impractical?
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| tbuitenh Dec 01, 2008 8:15 AM EDT |
"I concede only that because of nature of ideas, restrictive idea sharing contracts are impractical and difficult to follow through. Why is such restrictive licensing still so widespread despite such drawbacks is an interesting question, but one I may reserve for another article." Just taking a guess here, but perhaps these contracts aren't impractical at all. There are enough people obeying them for the side that is being paid to make a fine profit! |
| Libervis Dec 01, 2008 1:28 PM EDT |
Perhaps, and frankly I don't have a big problem with that if people chose to sign and then obey what they signed, as they should really. It just seems to me that copyright law as it stands provides some artificial benefits to restrictive licensing which otherwise wouldn't exist, but I'd need to work on that further... Of course I still believe that people would be better off to check alternatives. As is clear on this site there are plenty of options that don't require you to sign away so much to use a copy. BSD license is as close as it gets to you truly retaining ownership over the copy you are given or sold. Today I prefer BSD over GPL because of this. |
| tbuitenh Dec 02, 2008 12:57 PM EDT |
Funny how opinions can change. In the early days of libervis.com my preference for MIT style licensing (similar to BSD) was considered a bit silly by the other members. Anyway. There's a really big problem and that's that many people think that if you do anything with a computer, you must pay a certain large company for it. Because said company supposedly "owns the ideas". While trying get rid of such nonsense, we tend to oversimplify things and say "ideas cannot be owned" when we really should say "ideas cannot be owned that way". There's a good reason for oversimplifying the issue: the more words you use, the less likely people are to listen. It's no wonder lots of people think "linux" is about "fsck microsoft" - there are some people saying exactly that, and "fsck microsoft" is only two words so the message really sticks in peoples minds. It's sensational too, that also helps. Personally I wouldn't title an article about the subtleties of information ownership 'Ideas can be owned', cause it's the short message that sticks, not the long one. Someone too lazy to read carefully (and let's face it, many people are lazy) will interpret that as you giving the thumbs up to software patents and such. "It just seems to me that copyright law as it stands provides some artificial benefits to restrictive licensing which otherwise wouldn't exist..." Copyright law as it stands makes restrictive licensing the default. If you want something else than the default, making it more restrictive is just as difficult (or easy?) as making it less restrictive. Probably more difficult actually, if you compare the complexity of the windows EULA to that of the BSD license :) |
| Libervis Dec 02, 2008 2:34 PM EDT |
I just wanted to attack the concept of idea non-ownership head on and it seems to be a concept quite popular among FOSS and Free Culture supporters, which I can understand since I've had that opinion myself. But it's a myth, and the sooner it's disparaged the better. It's true though that many have totally misunderstood the article though. You only need to look at the comments below. But how should have I named it without making the title too long, without implying what I don't actually mean or without making it even more confusing. "Ideas can be owned" states exactly what I believe in. That most people are so stuck in collectivist thinking that they can't discern one mind from another and thus ideas residing in one mind from ideas residing in another, is in fact a symptom of a much larger epidemic infecting humanity. At the end of the day, however, I've made my stride and will continue to do so. Just because they don't yet understand the language I'm speaking doesn't mean they wont. I can get better in translating it for them too. I might write a clarification with graphical illustrations and such so that the collectivists can understand better. :P |
| tbuitenh Dec 03, 2008 5:24 AM EDT |
At least I can see your point, too bad I disagree :P . You see, the concept of a 'copy of an idea' is invalid in my understanding of reality (no, I'm not doing this on purpose). I'm not sure how to explain without getting in a very long discussion involving maths, philosophy, metaphysics and possibly even religion. Well, there's this maybe: "It is in the nature of an idea that it cannot exist outside of a mind..." This is, in the way I understand reality, false. Imagine sometime long ago in the stone age someone invented the wheel. This invention was used for a while, then forgotten. Later, someone else reinvented the wheel (as is evident from all the things with wheels we see around us). Did the idea "wheel" stop existing for the period there was nobody who knew what a wheel is? I guess you would say yes to that. I say ideas exist independent of time and space and are never "created" or "copied" or "deleted", merely discovered and forgotten. When there is nobody who can count, does the number five stop existing? Does all of maths stop existing then? Well it seems the laws of physics obeyed their mathematical descriptions before there were humans... Does every person who can count have their own copy of "five"? |
| Libervis Dec 03, 2008 9:52 AM EDT |
You fail to make an important distinction between reality and sentient cognition of reality. There is a wheel and then there is my conception, idea, of a wheel as a wheel. Without sentient conception a wheel would not have a name nor a meaning. It would just be what it is and nobody would be there to describe what it actually is. It's just.. unperceived reality. I actually find the idea that ideas can exist without a mind rather preposterous.. It's like saying eyesight can exist without eyes. > Does every person who can count have their own copy of "five"? Yes. If this wasn't so nobody would know "five". EDIT: There is an idea of so called "infinite intelligence" which I might not reject entirely, and this would effectively be if all thoughts are in fact patterns of energy and thus possibly connected with all other energy in the universe. In this case so long as there is a single sentient entity alive anywhere in this galaxy or the universe as a whole there is a chance that even if there were no sentient life on Earth an idea of things existing on Earth (or anywhere else) can still exist. But even then, this can only be because there actually is a mind somewhere that can contain the idea, even if that mind is not corporeal (who knows what kinds of beings reside in the universe around us and whether a physical mind is even necessary for thought-energy to keep its processes/thinking). But this is just a theory. I would not exactly call myself a believer yet. It's just interesting. :) But it still doesn't break the inevitable dependency between ideas and mind. |
| tbuitenh Dec 03, 2008 11:19 AM EDT |
I think it is possible that physical reality is only a set of ideas on the mind of some all-knowing meta-being (aka god). If physical objects actually are ideas, then obviously ideas can be owned :) .
