Cethin

I would assume it’s to make the metadata seem more reasonable, so people pay less attention to the cut. ‘The “perfectly innocent” act of “touching it up” is the reason the metadata says what it does, not because we removed part of it. Don’t look any closer!’

I don’t know if you understand what protectionism is. Protectionism is favoring domestic production over foreign. I don’t think it has anything to do with your comment. The way you’re using it seems to be just not holding them accountable. That’s just capitalism though. They buy the legislators who create the justice system.

I agree larger corporations should face more scrutiny or liability. I’ve never seen a Libertarian express this opinion though. The standard libertarian position is: “The larger company earned its money and should be free to spend it how they wish, including molding the system to its desires. The Market decided they’re the most capable after all.”

I haven’t seen those originals disappear…

It happens. You probably wouldn’t notice it, but it’s constantly going on. It’s particularly bad for niche product. Things like charging cables or whatever, the market is large enough to support multiple products, and there’s only so far Amazon is willing to cut it and those are cost so little for anyone to make.

Neither should be the end goal, the goal should be leaving people alone so they can pursue happiness on their own.

A goal has to be something measurable, but sure. Yeah. That’s basically what I said. Improve lives (meaning happiness). That essentially implies freedom to persue what you want. I don’t know what else it could mean. However, it also need to include companies leaving people alone. The government isn’t the only source of authority influencing peoples lives, and we need a government to protect them.

Obviously, I haven’t dealt in specifics at all and I represented it in fairly extreme language to make a point. The idea I’m trying to convey is that I think less is more absolutely applies to the government, and we should strive to simplify it to where it’s transparent enough that the average person actually understands what government does.

I largely agree, but I think the key point of why anarchism (aka, removing hierarchy, not no government) is the way I went is because, with hierarchy, those with resources will always buy an advantage. We need a government that actually represents the people, which means it needs to be made of the people, not lifelong legislators. Some of that should be direct democracy where it can be, but rotating representatives chosen from regular people who serve temporary terms, so they can’t gather power, is ideal. As long as capital controls the government then capitalists will buy the system, and libertarians generally (not saying you specifically) argue this is part of the design and good, because they proved “they know best.”

I have serious practical concerns with anarchism, but that is certainly the ideal.

You should have serious practical concerns with everything. My practical concerns with libertarianism is what led me to social anarchism. For example:

Consumer protections should largely be unnecessary if the market is sufficiently competitive, and ending protectionism should provide that…

Why? Why would ending protectionism necessarily demand competition? Without government stepping in, why wouldn’t the largest companies create barriers that prevent competition? They can user their capital to undercut competitors until they can’t remain solvent, then increase prices far above cost. They can also buy out competitors before they are real competition. They can use their market dominance to demand suppliers to show their product more prominently, or to only show their product.

There are far too many ways the dominant company can curtail competition, and we’ve seen it played out many times even with our current system that Libertarians want to remove the guardrails from. For example, items listed on Amazon that sell moderately well, Amazon creates knockoffs for. They then sell them at a cheaper price under the “Amazon Basic” name until the original is gone, and then they increase prices. This is what the free market looks like.

This is the kind of thing that led me to social anarchism. People are the important thing, not companies. We need a government that’s empowered to protect people, but that let’s people do what they want (assuming they don’t hurt other people). Ideally also we remove hierarchy from the companies and have them owned by employees or the people also. Letting them treat humans as a human resource (which is crazy that HR can be called that and people don’t see a problem) is the issue. Improving the lives of people should be the end goal, not profit.

No, I’m pretty sure he grasps that concept, and he thinks what he believes is that universal truth.

I am a bit left of center in the US and pretty centrist on a global scale, and I lean fairly libertarian. I’m left of most libertarian candidates in the US, supporting things like UBI as an alternative to welfare programs. So I think I have a decent perspective on what’s left and right.

I started at your position a long time ago, when I was a teenager. I realized libertarians are full of shit, and eventually discovered a better descriptor of my beliefs was anarchist (in particular, social anarchist). I think the government shouldn’t be telling people how to live or what they can or can’t do. It should be there to protect people (emphasis; not corporations).

