Preventing the seller of the benefits of the transaction while the receiver is allowed to utilized the benefits is wrong.
Ah, all this proves to me is that humans are more illogical than I suspected. You can't steal (as in take) something that someone doesn't have.
Indeed... Yes, you can steal something they're supposed to have by depriving them of it.
Sure, sounds great on paper like many things, but resources are not overly abundant. They are limited and would become more so after a short time in any society they describe. Quite quickly the people would decide to implement forced rationing.
Resources are not abundant? That depends on which ones you are speaking of.
No, it does not depend which we're speaking of, resources are limited. Open any economics textbook.
It won't.
I wish I could see into the future like you can.
As do I.
Do I really need to? No one else would even ask that I prove why it's illogical to expect everyone everywhere to be obligated to buy every product.
I don't expect them to. I was asking why you think it should be illegal to pirate something (and according to you, deprive the artist of potential profit) but not illegal to choose not to buy something (which has the same implications--it deprives the artist of potential profit).
"When you produce something, no one has an obligation to purchase it."
"Apparently they do" Looks like you expect them to. It comes down to intentions and possibilities. The intention to buy the game or not. The intention to play the game or not. The random person on any street that has no intention of playing the game has almost 0 possibility of buying the game, but the pirate in question that has every intention of playing the game is a much greater possibility of a sale that they subvert directly by their own actions. Telling a friend the game sucks is not the same in any means.
I'm trying to be realistic as well.
Really.
I'm commenting on your "no harm" argument which is silly. Not you refusing to understand what "deprive" means.
Even if you're correct on the definition, that does not just my point that nothing in existence is being taken.
It does exist. The $50 in the pirate's pocket they would have lost if they'd purchased the game is certainly real.
Things still have inherent value without the existence of money, those values just become more complicated to represent and somewhat ambiguous. Money is nothing more or less than a convenient representation of value, usually your time.
Not if the necessary resources are in abundance and overpopulation is quelled.
Resources are limited. Overpopulation isn't a problem. Anyone wanting to "quell" anyone's reproductive rights I oppose on a moral grounds. If you want to live in a country that shoots you in the head for not wearing a condom when you were told to, go right ahead.
You should tell your environmentalist friends that. You know, the ones that like to claim the earth is overpopulated even though we're using less than 10% of it.
Apparently you don't understand the real consequences of overpopulation. The real consequence is not space, it's resources, food, and available shelter. This capitalistic society only worsens that through its inefficient use of all three of those.
Ah, finally you agree with me that resources are limited, not overly abundant and enough to provide free for all. Capitalism is the most efficient system for providing all of those things. Tyrannical regimes don't have obese societies. Over regulation does not provide affordable housing. Capitalism with a truly free market is the best system to increase a society's wealth, productivity, and opportunity for all. Since you'll probably disagree with me immediately, would a Nobel laureate's opinion help?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWsx1X8PV_A
Die from what?
If they don't drop the highly inefficient system that we have now, the resources remaining on this planet will continue to be wasted at an amazing rate until none are left, instead of used efficiently and using technology to its greatest potential.
1, it's not highly inefficient. 2, resources are not wasted or used up but only temporarily employed to serve a function. 3, we won't ever run out. There just isn't enough for everyone to have everything. Thinking otherwise would be forgetting the law of conservation of matter. All things are simply converted. 4, If you respected the individual and their desires as much as you thought you did, you would realize that the greatest potential to come out of technology or a resource is that which the individual derives it to be. As illogical as you may think the rest of us are, you are no higher power to better make those choices for everyone else.
We're generally better off now than we were before major changes else that change wouldn't have occurred and been kept.
If something can be improved further, it should be. If people had the mindset of "the current system is okay" a few hundred years ago, it would have stayed the same.
Sure, but bad ideas must be rejected and good ideas must be examined thoroughly and tested rigorously. As you've said, you cannot predict the future and thus cannot even begin to know 100% of the consequences if even 1%. A whole world society without money or barter would be a drastic change from anything the world has seen for about 5000 years. The most likely result of that is chaos.
Don't forget feasibility. The "right" laughs at most of the "left's" ideas when it comes to clean energy because they generally only work 12 hours out of a 24 hour day, and the left gets scared of the right's ideas and scream "NIMBY!".
Solar energy, wind energy, geothermal energy (probably the best one once we actually tap into its potential), etc. There are plenty of options. As for the environmentalists who disagree with everything, I'm not like them. Anything better than what we have now would suffice.
And the long term consequences of geothermal energy are? Right, we shouldn't be adopting it em masse before its localized usage is very mature. Look at the results we've had from fossil fuels. You cannot even say it would be better if the output levels were the same. Removing energy from a once closed system can be dangerous.
Sounds disgusting and unnatural.
Your taste buds don't override the importance of the life of another living being, sorry to say.
Also, from the article:
That life wouldn't have existed if it weren't for taste buds. How can it have importance over something that causes it to exist?
and a long-term goal is to grow fully developed muscle tissue.
There you have it. Someone just needs to put more work into this.
Yes, and preferably without government subsidies. It might prove useful one day after unilateral nuclear disarmament.
The rabbit was likely going to die for another reason, was already dead when the foot was removed
How does that justify killing something for inane reasons? Humans die eventually, maybe we should slaughter them for no reason as well!
Depends on the reason. The rabbit wasn't necessarily killed for sport... which still wouldn't be inane. How can you not tell the obvious difference between a human and a rabbit, yet you see a non-existent difference between a pirate and a thief?
Who are you to decide it has no purpose though?
What purpose does it have? Would you be in favor of killing humans so that we could chop off their hands and hang them on our walls for luck? Or is that not okay merely because they're humans?
Actually, what's wrong with that? If the person is already dead, it's just a corpse. If you think a dead person's hand is lucky, I'm not going to stop you. Should you kill a person for their hand though? No, just as you shouldn't kill a rabbit only for its foot.
I thought your whole utopia was about people following their relaxation and entertainment pursuits.
Not at the cost of others. If I found it entertaining to watch humans being forced to race against their will, would you agree with that? Or would you be opposed to it simply because they're humans?
Wait, what's the cost thing you speak of? Did you just apply value to another person's time and work? Less than 2 days only discussing it and your society has already failed. At that point -- where you've applied a cost to someone's work or existence -- money is simply the next logical and inevitable step of efficiency and convenience. It's much easier to determine that cost to another with quantitative dollars. QED, you fail. :)
Do you have any idea how well those horses are treated by their owners? Like gods. The animal is incredibly better off under their care than it would be in the wild. You'd have a better argument talking about people who own pets they neglect. Oh wait, our broken system deals with those people and sends them to jail when they're caught.
Animals raised for food don't "suffer". Also, I wouldn't call the test tube stuff meat, so not entirely reasonable. Maybe after a few nuclear winters it would sound "pretty" reasonable.
Ah, so we should raise humans for food because they wouldn't "suffer," either, huh? An alternate solution is being worked on. As the article already stated, their long term goal is to be able to grow actual developed muscle tissue. Tradition can't replace science.
Since you want to constantly apply human rights to animals, I would conclude you're a hypocrite for not applying those same rights to plants. They are in fact living creatures too. It's just easier to push that back in your mind, because they don't have faces and generally don't move. Yet they "suffer" just as much cramped together in rows on a farm the same as livestock do.