You're just wrong. It's not that the "simpler" theories are usually correct. It is "simpler" for computers and televisions to work by magic, rather than by complex circuitry. It is "simpler" that people are either "evil" or "good", but that's clearly not the case. The point of Occam's Razor and the thinking behind it, which is what you mistakenly cited in your post, is not the eliminate shades of gray, since most systems worth considering are complex.

Occam's Razor actually suggests that one should eliminate unnecessary assumptions. In the first example, having to assume that some sort of "magic" exists that just "magically" makes computers and televisions work is an unnecessary and untenable assumption.

Your little rant basically is saying: "Wouldn't it be nice if God just made it all work, and we didn't have to think - people should stop thinking!" The world clearly demonstrations that if it was explicitly created by a God, his goal was that it all work without assumptions like you are making.

Hmm, whoops, I guess I mispoke. I don't know about the digital music industry beginning in the late 1800's. What I meant was the recorded music industry.

Either moderators were being kind and understanding (at Slashdot?!), or not only do slashdot members not RTFA, they don't RTFC either.

As far as the argument goes that the patent structure has been litigious, complicated, and obnoxious for a long time, I think we can all agree. Slashdot often discusses copyright as it applies to digital music, and it's interesting that the digital music industry began at a time in which there was heavy litigation over the copying of sheet music; this was in the late 1800's.

But the argument that this complex patent superstructure doesn't reduce efficiency seems a little far fetched to me. Just because we've done it this way for a long time doesn't automatically mean that it's the best system. Who can say what would have happened over the last century and a half with less complicated patent laws? I'm sure there would be no consensus as to whether we would have done better or worse.

The most compelling case for copyright, for me, comes from Joseph Schumpeter's concept of creative destruction. In essence, he argues that copyright creates more innovation because it does not allow people to use the status quo of ideas. However, I'm not sure that the complexity of the copyright system is what he had in mind, since adding complexity increases barrier entries to innovators without increasing incentives to monopolists (i.e. copyright holders) to improve as well.

Some days I just wish that Slashdot had a "favorites" feature. Just good stuff.

I recall slashdot discussing this previously in terms of Freenet, although it's probably not a full discussion of legal ramifications (since everyone here says IANAL compulsively). You'll find it here.

As far as I can tell, much like any legal issue, most of what you'll find as far as legal discussion is mainly a lot of "Well, such-and-such may or may not apply here. Please consult your lawyer."

As if we all just have consitutional (if you're in the US) lawyers on retainer. I wish people would just give some advice, even though it will not be authoritative.

For some specific dissembling on this topic, you can also see freenet's legal FAQ.

Not only does it cut both ways, but it should. The thing about freedom is that 9 times out of 10 it only becomes clear that an action was that of a "freedom fighter" rather than a "terrorist" in hindsight. This is the reason for the high standards for prior restraint of the press.

I'm not a fan of "sticking it to the man" in general, but when I hear about Tor and similar programs being used for "the wrong purposes" (whether that be organized crime, terrorism, etc), I feel better knowing that the software exists.

The day when no secure methods exist for organized crime to communicate with each other is likely the day when one is guilty until proven innocent. The broad curtailing of freedoms should give us pause every time it comes up; that doesn't seem to necessarily be the case anymore.

I always hear about these sorts of discoveries, of new planets more and more similar to earth, but having almost no astronomy background, I have no idea how significant they are.

How much do we really know about these planets, and how much is guessing? How close are these planets, really, to earth?

It's interesting that the author attributes the outliers' success partially to their circumstances, as if each of these individuals was somehow fated to pursue their exact paths regardless of the time period they lived in.

It seems at least as plausible to me that part of their talent lay in recognizing the opportunity which they pursued. It reminds me mostly of how many scientific breakthroughs are pursued at the same time by many thinkers in the field. The climate is right for that kind of breakthrough, and talented individuals recognize the potential breakthroughs - and then make them. You could read breakthroughs two ways: 1) the individuals were "lucky" to have lived right before the breakthrough was made, or 2) the individuals were talented enough that they would have had a reasonable change of making a breakthrough, and the timing just influenced which breakthrough was made by them.

Furthermore, there seems to be a difference between attributing outliers' success to external factors and explaining a population's success via cultural factors. Cultural factors are not external to the population in the same way that luck is external to an individual outlier, so at first glance, it seems like these chapters do not speak to each other much.