107 replies to this topic

[RighteousReason]

Ok. Yeah I rarely use bit torrent anymore. I got a blockbuster card now for watching movies.

scratch that. Netflix is the way to go

[RighteousReason]

human worth does not depend on the ability to work or produce art.

can you expand on this?

[JLL]

Now I'm convinced your system would collapse under its own impossibility. I don't think I have to worry about the world turning out that way.

?? You realize what I'm describing is pretty much the system we have now... ?

No, you can copy one word or note under the current system.

[RighteousReason]

Now I'm convinced your system would collapse under its own impossibility. I don't think I have to worry about the world turning out that way.

?? You realize what I'm describing is pretty much the system we have now... ?

No, you can copy one word or note under the current system.

that is sort of a degenerate case. language itself is pretty much public domain, except in some special cases like for example trademarks. I'm not sure how made up words are covered like in Neal Stephenson's book http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anathem

[Cameron]

human worth does not depend on the ability to work or produce art.

can you expand on this?

A human being, is a conscious entity. Consciousness, gives intrinsic value to a human far beyond that given by his capacity to do work or create art. A non-conscious entity can be valued based on its artistic value, capacity to do work or art, rareness or any other parameter, but the line dividing the conscious from the unconscious is immeasurable in terms of value.

[RighteousReason]

human worth does not depend on the ability to work or produce art.

can you expand on this?

A human being, is a conscious entity. Consciousness, gives intrinsic value to a human far beyond that given by his capacity to do work or create art. A non-conscious entity can be valued based on its artistic value, capacity to do work or art, rareness or any other parameter, but the line dividing the conscious from the unconscious is immeasurable in terms of value.

but how do you define consciousness in such a way as to distinguish that dividing line?

this is where I point to "The Missing Link"
http://objectivism.u...issing link.htm

[Cameron]

I believe once the nature of the mind is unraveled, we will likely be able to define the necessary elements for its presence. It's conceivable animals, things like cattle and poultry have consciousness, if this is the case.... it along with the circumstances in prisons across many nations, as well the death penalty in some places, might provide sufficient justification to remove from power any nation that provided the evidence(assuming it exists) does not cease such behavior within reasonable time. That is be subject to removal of all of its powers by an invasion from the nation(s) that wish to provide reasonable treatment to conscious beings.

[eternaltraveler]

It's conceivable animals, things like cattle and poultry have consciousness

of course they do(to one degree or another). Why wouldn't they? What's inconceivable is that "consciousness" just appeared fully formed in humans like Athena from Zeus's head.

Edited by eternaltraveler, 11 May 2010 - 01:32 AM.

[donjoe]

Socialists seem to have invented this fantasy that StarTrek-like replicators will somehow make capitalism obsolete - too bad for them that fantasy is based on nothing but economic ignorance and mindless wishful thinking...

Poor thing, you're so stuck in your superstitious jungle-worshipping concept of "economy" that you're completely oblivious to what's happening around you in the real world.
http://www.marshallb...otic-nation.htm

[Alex Libman]

Ummmhumm. Right. Let's see how fast every other form of business folds if manufacturing ceases.

The collapse of the hunter-gatherer economic sector over the past several thousand years didn't seem to hurt our species all that much as we shifted to more efficient means of acquiring our sustenance. As farming became more efficient, most jobs shifted to manufacturing. As manufacturing becomes more efficient, most jobs will shift to the service sector, which is precisely where they belong. Artificial intelligence and automation will destroy some service sector jobs, but also create others. The unique value of a human being is not in his muscles, and not even in his ability to push a pencil to do some menial white-collar tasks, but it is in his ability to create new ideas and to relate to others!

Manufacturing may be less of the US economy, but only because that manufacturing is now done outside the US. Your argument neglects that fact. Manufacturing is the root. Remove it and the rest collapses.

As the artificial barriers to our planetary economy are reduced, manufacturing will naturally transition to the economic environments most suited for it, which includes access to cheap labor as one of its criteria. Making USA more competitive for more manufacturing tasks would require removing the minimum wage restrictions and other regulations, and opening the borders wide open until our population density is on parity with Asia - not something that is politically feasible at this time.