Libertarians (in the US at least) are really just anarcho-capitalists. They want freedom for businesses, but usually at the expense of freedom for people. They don’t want protection for people from exploitation. They want businesses with enough money to be able to exert their authority as far as possible, to the extent of blocking competition and effectively creating slaves. (They’ll argue they don’t agree with slavery, but what’s the difference between your employer owning your ability to live and slavery?)

It depends on where you draw the line for “the center.” I’d agree it’s leftist for America, but it’s center-left on a global scale. You’ll usually get some push back if you promote true leftist politics. Usually more agreement than dissent, but still some.

It’s correct. If you choose to answer questions, you should tell the truth. That should be preceded, in bold, “don’t fucking answer questions! If the police talk to you, shut the fuck up.”

Again, the point is you were saying (or agreeing) that copies being available for free decrease the value. You then later say it has intrinsic value.

I’m not arguing that they don’t have intrinsic value. I’m arguing that you undermined the point of value decreasing if it exists for free by admitting this. It doesn’t. It’s worth something no matter what someone else paid, and no matter what you paid.

A game decreasing in price over time isn’t doing so because it’s worth less (usually, with the exception of online games). They’re decreasing the price to capture customers who don’t agree with the original valuation. It doesn’t change value to the consumer based on the price changing. The object is not suddenly less valuable when there’s a sale and more valuable again after. It has a degree of “goodness” no matter what. The price doesn’t effect this.

Also also, either the thing you’re copying has value that arose from the effort of creating it, or it doesn’t. If it’s of value, then it’s reasonable to expect payment for it. It’s it’s not of value, then you shouldn’t miss not having it.

Doesn’t this contradict the whole rest of the argument? It either has value or it doesn’t. It being available for free somewhere doesn’t change the value. If it’s not of value, then they shouldn’t miss you having it.

They get paid. They just don’t get a share of profits. They are usually paid a salary or, increasingly more commonly, are paid as a contractor.

Adding on to say: no. It doesn’t cost the creator anything when a pirated copy is made. They potentially miss a sale, but if their item wasn’t in a store where someone may have made a purchase you wouldn’t call that actively harmful, right?

In addition, most media the creators don’t actually make money from the profit. Most of the time they’re paid a salary, maybe with a bonus if it does particularly well. The company that owns the product takes the profit (or loss), not the actual creators.

Also, a lot of media isn’t even controlled by the same people as when it was made. For example, buying the Dune books doesn’t give money to Frank Herbert. It goes to his estate.

I found settings for it in my phone’s settings menu, so yeah, no standalone app you can disable or remove. They baked it into the OS.

If you’re talking about the first paragraph, then no, that’s literally what they do.

I agree, but one thing that people always miss with these kinds of rulings is that they generally come with increased oversight and greater fines for repeat offenses. They’re more likely to be caught if they try it again, and it’ll grow until it actually hurts.

Still, this should be a lot larger. They should be trying to dissuade first-time offenses as well, not letting them take advantage of the system for profit because it won’t hurt much when they’re found out.

The difference is basically a nationalist thinks they’re superior. They don’t care about facts or anything, the just know they are the best. A patriot knows they can learn from others and improve things. They’re trying to improve things, not just force themselves on others.

I know I’ve said this so many times now, but you keep just wanting to say it’s the same as nationalism. This is my last reply I think because you just keep insisting I’m saying things I’m not.

I don’t know, man, I struggle to share your very US-centric view…

I used examples from the US. None of what I said had anything to do with the US outside of examples. I didn’t say this is only the case in the US or anything like that. Again, you keep putting words in my mouth. Argue in good faith or don’t at all. You’re just wasting both of our time.

You’re putting words in my mouth saying that I said American revolutionaries were great people. I never said such a thing, nor would I. Stop reading more into what I said than I actually said please.