I'm agnostic to that kind of god. > I actually find the idea that ideas can exist without a mind rather preposterous.. It's like saying eyesight can exist without eyes. As you appear to be aware of in your edit, a mind is different from an eye. An eye is like a brain, not like a mind. You agree with me a physical brain might not be necessary for the existence of a mind. But a mind is just a changing set of ideas (plus _optionally_ input and output)! You can't have a mind without ideas, but I insist ideas exist just fine without a mind. It's highly unlikely anyone ever thought of the number 2464596794723463294907569764 23987489057934853490865896534986590 836598346598659865349495365985 6983659346596345913659345096 before (let's call it X to avoid making this unreadable). Does that mean X came into existence just now? How can that be? If you add 1 (which has been known for a long time already) to itself often enough, you will arrive at X, so X existed all that time after all. >> Does every person who can count have their own copy of "five"? > Yes. If this wasn't so nobody would know "five". OK, imagine the all-knowing meta-mind decides to erase "five" from all existing minds, including its own. Does the number five stop existing? Does the universe collapse because the maths don't work out anymore? What happens when you try to count past four? "one, two, three, four, um, six, seven..." Is this new number "um" (previously known as "five") a new invention or a rediscovery? I'm sorry, but Plato (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonic_realism ) makes a lot more sense to me than you do. |
| happyfeet Dec 03, 2008 11:48 AM EDT |
Something is messing up the margins and truncating everything. |
| tbuitenh Dec 03, 2008 12:10 PM EDT |
@happyfeet fixed. Apparently very long words (or numbers) are a problem. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! |
| dinotrac Dec 03, 2008 12:12 PM EDT |
>or numbers So, like, we gotta truncate pi? How lame! |
| happyfeet Dec 03, 2008 12:17 PM EDT |
@tbuitenh: Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis! |
| happyfeet Dec 03, 2008 12:19 PM EDT |
@dino: Pi R not truncated, pi R round... |
| tbuitenh Dec 03, 2008 12:32 PM EDT |
I guess only descriptions of pi could be owned, since pi itself couldn't be fit in a mind :P . |
| theboomboomcars Dec 03, 2008 2:34 PM EDT |
It seems that there are different things being discussed on each side of the argument. So what is an "idea"? If I am understanding Libervis correctly then an idea is something that happens in ones mind. But tbuitenh has a different idea about ideas that they don't need a mind to take place in. If there is a disagreement about the definition of what an idea is, then we should proceed carefully so that Scott doesn't come in with a big club. Libervis should probably share what his definition of an idea is in the context of the article. |
| Libervis Dec 04, 2008 3:02 AM EDT |
I define an idea as a mental conception of some thing or some process, which may in physics be an equivalent to an energy pattern of some sort (sets of impulses in a brain or other sort of matter). Number 5 never stops existing, but a concept of it can cease to exist as soon as a sentient mind who perceives and conceives of it ceases to exist. This is also why it makes sense to say that just because someone doesn't conceive of or isn't aware of something, doesn't mean that this something doesn't exist. The only way ideas are a part of reality is as the means by which it conceives of itself, through sentient beings like humans. I agree to the point that an idea can exist without a *brain*, but still not without a mind so acknowledging the possibility of there being a great mind or infinite intelligence doesn't really break the idea-mind dependency. Cheers |
| tbuitenh Dec 04, 2008 7:35 AM EDT |
Is a mind anything more than a changing set of ideas (plus optional input/output)? If not, then why must an idea be contained in such a set in order to exist? I suspect what Libervis calls a non-physical mind is what I would call a non-physical brain. If we agree that universals (Plato-ideas, see earlier link) never stop existing, but instances can be created and destroyed (and I think we do agree on that), then Libervis makes some sense when he says a person owns his own instances of ideas. Now we're clear about what is meant with owning ideas, I do however see a problem with that: a human mind cannot have "exclusive and absolute control" over itself. Even if there is free will, one cannot successfully will oneself to will something else than one wills, because when one *is* successful at that, one still wills what one wills and not what one doesn't will. Furthermore it is impossible to choose to believe something when one already believes that same thing is false. On the other hand it is very possible to stick some electrodes in someone elses brain and make that other person believe false things. If we would try this on ourselves, we would know we were trying to deceive ourselves and then it wouldn't work. This means it is possible to have more control over a mind than we have over our own minds, which in turn means we do not have absolute control over our own (because absolute implies maximal). Also, the initial set of ideas and some of the other input given to a mind are completely beyond our control. We can't retroactively change those, now can we? And even if we could, the decision what to change to would be based on the old set! So, a mind can own other things, but not itself. Not only universals cannot be owned, instances, by being intrinsic part of unownable minds, cannot be owned by those same minds. I've heard it is an atrocity for anything not to be owned by anyone. So all please come into my infernal machine and have your minds controlled! MUHAHAHAHA MUHAHAHAHA ;) ;) ;) |
