And of course the politicians only cared about money, that never changes. Before income tax one of the largest federal sources of revenue was an excise tax on alcohol. The 16th amendment allowed a federal income tax, creating an alternate source of revenue that paved the way for prohibition. And again it took the allure of taxes from alcohol, now on top of the federal income tax, to repeal prohibition. The problem now, as you mentioned, is that there is an entrenched industry relying on the continued criminalization of drugs and a stigma that outweighs potential tax revenues.
Just 5 years ago there was a Blockbuster, Hollywood video, a local chain called Coconuts, and maybe six or seven of those small independent stores you mentioned within walking distance of my house. Every single one has since closed down. Now there is only one place that I'm aware of still renting movies - a Redbox kiosk in front of the supermarket.
I wish I could find statistics, but I'd wager there are precious few independent owners left. With digital distribution, mail distribution, and the extremely cost-efficient Redoxes, there's little room for them.
HAL did not solve the problem directly. It was only by extension of creating HAL-2 that he was able to solve the problem. The fact remains that HAL-2 can accomplish a task that HAL cannot on its own, much in the same way humans can only solve certain mathematical problems by building computers.
Though your logic is sound, the statements assume some universal measure of cleverness. However, the intelligence it takes to build logic circuits is not the same as the intelligence needed to solve whatever instructions you send to those circuits. HAL-2 maybe be more clever in some areas than HAL and HAL maybe be more clever in other areas than HAL-2, and so there would be no more a logical contradiction than when humans build computers to solve problems that they cannot solve directly.
Someone needs to patent the patent troll business model and sue this guy for infringement.
"Experience has proved that some people indeed know everything." -- Russell Baker