the one who discovered that information. Simply put, without patents, no innovation is allowed except to the extent the discoverer wants to share their information with the public.
Imo, you touched on a really important point in your third paragraph - there is no reason (aside from cost) that ONLY the employer should realize the benefit of the patent. Imo, an employEE (not employer) should be the owner of the knowledge - but then how does any single employee pay the large fees required to defend their patent in court or through licenses
Ahh I see - its fine as long as you only steal from someone larger than you - I’m sure those larger corps (known for their altruism right?) wont steal ideas from the little guys… (this goes back to my initial point, how to protect the little guy?)
I agree - in Canada (which is merely the jurisdiction I happen to be familiar with), the law is written such that “an act engaged in pursuant only to the exercise of any right or enjoyment of any interest derived under the . . . Patent Act . . . is not an anti- competitive act” In other words, to be anti-competitive requires conduct beyond simply ‘using’ your IP rights, such that an “abuse of a dominant position” is required.
I’m unsure what this would mean for owners who are reaching the end of their life (I’m presuming you think corporations should outlive their founders, since that is one of the main advantages for registering a corporation as opposed to a sole-proprietorship or partnership entity).