I mean like this: “Realized that most of these programs are not meant to help anyone, merely to control people and make them dependent. I was forced to reconsider everything I’d once believed. I developed a profound distrust of government regardless of the philosophy of the people in power. I remained a liberal on civil-rights issues, became a conservative on defense, and a semi-libertarian on all other matters.” - Dean Koontz. Am I wrong?

  • @MethylmanEnglish
    4•1 year ago

    Surprised not to see mention of intellectual property in this thread. Imo opinions on IP are more revealing about how one feels about corporations vs employees than the traditional conservative/liberal divide

    • @kanzalibraryOPEnglish
      3•1 year ago

      You bring something that I focused on before, but not in pov like this. How do you think the role of IP in terms of people’s behaviour or their political decision?

      • @MethylmanEnglish
        2•1 year ago

        IP in terms of people’s behaviour or their political decision?

        In terms of behavior - the scheme is MEANT to encourage innovation. I hesitate to answer how well the system does in fact do so since the cost of maintaining your IP outweighs the benefits for all but the largest companies. At least one element I see that could be changed is the way employees’ innovations are the property of their employers in the majority of cases; an example where it would remain property of the employee is where its arms length from anything the company is involved in. So it can in effect have a chilling effect on innovation but doesn’t necessarily need to, at least in my opinion.

        In terms of politics - im not sure. It’s one area where policy makers seem to bridge political divides, but as far as what that means - idk? I’d love for a political studies graduate to answer what that indicates!

        For the second point: An even more interesting example (imo) is that even Russia seems to have concluded it’s necessary to “protect” American IP [even after the invasion of Ukraine] to the extent it’s necessary for the Russian public as a means of not being confused by brands and for Quality control. I think the rationale is that Russians might not want to support American companies and Russian owners shouldn’t be “lazy” in just copying an American trademark (imagine a person not wanting to support McDonald’s and instead stops supporting the Russian company DcMonalds)

        • @kanzalibraryOPEnglish
          2•1 year ago

          Russia seems to have concluded it’s necessary to “protect” American IP

          That’s new fact I learn today. Surprisingly Russia method in this case was very interesting.

          cost of maintaining your IP outweighs the benefits for all but the largest companies.

          Totally agree. This is the problem of close IP in our business model right now, I re-found my quote about this topic from “Open Heritage Data: An Introduction to Research, Publishing, and Programming with Open Data in the Heritage Sector” book:

          Outside the heritage sector, in the music industry, the film industry, and many other creative industries, they have the same struggle, and copyright is very big business indeed. It seems that much of our copyright law and practice today is still aimed at these areas, and this is perhaps why it is very difficult to understand copyright in the context of heritage data. However, one important thing to remember about copyright is the motivation for the law. Copyright should act as a motivation to create, because you know that you are the owner of your creative work and thus have certain rights over it.

          Now I understand clearly how important IP is with the new fact that far from example I’ve found so far. Thank you so much for your insight! Really appreaciate your time to answering my foolish question…