True Confessions and a Bottle of Rum Rock Me Like a Hurricane

[The Newswire]

I have a confession to make. You probably know I'm opposed to piracy. I'm especially opposed to the kind of modern large scale digital piracy which makes it pretty much impossible to make a living as a midlist band. The internet is great for giving nowhere...

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[Buster Friendly]

So Bruce Sterling wrote a book in which the Chinese won a war with the U.S. by simply creating a net work of satellites that beamed western intellectual property for free to anyone who wanted it, there by destroying the entire information economy of the U.S. and bankrupting us in record time.

As I've mentioned in the past, it doesn't matter if piracy is wrong, it's going to happen because the technology exists.

Evolve or don't.

[Amelia G]

So Bruce Sterling wrote a book in which the Chinese won a war with the U.S. by simply creating a net work of satellites that beamed western intellectual property for free to anyone who wanted it, there by destroying the entire information economy of the U.S. and bankrupting us in record time.

As I've mentioned in the past, it doesn't matter if piracy is wrong, it's going to happen because the technology exists.

Evolve or don't.

That sounds interesting. I thought I'd read most of his stuff. What's the name of it?

[a_small_death]

Sounds much like the concept of dark net in many ways. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darknet_(file_sharing)

[Buster Friendly]

uh... that's "Distraction".

It's not a major plot point, it's all background and probably explained in like the first 3 pages or so.

[Toe Cutter]

Is that new GnR any good? I haven't heard it.

I know some of you ladies out there have a hard time coming to terms with the fact that Axl Rose is one of the prolific singers of our time and should be placed on a pedestal of greatness next to Morrison, Ozzy and Plant. ALL HAIL AXL!

[Raza]

Yarrr, we be pirates!

Hehehe.


Anytime you feel like debating the ethics of intellectual property, Amelia.

[Amelia G]

Yarrr, we be pirates!

Hehehe.


Anytime you feel like debating the ethics of intellectual property, Amelia.

I'm pretty sure these two slips, which I actually do feel bad about, still make me pretty much a virgin in terms of 2008 piracy.

[Raza]

Indeed; I would be the one arguing against the aforementioned ethics. That is to say, in favor of 'piracy' and the rejection of intellectual property.

[Amelia G]

Indeed; I would be the one arguing against the aforementioned ethics. That is to say, in favor of 'piracy' and the rejection of intellectual property.

Given that intellectual property is America's #1 export and the US economy is already gone to hell in a handbasket, and given that the US economy faltering too hard impacts the world economy, I'm thinking that ending intellectual property is a bad plan on a number of levels.

[Raza]

IP goes beyond economics; it's an entire tertairy system of interpersonal ethic (after normal property, and whatever you think applies when those two don't) that is currently being enforced by law on the populations of most first world countries. It overlaps most ungracefully with the other two, contituting an unmanagable barrier to a unified theory of human ethics. It compromises personal and intellectual freedom, culture, science and any number of points within humanity's mental development on a global scale offering no justification, no appeal to being right or effective in these fields, other than its boast of making a certain few sub-industries of the capitalistic system of material distribution profitable.

A regulation on human behaviour of this scale is not warranted by mere economic utility.

[Amelia G]

IP goes beyond economics; it's an entire tertairy system of interpersonal ethic (after normal property, and whatever you think applies when those two don't) that is currently being enforced by law on the populations of most first world countries. It overlaps most ungracefully with the other two, contituting an unmanagable barrier to a unified theory of human ethics. It compromises personal and intellectual freedom, culture, science and any number of points within humanity's mental development on a global scale offering no justification, no appeal to being right or effective in these fields, other than its boast of making a certain few sub-industries of the capitalistic system of material distribution profitable.

A regulation on human behaviour of this scale is not warranted by mere economic utility.

So what is your thought on what the majority of Americans should produce in order not to descend into Third World poverty and starvation?

I've gone hungry and it sucks a lot. Makes a person capable of things which are not good for human society.

Most businesses require someone to be born to money and to inherit wealth and/or a job, but entertainment and the sale of intellectual property allow people to move freely from one class to another. It is precisely because America produces and sells so much intellectual property that America has a society where there is class mobility. Parts of the world which do not have that tend not to have class mobility.

I think most artists will still create without financial incentive, albeit less prolifically and on a smaller scale, but what do you think creative people (and all the people who work in the support structure of creativity) should do for a living instead?

[Morning Glory]

aw, Amelia do you really want to start another thread of things that will just make you mad?

I'm just going to agree to disagree or disagree to agree on this one for the time being.

I think that art should be something that everyone should be able to experience and you can't put a price on individual expression. On the other hand artists should be able to make a living and it really sucks that doing what you love almost always takes backseat to working at a job that is unfulfilling and mundane.

[Ajax Knucklebones]

Back in the day I was a BIG GnR fan. If I remember straight, when Izzy quit the band, Axel totally fuckin' freaked because Izzy was the one who pretty much really wrote all the GnR hits. Axel knew he was fucked by Izzy's departure. I think that's why it as taken so long for a new album to arrive. Axel has spent more than a decade doing something that it took Izzy a few months to do. The truth is, take a decade, take a 100 years, if you not as talented as your other band member in writing songs, it doesn't matter how long you take. The songs you write will never be as good. I've heard some of the new songs. Yeah...I'm not that excited. Axel does have a great voice though. I'll give him that.

[Amelia G]

aw, Amelia do you really want to start another thread of things that will just make you mad?

I'm just going to agree to disagree or disagree to agree on this one for the time being.

I think that art should be something that everyone should be able to experience and you can't put a price on individual expression. On the other hand artists should be able to make a living and it really sucks that doing what you love almost always takes backseat to working at a job that is unfulfilling and mundane.

Although I mentioned piracy because it was relevant to the topic, as the final mix on Chinese Democracy does sound different from the primary pirated version, the topic was Axl Rose's solo effort and not what Western Civilization should do to earn its keep, if not intellectual property.

[Raza]

So what is your thought on what the majority of Americans should produce in order not to descend into Third World poverty and starvation?

I've gone hungry and it sucks a lot. Makes a person capable of things which are not good for human society.

Most businesses require someone to be born to money and to inherit wealth and/or a job, but entertainment and the sale of intellectual property allow people to move freely from one class to another. It is precisely because America produces and sells so much intellectual property that America has a society where there is class mobility. Parts of the world which do not have that tend not to have class mobility.

I think most artists will still create without financial incentive, albeit less prolifically and on a smaller scale, but what do you think creative people (and all the people who work in the support structure of creativity) should do for a living instead?

Well, I've got guessed and half-arsed theories, but primarily I think that these are flaws of capitalism or instances of its american execution over-reaching itself (again). It's a bit of a cop-out, but not supporting that system, my position doesn't require me to prove them all solvable.

I just don't at all agree that the failings of a system of material distribution should be patched up with a band-aid paid for in personal and intellectual freedom. If capitalism is not fulfilling its purpose without placing unreasonable demands on other facets of social ethic, it's time to move on to something else; which if nothing else is the kind of thought capitalists seem to understand better than most. Technocracy, I would suggest, were I to somehow be asked by an autonomous collective of a nation-state like scale posed to adress the matter - but I'm not opposed to groups experimenting with other subtypes of capitalism (more adherent to an underlying principle than the mish-mash of ideologies we have affecting it now), so long as people are involved on a voluntary basis and they don't expect their rules to apply to anyone on the outside.

[Morning Glory]