Oblig/meta: Orwell was an optimist

It sure as hell is the property of the person who created it.

No. It's not. I can prove it.

You think of X. You're happily sitting there thinking it's your "property." But Joe also thought of this. Do you imagine you now own "half" the "property"? Or that you both "own" all of the "property"? What if it's so obvious that everyone thinks of it at the same time? Whose "property" is it then?

You see, it's not property. It's an idea. A flux of neural activity that you cannot prevent from happening in someone else's head. You can certainly pretend it's property, but none of logic or the legal system or the constitution supports that position, so I really don't see any reason to take your position seriously.

And why should they get a chance?

Because it's just an idea. It's not property. Also because that's the ultimate intent of our system. Patent owners get a short-term monopoly, society gets the idea after that. I'm trying to formulate a way that the benefit to society arrives sooner, as does at least some of the reward for the inventor -- without in the process creating a coerced monopoly at all.

To your perceived actual value of the invention?

No, not mine. I am suggesting first as an estimate by a group of people who understand the technology and the relevant market(s) at the moment, pre-release, then later on, after its actual value has been demonstrated by adoption, in a much more precise manner.

That business that starts ABCs is a complete strawman. I didn't say anything about legality. I'm proposing an alternate means of reward than monopoly. Also, the intent of patents was not at all what you say. The intention of patents was to obtain the benefits of invention for all of society, and in order to do that, a temporary monopoly on some rights in granted. Learn your history. Lastly, don't think to lecture me about business. I've run a few, still own three, and actually know a thing or two about profit, market and invention, among other things. From the constitution:

[The Congress shall have Power] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries

"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" is the point. Not your nonsense about "the person who invented the product or sold the invention to makes the profits and not someone who had nothing to do with it." Profit is used as the motive to get people to invent, so society (in other words, yes, people who had nothing to do with it) will benefit. Invention isn't protected in order that individuals profit. That's ass-backwards.

Are you willing to share 10% of your salary with homeless people?

Income, not salary. And we (the SO and I) do. Except it's more than 10%. And the majority of that is consequent to my own creative output, none of which was facilitated by patent monopoly. Presently, I give away *all* of my new creative output. Some of which is quite sophisticated; but none of which is anything someone else could not have done, either. I don't pretend to own ideas, even the ones I had first as far as I've been able to determine. I enjoy invention; I don't think invention confers ownership. I respect invention; I think it represents a great force for good. Monopoly, in my opinion, does not. Monopoly seems to me to be a force for retarding progress.

Exactly my point. How things "are" is entirely dependent upon what your own challenges and successes are, and whether they are increasing or decreasing.

Nothing I said in any way denies the advance of technology or the shift of cultural values. My point is, what that means is relative to the individual. Your world view is not mine, and vice-versa. It's just ridiculous for me to say the world is better, or worse, for you. Only you can say that.

One person will rave about the positive aspects of kids having cellphones. Another will mourn the childhood exploration and freedom that the face-in-device, helicopter-parented youth culture has lost. One will rave about television, next person points out that the "gift" of Fox News and the rest is no favor to accuracy, education or sanity. A hundred years ago, the pledge of allegiance hadn't been suborned by the religious in violation of the 1st amendment. A hundred years ago, female and male roles were very different. Some of those changes may seem positive, some quite negative. A hundred years ago, you could buy a home on the wages of pretty much any job. Today, it is difficult to do without very, very expensive loans from third parties. 100 years ago, one could make many personal choices that are forbidden today. Marijuana, cocaine, etc. Just over a hundred years ago, the state began interfering with the choice to enter into a polygamous relationship, and we're still stuck with that coercion. You mentioned jury nullification, and you did so as if less of it was a good idea -- but to me, it's about the only power remaining that can save citizens from an overzealous and out of control justice system.

Many things have changed, and everyone can have an opinion on every change. It's all very much relative and personal. There's no way to say "things are much better overall" because you can't obtain or synthesize an "overall" viewpoint.

Are they guaranteeing throughput? Then it's meaningless for most folks. It's like putting tires rated for 200 MPH on your care and assuming it will now go 200 MPH.

Presidents, governors and mayors all do this kind of thing -- call up private businesses and ask them to do stuff. The mayor may call a local business and ask it to reconsider withdrawing its sponsorship of the local youth baseball league. The governor might call up union leaders and senior management in a strike, particularly if it affects things lots of people need like transit or health care.

This is the exercise of *soft* power, of influence rather than of compulsion. Obama can't call Apple and compel them to change their stance. But he can call Tim Cook and *persuade* him, possibly with more success than Michael Lynton, particuarly given that the two may be having some kind of dispute. Ego *does* play a role in CEO decision making.

That can be adjusted.

Tom Bombadil served as a projection of absolute mystery in a fantasy world where much wonder was already well documented. Even the Valar didn't know who he was. Probably. Tolkien believed you should never tell all the secrets, and frankly HE didn't know what Tom was, and was happy that way. Even mysteries should have mysteries.

And TB was his young son Christopher's favorite doll, in the real world. He put it in to make his son happy, I think.