The industrial revolution has transformed England, the Netherlands, USA, and Scandinavia first, then it shifted eastward to France, Germany, and the rest of Europe, Russia, Japan, etc. It is now coming to places like China, India, and eventually the farthest reaches of Africa. It will go to places with greatest economic freedom first, and leave tyrannical isolationists in absolute poverty unless they reform (and colonizing them might at some point seem like the moral thing to do). The world will be one economy, whether you like it or not. Eventually manufacturing will become fully robotized and move to space, where there is greater access to energy (sun) and raw materials (ex. the asteroid belt), almost no environmental externalities, and no gravity to get in your way.

It's conceivable animals, things like cattle and poultry have consciousness

Mere consciousness is not the criteria for Rights (see appropriate thread).

[...] the death penalty [...]

See here.

might provide sufficient justification to remove from power any nation that provided the evidence(assuming it exists) does not cease such behavior within reasonable time. That is be subject to removal of all of its powers by an invasion from the nation(s) that wish to provide reasonable treatment to conscious beings.

I agree, but you are thinking collectively and under an irrational distinction between entities that do or do not have Natural Rights. All violators of the Non-Aggression Principle should be retaliated against, their crimes documented (i.e. "open source" justice), and made to cease their aggression, utilizing defensive force if necessary, and if possible made to pay restitution to their victims. In much of the world you will find that the biggest violators of Rights are overgrown mafia-like institutions that call themselves "government", whose power in a free society would be no greater than that of a neighborhood association, a church, a charity, or any other voluntary institution.

Poor thing, you're so stuck in your superstitious jungle-worshipping concept of "economy" that you're completely oblivious to what's happening around you in the real world.
http://www.marshallb...otic-nation.htm

The severity of your insults only shows your desperation, and their content seems to suggest that you subconsciously understand the weakness of your arguments, and throw at me the very criticisms that you expect to be thrown at you. It is your understanding of economics and technology that is detached from the real world, and your link to some socialist's article about "robotics destroying jobs" confirms this. If your job can be "destroyed" by a robot, then it should be destroyed!

Edited by Alex Libman, 11 May 2010 - 09:29 PM.

[Cameron]

Mere consciousness is not the criteria for Rights

If consciousness is found to be present in other animals, their shape and body does not matter. Nor do the limits of their intellect. For all intents and purposes killing, torturing and enslaving them would be the same as doing so to other humans.

Human intellectual capacity is something that can go away, by a simple thing such as a stroke. If there is loss of sufficient brain tissue, it is for all practical purposes impossible to regain capacity under natural conditions. As for animals, an animal could probably be enhanced artificially and gain capacity beyond human. So intellectual capacity should not influence once's rights. If I lose the ability to use language, but retain consciousness, I can sure feel the pain of torture, I also still exist as an individual. As mentioned, humans too may have conditions that may preclude them from ever gaining the intellectual capacity under natural conditions.(for example, a condition that gives a high probability or certainty of death prior to acquiring language capacity.) Crimes against conscious entities are equivalent in gravity to crimes against humanity, imho.

[RighteousReason]

Mere consciousness is not the criteria for Rights

If consciousness is found to be present in other animals, their shape and body does not matter. Nor do the limits of their intellect. For all intents and purposes killing, torturing and enslaving them would be the same as doing so to other humans.

Human intellectual capacity is something that can go away, by a simple thing such as a stroke. If there is loss of sufficient brain tissue, it is for all practical purposes impossible to regain capacity under natural conditions. As for animals, an animal could probably be enhanced artificially and gain capacity beyond human. So intellectual capacity should not influence once's rights. If I lose the ability to use language, but retain consciousness, I can sure feel the pain of torture, I also still exist as an individual. As mentioned, humans too may have conditions that may preclude them from ever gaining the intellectual capacity under natural conditions.(for example, a condition that gives a high probability or certainty of death prior to acquiring language capacity.) Crimes against conscious entities are equivalent in gravity to crimes against humanity, imho.

it's obvious you have no idea what in the world you even mean by consciousness, so its amusing to me that you have created this elaborate rule system about it.

[Cameron]

it's obvious you have no idea what in the world you even mean by consciousness, so its amusing to me that you have created this elaborate rule system about it.

Obvious? That does not follow. What I mean by consciousness is quite simply the presence of an individual, an 'I' behind the actions of a particular being, in other words, someone that can have 'qualia'. That is the consciousness that is invoked when you hear people saying a copy carries a different consciousness, that it is a different individual, in arguments about uploading and teleporting. The ESSENCE of an individual person is the capacity for consciousness. That there is 'someone' that is 'feeling' behind a particular system. If I've a stroke an find myself with dyscalculia or alexia or what have you, I still exist as an individual able to feel. If I'm unable to carry an argument, recognize a face, or even comprehend language, I still remain as an individual person. As long as an 'I', a 'me', remains, the rights given to a person should be made to remain with me.

