> "much bigger deal" doesn't make much sense unless you are distributing limited resources

Last time I checked, all resources are limited, and growing more limited as the world population expands. If the police force is not suffering from having limited resources, it probably is a good idea to check whether it should be downsized, and the savings invested in other areas of government which are suffering from limited resources, for example, Social Security or education.

> Due Dilligence was never a part of the Creative Commons License.

Unfortunately, give how copyright works, it's impossible to do due diligence with respect to fair use, if you want to push it to the limit.

> But when you're paid to represent someone else

Obviously, then, whoever hired this guy failed utterly. Just kidding. I find it much more likely that whoever hired him, didn't hire him based on the "15 minutes" of public representation he'd end up making at the end of the mission.

And therefore, whoever decided, not that long ago, that he should be the one to be a public representative, failed. It was probably some PHB who doesn't know any of the technical staff well enough to know that this guy needed to be carefully managed in this particular regard.

> and not an attention-seeking douchenozzle

Do you know him personally? Because my guess is that he's probably one of those technically adept, socially inadept people we often meet in our line of work. Especially since I saw a headline that he broke down and cried when he apologized? You'd think that "an attention-seeking douchenozzle" would have just used the apology for... more exposure. Of course, it could have been an act, I guess.

> You're just really not on your A game today, are you?

Ad hominem and/or irrelevant.

> Or, perhaps, you really want to Oracle to lose, but can't think of any better reason than because "I don't like Oracle".

I actually have not stated, in this particular discussion, a preference for whether I think API's are or should be protected, nor have I stated any particular aversion to Oracle.

> I don't like Oracle either,

Oh, there you go again --- assuming things which don't follow from the previous discourse. I wonder if you'll do it again in your next reply?

> but that's a really crapy way to set national policy, policy that will affect many, many other situations.

Have to agree totally with you there.

Yes, I saw that you stated that, which made it stick out even more when you immediately turn around and assume what you've just questioned, without qualification.

Judging by your reaction, I don't even think you did it intentionally. A pity, really. In my eyes, the language of the last paragraph would be wonderfully disingenuous, if it had been an intentional attempt to attain its actual impact.

> If I want my valuable property to be protected from unlawful taking,

Wow, very nice. I don't manage to identify the exact logical fallacies you've invoked. However, it is obvious that you're implicitly assuming the claim in question: whether or not an API is "property", i.e., protected by copyright. In addition, you also appear to be making the bad analogy between copyright infringement and theft (of physical property), but you manage to be a bit ambiguous about it, so that the phrasing can set off a deep emotional reaction without being absolutely incorrect.

Masterful, indeed.

> So if "intellectual property" is a meaningless term

The poster you're arguing with did not claim it is a "meaningless term", he claimed that (practically) no legal argument can cite "intellectual property" as being its basis, since the diverse branches of IP law are... diverse. He didn't mean "intellectual property" in the sense of that clause, just like he wouldn't preclude discussing the fact that a defendant had taken a course in "IP law" as a justification that infringement by said defendant was flagrant or intentional.

He meant that no lawyer would (or rather, should) say "we are owed money because the other party infringed on our intellectual property" without specifying exactly what specific types of IP were infringed upon and how.

> Think designing an easy to use API is trrivial? ...

Yes, good point. Designing a good API can be difficult and creative. Unfortunately, this has nothing to do with whether it currently is protected by copyright (cf. creating a good recipe, or a fashion design), nor does it shed light on whether it would benefit society if were protected.

> So clearly the API was worth a lot to Google.

Which has nothing to do if it should be eligible for protection by copyright.

> It's simple to make an API. It's actually rather difficult to make a good one.

A good point, but totally off-topic with respect to whether it deserves protection under copyright. Lots of things which are difficult and creative are not protected, and there is no good evidence that protecting them would benefit society.

> In a shocking turn of events, this has led to a collapse in the public's level of informedness

No, I rather think you're blaming only one side of a two-sided coin. The American public, themselves, fail totally at critical thinking, a skill which would enable them to piece together quite a bit more "informedness" from all of the diverse and biased information sources they currently have.

The fact that they were "OK" when the digested results of critical thinking was spoon-fed to them doesn't absolve them from sharing responsibility. Even the fact that the education system, as it is currently designed, discourages critical thinking, is not an excuse.

I just said that most of the problems the American people have with American democracy are the fault of the American people.

Yes.

We don't agree on jack-squat.

No. That's not the problem of the American people which is reflected in our government.

because otherwise one of them would be admitting defeat.

Ah, this is the problem... the American people, as a whole, just aren't intellectually sophisticated enough to understand that compromise isn't defeat. I'd guess that about 0% of them know what a "false dichotomy" is. Well maybe a bit more, but very little, compared with the number who "know" that the stuff they see on television is scary, or know all the gory details about the Kardashians (or other celebs). A previous poster said it before me:

Until the voter develops the strength to resist the propaganda

I think what he meant was critical thinking skills. Funny how those skills aren't a required part of the curriculum in schools, or even for that matter, at the undergraduate level in most universities.

I believe that you think narcc's post is stupid.

Actually, I get the strong impression that you yourself believed that narcc actually meant what he posted. (I don't believe, though, that either of these are examples of something believed "in the face of evidence to the contrary". That kind of belief is more displayed by, for example, battered partners and their ilk, and is rarer. One could make a case that since our beliefs shape the way our mind builds our reality from our sensory input, it's probably quite common that "evidence to the contrary" just gets rejected by the individual until it reaches some kind of critical threshold, whereas others seeing the same evidence see it as "evidence to the contrary" long before.)

Most, if not all, reasoning we make about others' "state of mind" is mere belief. (Maybe in the far future we'll be able to MRI the brains of the people we interact with, in real time --- flash of memory of L. Frank Baum(?) story which included a similar plot device...)

I believe what you just posted. Enjoy!

> it just makes things that are not water soluble, soluble in the water-soap solution

Like... cell membranes? Lots of surfactants have antiseptic properties: for example, cocamidopropyl betaine. In fact, I'd guess that most surfactants are at least mild antiseptics.