Middle Earth is never boring. I could watch a 100 hour travel documentary with NO dialogue and be fascinated. (It really would be fascinating! The place is bloody enormous, and that was just the NW tip of the northern continent)

As a cloaked and rather spiritually amnesiac Maia, Gandalf has, along with all the other Ainur now locked into Arda who listened to the Eru Illuvatar Lecture about how the new worlds would work, has sort of a feeling, based on impressive but never quite remembered foreknowledge, of how the rabbit is gonna jump. He's got prophetic mojo, in small amounts, and he's on a Really Real Mission from God, or at least God's lieutenant, Manwe.

(Ever wonder who foretold all those prophecies everyone keeps talking about? Foreknowledge is part of ME. Some have it).

The crap was in the LOTR appendices. Tolkien just never had time enough to fill in the blanks. Christopher won't let Jackson have the other books, but the story Jackson told IS what happened off-screen, as it were, in the Hobbit book. Galdalf went off mysteriously, met with the White Council, got imprisoned, went after Sauron with the others and drove him out of his body (again). He interacted with a lot of people off-book, and Tolkien wrote a history documenting it. There are other creatures under the ground than Tolkien listed - practically an infinite number left over from when Ea was a void- inumerable other sentient species and far-off lands and continents. I was happy to see a little fill - there's so much room to grow the world. Doesn't make the movie bad, unless you think the Hobbit was bad, which it kinda was, as a novel, being a child's story. The Battle of Five Armies *was* that vicious - Tolkien simply Knocked Out the Protaganist and moved the story past the hero, keeping the violence down. ME wasn't a bonnie bucholic place, not at all.

Tolkien wrote the Hobbit for small children. Twee in tone - the dwarves had green, and yellow, and blue beards, for instance. In his short piece, A Meeting in Erebor (adapted into the movie!), he had Gandalf and Aragorn meet at the Pony, I think, and they discussed dark and grave matters in an adult tone, setting the Hobbit events up for the LOTR. Had Tolkien not had a day job, he'd probably had rewritten the Hobbit to bring in in line with the LOTR and the older stories.

Jackson had the appendices of the LOTR to work with, but nothing else from the Simarillion or Untold Tales, because the Tolkien estate doesn't like what he did. Perhaps that was shooting themselves in their own feet, as he had little story material and so had to make up filler.

Do recall that the Hobbit, as a story, is rather thin.

Hm. what I am trying to say, I think, is never to accept tech as a panacea, or even a amelliorative to a problem that is human and structural. The buggers will squirm and put a new hold on the suspect, as it were. The beatings may go down - that would be good. The cameras will help, undoubtably, and already have. We techites tend to believe in our equipment and ingenuity. But, recall that Apple has a patent on a geofenced override command for multimedia recording (on a phone at least). At some point, police and the like may, probably will, get the capability to shut off our recorders at will. Then they could shut off theirs, and then the DA and a jury has to decide who's lying. Usually cops and the DA win that battle.

Problem is, as I noodle it, is that the cops have become non-civilians, in their minds. If the people are civilians, then they must be soldiers, and they are no longer employees but an occupying army beset by the enemy. They'd never even say that in their minds, but it is, you must admit at this point, obvious that they have dettached themselves from the civilians. Turning your back on your boss, for instance, smacks of the ol' Army has Turned Against El Presidente. I dunno. Time to tear it down and start over? Reduce the number of stupid crimes so that the police don't have to view EVERYone as the possible enemy (trim it down to assault, murder, theft, and dump the moral and chemical crimes).

Relative impunity. Those were the cases where they were detected and punished. There will be thousands, tens of thousands of cases when they will not be caught, or if nailed, not punished much. Or simply plead technical issues - they have done so. You will of course hear about those fired; there certainly will be a small enough number so that they will be covered. The cops will adapt and adjust, and turn off the cams for the very nastiest acts. I've posted a number of links downthread where cops shut off their cams and killed someone, claiming tech issues.

And NO cop is ever presumed guilty. Infraction at most, fired at rare intervals. We won't count the number of times they get away with it, as apparently even Slashdotters aren't aware they are already disabling surveillance - what people don't know about, they don't notice. What will almost never happen, at the end of the diminishing curve of punishment, is a charge of murder.

Tens of thousands of men and women who have all the power and relative immunity and tight solidarity will wiggle this about until they have a new advantage.

Yes, some things are improving. But others are not. And to say that the things these people picked define "the world" is nothing more than hubris.

There are many things that are not improving. Some of them bode extremely poorly for the future. Climate may be one of those (or not... we will see.) Loss of privacy is another. Militarization of police is another. Constitutional erosion is another. A continuously increasing burden of badly crafted and anti-liberty legislation is another. The US justice system is a horror show from one end to the other. We're presently building a mostly unemployable permanent lower class by the continuing and increased implementation of never forgive, never forget social patterns and supporting technology. The vast majority of wealth has become concentrated in the hands of a very few people and corporations, and those same people and corporations have assumed de-facto control of our political system everywhere it does something that matters to them.

Depending on where you sit in regard to these issues, and others, your world may be sucking harder on an ever-increasing curve.

The world is what it is. Happy-assed optimism isn't called for outside of your own situation, and only then if that's how you see it.