| theboomboomcars Dec 04, 2008 10:48 AM EDT |
Libervis and tbuitenh that really helps to understand the arguments better, thank you. tbuitenh I don't think your objections interfere with owning an idea, we may not be able to control what goes in and out of our minds absolutely, but while the idea is there, we can do with it what we please. Kind of like pulling something out of a bag, or picking from a bunch of boxes with unknown contents in them. We don't actually get to know what it is before we get it, but once we got it we can use however we want. Or if you lose something, it is still yours you just don't know where it went. |
| Libervis Dec 04, 2008 1:00 PM EDT |
> Is a mind anything more than a changing set of ideas (plus optional input/output)? If not, then why must an idea be contained in such a set in order to exist? Well what is it that constitutes sentient life? I ask because without sentient being there can hardly be any congition and thus nobody to perceive and conceive things in the universe into ideas. I wont claim that sentient life must always be in corporeal form as I'm open to the idea of possibility of life that exists as a pattern of something much less tangible, even energy itself, but it seems to me that ideas in and of themselves cannot exist without life capable of self-awareness and that life has to come out of something external to ideas themselves, and since ideas cannot exist without being brought into existence by such a being, no sentient life = no ideas - all that's left is meaningless idealess unperceived and unconceived matter and energy - a universe without a soul. As for no absolute control, I actually explained that sort of thing in my article, about supposedly not having "absolute" control over something and thus supposedly not being able to own it. If what you say is the nature of ideas residing in my mind then that is what makes them what they are. Absolute control here does not imply changing the nature of that which you control, but merely controlling it to only that extent to which it still remains what it is. If I may quote myself, I explained this in the example of a rock: "But if a rock was anything else but a rock, there would not be a rock whose ownership would have to be considered in the first place!" If an idea was anything else but what constitutes an idea, including all of the natural properties that make it impossible to do some things with them (like you can't bend a rock), then it would not be an idea whose ownership we're considering, but rather something entirely else. Absolute or "maximal" only goes to the maximum allowed by natural law, or otherwise every time someone said of anyone to have absolute control over even the tiniest thing, we'd be calling them gods, and that's not what I'm claiming. ;) Cheers |
| vainrveenr Dec 04, 2008 6:15 PM EDT |
An interesting and timely follow-through on the practicality of whether Ideas can be owned (or shoud be owned) is Groklaw's 'Analysis on Balance - Standardisation and Patents - by Georg Greve, President, FSFE', http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20081202124915316
A brief excerpt of Greve's piece is from his section 'Background: Patents & Standards 101'
Quoting:The idea of patents is not new. Its roots lie in the royal "litterae patentes" that conferred exclusive rights to certain people. Democratic governments eventually took the position of the monarchs, and patent legislation has evolved over time, but the fundamental characteristics of what is a patent have not changed.The rest of this section is a fascinating read on history and politics going back to the time of feudal European monarchies, and it seems to bear directly upon the the two primary thread-commentators' themes of ownership and free-will mentioned above. As a somewhat-related tangent, it is also of immense interest how Greve incorporates mention of noted inventor/"idea-person" and futurist Raymond Kurzweil ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Kurzweil ) into the 'Cui bono?' section of his overall analysis of patents. In any case, Greve concludes his piece with the following four proposals to remedy the problems with current patent schemes and with truly "owning" ideas : Quoting:Potential Remedies 1. Interoperability trumps patent Granted, Greve's POV is a legal approach here, but perhaps one or both of the two primary commentators here can more successfully bridge the perceived chasm of more idealistic vs. more practical suggestions ??? |
| tbuitenh Dec 05, 2008 5:32 AM EDT |
