ok, if you like, you may submit for my consideration my various different contracts that you propose and i will tell you whether they are legitimate contracts or not. but whats the point, you arent going to pay me lawyerly rates.
if i had to guess i would suggest wombatron,( as I am too), are skeptical about your ability to write valid contracts that concern only two parties (not 3rd parties) given your irrational love for irrational phrases.
I.e. you dont fill us with confidence that you both; understand why intellectual property is a contradiction,;and can write a legitimate contract
Why is IP a contradiction of terms? I can own a ford, but doesn’t mean I own all fords (this is a bad example I know). What I am finding disagreement with is the proposition that ideas can not be part of a contract since they are somehow, either not a good and is somehow absurd to be distinguished as one, or not a properly ownable thing.
This is why I asked the question regarding memories, and ideas specific to self. I claim ownership over the accumulation of ideas in my head (meaning if you were, in an imaginary construct, able to remove, or erase, the ideas from my conscious, without physical aggression - and you did so without my express permission you would be, in fact, invading my property rights.) If this is the case, then, I can contract the divulgence of that information - thus making contract regarding the intangible idea. Thus, if you agree to that contract and you then come to posess that information, you own it on condition of contract.
Specific ideas are scarce as well as rivalrous (they don’t have to be, but they are) - and everyone owns their ideas (in the sence they own their intellectual mind), but there can be the position whereby you come about an idea by agreeing to a contract - thus becoming a conditional owner of that good (it is a good since you obviously subjectively desired it enough to enter into conditional ownership) - this style of contract is called copyright (which is an outgrowth of each individuals ownership of their mind, or individual IP). I don’t understand what is so absurdly contradictory about this line of argument.
you can own a ford, thats not contradictory. but can you own a ford thats also a not-ford.? no.
can you own a block of wood where in its face has been carved a single geometric figure, a ‘squarecircle’? no. if you know what it means for something to be square , and you also understand circle. you know that its not possible to be simultaneously both. so it is with ideas and property.
you can claim ownership of monsters under the bed, and fairies dancing behind the moon. but thats hardly ownership is it? you think that if its possible to say the sentance “i own x” then thats proof enough that x can be owned. this is absurd. you have to be sure that X is a candidate for property-ness before you can own it. contracts involving things that arent property are like a contract i might draw up between myself and yourself, that you might agree to, and what does the contract govern, it regulate how we both must abide by certain codes of conduct in our relationships with Santa Claus. As we have no such relationship, that particular contract is meaningless and void. an actual possible contract might determine which of us gets the other a present on a certain day. that would have some meaning.
whats a non-specific idea?
ideas arent scarce, i have never demanded an idea and found it lacking. if i knew it to demand it, i had it and it wasnt lacking. gameover.
ideas arent rival, if i know how to build a bridge, that doesnt mean you dont know how to build a bridge. gameover.
You too have not thought this through. Obviously, I am contracting your actions - but the idea is the basis of the contract and defines scope of action. Thus, the idea would be intergral to the contract, and is then part of the contract.
The question is, do you own your mind (meaning your individual intellect, your specific ideas)?
Note: by “specific” i mean related to the indiviual, or to self. I have deemed it important to use this termenology so that we can mark distinction between the mind of the individual and the mind of others.
This in no way refers to the fact that multiple people may have full ownership over the ‘same’ idea. But only that it is possible to maintain conditional ownership over an intangible good, namely ideas.
oh, hey, i just gave birth to some imaginary children.
i bequeeth them to you.
you are their owner now.
i have just pictured in my mind the idea of a porsche. enjoy driving it. im glad i shared it with you so that you can own it now. dont sell it to anyone thats drunk, they might get in and drive it irresponsibly and that would be bad.
You’ve never found yourself lacking an idea? Cavemen never knew they were lacking personal computers. Your ignorance doesnt mean you’re not lacking something. Do you want clean energy? Its lacking. You are in demand for the method of creating clean energy. As inventor of cold fusion, I have the idea you are demanding. I can sell it, I can contract the actions pertaining to it of all people I show it to, and thereby maintain my exclusive right to it without any state, and without any coercion. You and LS both ignore the sanctity of contract and say its irrelevant because its inconvenient to your argument. Give it up. Contracts can compel future actions. I can contract to control the spread of my ideas. Ergo, the market can protect ideas.