If you prove that an animal has an 'I', that there is someone able to feel and think, that it is not just an automaton, a so called philosophical zombie, it is for all intents and purposes a person. With sufficient technology one could design a dog/cat/cow/etc with a body indistinguishable from that of a human, only the brain would be different. The body itself does not matter at all. If we take the opposite and instead of a mind upgrade a human somehow managed to downgrade its brain to that of a dog, cow, etc, and retained consciousness(assuming animals have consciousness), I do not see why that individual can suddenly become the property or food of someone else.

[RighteousReason]

it's obvious you have no idea what in the world you even mean by consciousness, so its amusing to me that you have created this elaborate rule system about it.

Obvious? That does not follow. What I mean by consciousness is quite simply the presence of an individual, an 'I' behind the actions of a particular being, in other words, someone that can have 'qualia'. That is the consciousness that is invoked when you hear people saying a copy carries a different consciousness, that it is a different individual, in arguments about uploading and teleporting. The ESSENCE of an individual person is the capacity for consciousness. That there is 'someone' that is 'feeling' behind a particular system. If I've a stroke an find myself with dyscalculia or alexia or what have you, I still exist as an individual able to feel. If I'm unable to carry an argument, recognize a face, or even comprehend language, I still remain as an individual person. As long as an 'I', a 'me', remains, the rights given to a person should be made to remain with me.

If you prove that an animal has an 'I', that there is someone able to feel and think, that it is not just an automaton, a so called philosophical zombie, it is for all intents and purposes a person. With sufficient technology one could design a dog/cat/cow/etc with a body indistinguishable from that of a human, only the brain would be different. The body itself does not matter at all. If we take the opposite and instead of a mind upgrade a human somehow managed to downgrade its brain to that of a dog, cow, etc, and retained consciousness(assuming animals have consciousness), I do not see why that individual can suddenly become the property or food of someone else.

please get the hell out of my thread

edit: haha

edit edit: no seriously. get out. if you want to talk about your idiotic definition of consciousness and hand wave about qualia and other trash go make your own thread. this thread is about IP

Edited by RighteousReason, 12 May 2010 - 12:25 PM.

[donjoe]

The severity of your insults only shows your desperation, and their content seems to suggest bla bla bla, psychogenetic fallacy, ad hoc worthless speculations about what's "really" going on in the interlocutor's head etc.

The way you confuse my harsh qualifications of stupid concepts with insults against persons (which they were clearly not) only serves to prove the limits of your ability to understand language and to reason about what has been communicated to you.

your link to some socialist's article about "robotics destroying jobs"

... lists several easily provable realities like the types of jobs that have already been destroyed by automation and the kinds of technologies that are being actively developed and that will almost certainly destroy other categories of jobs as well, furthering the world toward that exact situation you think is (next to) impossible - Abundance For All and the obsolescence of freemarketarian capitalism.

If your job can be "destroyed" by a robot, then it should be destroyed!

Absolutely correct. But this will happen to many more jobs than you want to admit, given enough time.

if you want to talk about your idiotic definition of consciousness and hand wave about qualia and other trash go make your own thread.

Hear, hear! Superstitious nonsense like "qualia" has no place in any rational debate. 8)

Edited by donjoe, 12 May 2010 - 04:19 PM.

[valkyrie_ice]

Ummmhumm. Right. Let's see how fast every other form of business folds if manufacturing ceases.

The collapse of the hunter-gatherer economic sector over the past several thousand years didn't seem to hurt our species all that much as we shifted to more efficient means of acquiring our sustenance. As farming became more efficient, most jobs shifted to manufacturing. As manufacturing becomes more efficient, most jobs will shift to the service sector, which is precisely where they belong. Artificial intelligence and automation will destroy some service sector jobs, but also create others. The unique value of a human being is not in his muscles, and not even in his ability to push a pencil to do some menial white-collar tasks, but it is in his ability to create new ideas and to relate to others!

What you seem to fail to realize is that every task performed by humans are subject to rules based, step by step breakdown into discrete operations. Manufacturing will become done by automated factories. So will service jobs. So will the medical professions, and in the end, even "creative" tasks such as art and writing will become automated.