They were people willing to lay their lives down for something they thought was worth fighting for. Not out of some ignorance that the status quo is the best option, but because they wanted to make changes to improve things for their community (and their self too, sure). That’s what patriotism is.

I’d argue that it’s necessarily not pristine. You have to be willing to get dirty. You don’t win a war with honor. You win it by killing other people until the other side isn’t fighting anymore. The same is true for any fight (not the killing necessarily, but being willing to do what needs to be done).

I just brought them up as an example of patriotism though. I’m not saying they’re a perfect example, just an example. This isn’t about the US, like you’re making it to be. You’re not arguing against the point. Your entire comment can be boiled down to “American revolutionaries are bad” but it doesn’t say really anything about patriotism.

Anyway, my point is, don’t let nationalists take the term. Maybe you don’t, but most people have positive opinions if the term. It’s easier and more useful to take the term back, because it isn’t necessarily a nationalist term. There are plenty of leftist patriots throughout history and the world. The right is good at using language as a weapon. We should be too, and we shouldn’t back off every time they try to use it.

Well, also AI is hurting actual human beings. We should be fighting against it too. Yeah, be careful of crossfire, but it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t fire at all.

Well, then what fatherland is the patriot beholden to?

Cause that’s what the word means.

The land (and people), but not necessarily the state.

(The term state ahead is really annoying.)

Maybe part of it comes from being in the US, where we have a weird form of double governance of the “state” and “federal” governments. Which state are we loyal too, because they’re both ours? It makes things more malleable. The states could agree to form a totally new federal government if they wanted to.

A patriot may care for whatever arbitrary definition the XVIIIth century put on their identity and be well meaning enough about it. I’m not a patriot. The historical borders of what some consider a nation today have no particular relevance, beyond the fact that they happen to drive some level of administration.

There are multiple definitions of country. Some don’t care about the state that defines the borders. Your country is the land where you were born, not the state necessarily. One example that comes to mind in the US, which spans multiple states, is “Appalachia.” Appalachian people are a broad culture group who live in the Appalachian mountain region, and are distinct from the states they reside, and the larger US obviously. They are countrymen of each other.

I have no particular interest in whitewashing any of that into some supposedly healthy version of patriotism that has very rarely existed in any way.

No, the problem is some other people have changed the term to mean nationalist. For example, in the US, people were called patriots for fighting for the people in the colonies against the state that controlled them (Britain). They didn’t approve of the state and wanted to improve it, so they fought to change it and left the former state that was controlling them. Patriotism doesn’t have to be blind support of a state, and I’d argue that isn’t patriotism, because you aren’t defending it from bad actors/actions.

Regardless, I find that “making their country better” should be a distant second to “making the world better”, and perhaps a close third behind “making the crap you have on hand and the lives of those immediately around you better”.

I find this statement odd. So you think it’s best to start local, right? OK, so next from your immediate community, you should expand out, eventually to country, then to world, right? Isn’t that the logical progression. From more influence to less? Why is your priority jumping all over?

Look, I am not a globalist anarchist.

Funnily enough, I am an Anarchist. I don’t know if I’d call myself a globalist, but probably. I also believe in well structured democratic governments. Those aren’t at odds with each other.

Maybe I was the right age to look at the EU and think that those don’t have to be held to the absurd liberal idea of the nation-state,and that wherever a collective of humans have a common interest there should be governance structured to work with other layers of organization to improve things and enforce rights within that sphere. There is nothing magical about the nation-state layer of government that makes it more spiritually attuned to identity or the needs of the people. It’s all administrative stuff as far as I’m concerned.

I think we’re in agreement. This isn’t counter to what I said. I’d say it’s in unison with it. People should work to improve their governments in any way they can. They should try to reshape it to better represent them. That’s what a patriot would do, not just settle for the status quo and assume they’re the best possible version there can be.

Patriotism is very cool. Nationalism isn’t, which has mostly subverted the term patriot. A patriot stands up when their nation is doing something wrong. They don’t blindly believe they’re the best, they recognize that there’s things they can improve. They fight to make their country better, not to make others worse.