You’re a person claiming to have proof that there is life in other planets, because since there’s so many, there just has to be. You have no evidence that there actually is. You’re claiming ideas arent scarce because there’s so many other people, they just have to come up with the same things. The market would argue otherwise, as it puts value to ideas.
surely you realise that the idea of ‘the wheel’ is different from the idea that ‘there might be a solution i could think up that would help me travel long distances easily’. you cant demand the idea of ‘the wheel’ because to the extent you truly demanded it, you would know it , so no need to demand it.
this is slander, you should take it back if you cant prove it. and you wont prove it.
you think its credible to have contracts concerning intangibles. thats what we dispute. not contracts.
where does this come from? whats this got to do with anything i said? the market has never put a value on ideas, its put ‘prices’ on ‘products’. i hope you know the difference between value and prices.
You are absolutely wrong about demand for ideas. Apparently we are moving back to a neolithic period in our examples, so here goes. Caveman1 sees caveman2 sitting around a fire, 1 asks 2 if he made the fire, 1 says yes. The next day, 2 trys to make a fire - first he jumps up and down, then he decides he must perform a fire ritual so as to please the sun god. When this fails, he asks 1 for the ideas bound up in creation of fire. 1 says he will sell it on condition of contract (assume a basic copyright and a nondisclosal argeement, we will also assume people follow their contracts). 2 agrees and now owns the idea of fire on condition. 1 now advertises the ability to purchase the ideas bound into his fire producing invention, but on condition of contract. The various tribes people thus demand and purchase the idea of this fire producing invention (but are bound not to disclose, or copy for outside personal use, kind of like a early microsoft license agreement)… of course Caveman3 could come up with the same thing and have full ownership over the idea (as opposed to the contracted, conditional ownership assumed by the people who bought the idea from caveman1).
prices can be put on ideas, since ideas can be valued by individuals (think Rothbardian ordinal values) and then the aggregate of the values play on the market to create the price… we are now arguing that the supply of the idea is not infinite.
Ok… I dont give a shit anymore. You can play in your denial worlds all you like. You are mental communists. Go and create your free society, have a freaking blast. You will be disproven fast enough when absolutely NOBODY creates anything new that requires initial capital investment to come up with. No new ideas, no new code, no new books, no new art. Because you claim that its owned by the communal mind the moment it leaves the creator’s mind. I’m sick of dancing in circles with everything boiling down to one simple point we dont agree on: I say I own my mind and the ideas that come from it. You say everybody else does, and that somehow this is good. Whatever it takes for you to sleep at night.
I tried to frame the argument within your make believe world, I created scenarios where contracts would control access to the ideas, no government, no coercion, hell no mention even of IP, just of contract limiting action. You say the contract is invalid because its contracting something that you dont believe exists, an idea. My idea.
You’re inventing perfect competition where its all about marketing and who is more efficient, all the while completely ignoring that initial capital investments. Here’s a breakthrough in economics for you: perfect competition does not, and can not, exist in a dynamic marketplace. Monopolies, insomuch as they can exist within a dynamic marketplace, are GOOD.
Oh well, we will never agree on this topic. This argument is pointless. Its come 23+ pages and neither side has budged. Let history be the judge, because I just dont care anymore.
because it’s not a lie. You think you support contracts, but you fool yourselves by creating your own phantom world and try to irrationaly assume your way out of what you don’t like.
you act as though ideas are simply communicated without physical means.
when cave1 physically asks cave2 for firehelp. he will only have fire aptitude if he physically listens to what cave2 physically tells him. if cave1 must pay a price to cave2 for the benefit of the physical act of cave2 speaking thats well and good.
i havent meantion the transfer of idea property. and why would i. its not a coherent concept, and i didnt need it to have cave1 learn something, and reward cave2 for the physical service he provided.