In the end, there will be no "unique value" that a human will have that is not shared by a machine. So UNLESS we grant humanity those rights which you oppose so violently, we will have no value at all.

That is the trap in equating humanity's value with PRODUCTION, instead of seeing value in simple EXISTENCE.

Manufacturing may be less of the US economy, but only because that manufacturing is now done outside the US. Your argument neglects that fact. Manufacturing is the root. Remove it and the rest collapses.

As the artificial barriers to our planetary economy are reduced, manufacturing will naturally transition to the economic environments most suited for it, which includes access to cheap labor as one of its criteria. Making USA more competitive for more manufacturing tasks would require removing the minimum wage restrictions and other regulations, and opening the borders wide open until our population density is on parity with Asia - not something that is politically feasible at this time.

The industrial revolution has transformed England, the Netherlands, USA, and Scandinavia first, then it shifted eastward to France, Germany, and the rest of Europe, Russia, Japan, etc. It is now coming to places like China, India, and eventually the farthest reaches of Africa. It will go to places with greatest economic freedom first, and leave tyrannical isolationists in absolute poverty unless they reform (and colonizing them might at some point seem like the moral thing to do). The world will be one economy, whether you like it or not. Eventually manufacturing will become fully robotized and move to space, where there is greater access to energy (sun) and raw materials (ex. the asteroid belt), almost no environmental externalities, and no gravity to get in your way.

And you make part of my case towards an economy of abundance for me. I agree completely! These are all factors which are quite true. And areas with the greatest economic freedom are those in which regulation is enforced that keeps business's accountable, the playing field level, and prevents exploitation. So long as strong regulation such as Glass-Stegall was in place and actively enforced, our economy generally grew steadily. But the moment those regulations came off, the market took an immediate slant in favor of fraud, embezzlement, and monopolies. And yet, those are rapidly failing, and regulation is beginning which will end with the market returned to the regulated state in which it works best.

One of the things which will change is how IP and Patent laws are addressed. RR has a few good points, especially in that the originator should possess full rights to his creation, and can contract specific rights to others, but the scope of what is considered "unique to the creator" must be far more specific and limited than current laws are. As material goods become cheaper and cheaper to produce, and design tools allow more and more people to contribute to the "creative process" the current laws will continue to be a barrier to progress and innovation tilted entirely in the favor of corporations, and not those who actually create.

[eternaltraveler]

UNLESS we grant humanity those rights which you oppose so violently, we will have no value at all.

at that point "we" won't be in a position to grant rights to anything. Those machines you refer too will. It won't really matter what our own opinions on how resources are allocated any more than your puppy's opinion matters when we decide to allocate resources to build space stations and nuclear plants.

That is the trap in equating humanity's value with PRODUCTION, instead of seeing value in simple EXISTENCE

and puppies might think the meaning of life is to get as much food from the kitchen table as possible, but those that produce resources at the are the ones who get to control them if for no other reason than they can simply stop producing if they are so inclined.

Edited by eternaltraveler, 12 May 2010 - 08:39 PM.

[Cameron]

edit edit: no seriously. get out. if you want to talk about your idiotic definition of consciousness and hand wave about qualia and other trash go make your own thread. this thread is about IP

Sorry mate, the statements regarding consciousness were a reply to Alex Libman and I'd have left it at that, had it not been for your non sequitur. Humans have often entertained in fiction, in myths, and in religion the possibility of human minds ending up in animal bodies with animal limits on intelligence, this is not some incomprehensible thing. Even here many are those that seek a path to transcend human limits. If human consciousness can remain the same as one scales up the ladder of intellectual capacity, it does beg the question: can one descend down the ladder with one's consciousness?and if so, how far down can one go? If a human can go down the ladder and still remain an individual, the same consciousness, then those at whatever's the lowest possible level, should also have the same rights.

Deep down the criteria for rights is the existence of an individual, not whether this individual knows mathematics, or speaks a certain language or has a certain level of intellectual capacity or a certain lifespan.

As for content, be aware that if it was possible to attain sufficient computational and storage capacity, even 'dumb' algorithms could go through and store all possible pictures, mp3s, movies, books up to the necessary length to claim rights over all novel future works in all said fields... Thus it is conceivable that if someone got hold of such capacity, they would own all possible future content, as they've created and stored all possible content up to the required length.

Edited by Cameron, 12 May 2010 - 10:22 PM.