Editor’s Break 115 has Skyler giving his commentary on the following topics: resources and scarcity; the purpose of property rights; ideas as patterns of information; the attempt to apply property rights to non-scarce ideas in the forms of copyright and patent; why intellectual property makes everyone a thief; how intellectual property rights necessarily violate material property rights; the argument that copying ideas is to steal future profits; and more.
Tag: future
On Intellectual Property
The hue and cry against “stealing” intellectual property makes a terrible assumption: that the creator or inventor is being robbed of something. What exactly are they being robbed of?
Wiblin’s Checklist
Rob Wiblin of 80,000 Hours recently shared some deeply helpful advice for coping with the vicissitudes of life. None of it would surprise Epicurus or the Stoics, but Rob’s version is more concise and accessible.
An Intentional System for Working with Goals
Goals, like any tool, can be used to bludgeon ourselves over the head with shame and guilt, or can be used with intention, as a way to consciously deep our practice in life. I’ve been known to rail against having goals from time to time, to espouse goal-less living … but the truth is, goals can be used to guide us if they’re used intentionally.
Elon Musk’s Innovative Education Blueprint
In a 2015 interview about the school, the billionaire inventor said: “The regular schools weren’t doing the things that I thought should be done. So I thought, well, let’s see what we can do.” Ad Astra, which means “to the stars,” disrupts the very idea of school.
Can For-Profit Schools Revolutionize Education? One Entrepreneur Is Betting Yes.
As much as we (rightfully) decry the persistence of factory-style mass schooling, we should remember that this remnant of the Industrial Age was, at its time, quite innovative.
How People Become Experts
Depending on how many times you choose curiosity in any given track – computers, hardware, building, gardening, painting, etc – you can either become an expert or become someone who relies on experts. There’s no shame in either, but think about how you’re reacting to problems. Your curiosity or passivity now will shape your future.
Battling Assumptions
In the first case, I am reflecting on a book that I am reading; The Truth Machine: The Blockchain and the Future of Everything, by Paul Vigna and Michael J. Casey. The premise is that it took many centuries for the current paradigm, double entry bookkeeping, to revolutionize the marketplace, but now that the effect of those who would game the system pretty well offsets the increase of those who honestly abide by the system, it is time to find a new, greed-proof paradigm.
Liberty in America During the Great War
There’s always plenty for libertarians to complain about in our troubled world, but in many respects, things could be much worse. I’m thinking particularly of how the U.S. government punished dissent before, during, and even after America’s participation in World War I. Although it will be a few years before we observe the centenary of…
Against Veneration
I have close friends who venerate Adam Smith, John Rawls, Friedrich Hayek, James Buchanan, John Maynard Keynes, Ayn Rand, John Stuart Mill, Ludwig von Mises, Paul Samuelson, Deirdre McCloskey, Elinor Ostrom, Hannah Arendt, Alexis de Tocqueville, David Hume, Murray Rothbard, Paul Krugman, or Thomas Jefferson. This veneration of the Great Names mystifies me on two levels.