Editor’s Break 121 has Skyler giving his commentary on the following topics: the difficulty in implementing democracy in a culture not ready for it; why saying “stealing intellectual property” is a misleading euphemism; why your government is not so different than Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia; the importance of speaking your truth, right or wrong; the government and market forces pushing social media and other companies to deplatform controversial users; and more.
Tag: intellectual property
On Intellectual Property III
The private property convention is meant to reduce conflict over naturally scarce resources. When something is made artificially scarce by government fiat, say when ideas are monopolizable (copyright and patent), it is as if a wrench is thrown into the works of a machine.
On Intellectual Property II
Here is further proof that believers in so-called “intellectual property” are trying to fit a round peg into a square hole: an owner of an idea may continue using his idea without ever becoming aware that it has been “stolen”. Try that with a wallet, or a car, or a laptop.
Intellectual Property & Stealing Future Profits (30m) – Editor’s Break 115
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.
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?
Intellectual Property Makes Everyone a Criminal
Unlike with non-scarce non-objects, the users of material property can account for permission of their use. If they cannot, then they are likely thieves who have stolen material property from its owner. Because we all use ideas without accounted for permission everyday, we are all thieves.
On Free Speech
Libertarian types are chomping at the bit to accuse Facebook, Twitter, et al, of violating free speech rights. The problem is, if these are private companies run by private individuals, then their “censorship” is not a free speech rights violation. QED. But there may just be a way in here: intellectual property.
Property and Self
It seems to me that this is a central economic question confronting the human species, but to resolve it is to put statist and interventionist footprints all over the question. Voluntaryists are stuck on the fence of believing the resolution while being restricted in implementing much of its implications.
On Getting Libertarianism Wrong
One of my mentors and favorite libertarian theorists, Hans-Hermann Hoppe, has once again gotten it dangerously wrong on libertarianism.
Some Views on Left and Right
“Left” and “Right” are a false dichotomy in most ways that count. However, I’ve noticed something that has caught my attention in how people who identify on either side view their fellow human beings, and thought I’d share.