@Libervisco: What is sentient life? I do not have clear answer to that, but I do know that minds are made of ideas. I also know that ideas (universals) are independent of time and space, whereas representations of ideas (instances) do begin and end. Shortening my point of view from my previous post as much as possible, I get this: one does not "have" ideas, one "is" a representation of them. Arguing from there one of course gets that ideas cannot be owned (because one cannot be anything else than what one is), but that's circular reasoning because by denying "having" ideas is a valid concept I already said ideas cannot be owned :) . Why then is "being" the right word and not "having"? Well, if you did not "have" some knowledge that you do "have", or vice versa, how could you be the same person? Imagine, for example, that nobody ever told you about anarchism. Would you be the same person? Not at all! @vainrveenr: I'll look at those links on a less busy day, but I guess they won't be too relevant. One of the rare things Libervisco and I agree on is that patents are wrong. |
| vainrveenr Dec 05, 2008 12:50 PM EDT |
Quoting:'ll look at those links on a less busy day, but I guess they won't be too relevant. One of the rare things Libervisco and I agree on is that patents are wrong.The obvious limitation on the practicality of "owning" ideas is that the majority of this discussion is overwhelmingly skewed towards the Individual. E.g., the commentators' focus upon: - the individual's mind/brain - the individual's "having" an idea - the individual's "owning" an idea - the individual's "reality and sentient cognition of reality" - the individual human mind's [ability to] have "exclusive and absolute control" over itself ... etcetera. A major part of Greve's piece, however, is that he teases out the individual "ownership" of an idea from the concept of Patent law, and brings out the more groups-oriented concept of Standards for the collective Public Good, i.e., the Commons as it were. One of the commentator's writes above specifically encircling the concept of idea-ownership applied to the collective Public Good : Quoting:"Ideas can be owned" states exactly what I believe in. That most people are so stuck in collectivist thinking that they can't discern one mind from another and thus ideas residing in one mind from ideas residing in another, is in fact a symptom of a much larger epidemic infecting humanity.So Individual Patents and their focus upon more "private ownership" of ideas juxtaposed with Public-Standards and their focus upon more "collectivist ownership" of ideas ?? Again, here are some of Greve's longer, but very appropriate distinctions between individual Patents and more Collective/Public Standards : Quoting:Like patents, standards are closely related to disclosure....( from http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20081202124915316 ) The gist of Greve's overall analysis from a legal and business perspective here, seems to be that Standards ultimately are likely to benefit the Public Good, whereas Patents arising from Individual ideas invariably devolve into ethical violations and "Bad Things (TM)". |
| Libervis Dec 05, 2008 5:34 PM EDT |
@tbuitenh:Quoting:What is sentient life? I do not have clear answer to that, but I do know that minds are made of ideas. I think of sentient life as living self-aware intelligence. I can agree that minds are made of ideas only if we consider a "mind" distinct (even if not separate) from "brain" (as you asserted earlier) where mind is exclusively the software and brain is exclusively the hardware. So ideas are an equivalent to bits of information pushed through whatever the brain is consisted of. The problem is I'm not sure a mind as such can exist without a brain. Can software exist without hardware? My being open to the possibility of various forms of sentient life does not necessarily mean an acceptance of hardware-less or brainless life, but rather sentient beings with different kinds of hardware. While humans use a set of organic brain cells another sentient life form might be capable of using a different kind of material, but not no material whatsoever. Sure energy is everywhere and everything. Even physical immobile things are actually just energy fields in essence (particles attracted to each other to form a structure, particles which always seem to consist of even smaller particles and so on infinitely). So to say that ideas can exist as pure energy based on nothing else (no hardware) is like saying nothing, because in effect this already is so. Even your body is in essence, pure energy. On a macro level, however, so far I find little logical or empirical evidence for the possibility of hardware-less software or brainless minds. If one causes another they have to be interdependent. Sentient life didn't evolve out of some ideas floating around vacuum, but out of physical matter. Quoting:Shortening my point of view from my previous post as much as possible, I get this: one does not "have" ideas, one "is" a representation of them. You can come to such a conclusion only if you believe that minds can be brainless (as described above), that is, that ideas somehow exist in and of themselves, as if ideas are the ones which form reality instead of vice versa. Come to think of it, you've expressed similar opinions before so I'm not too surprised. :) I find such theories to always lead to unresolvable contradictions (contradicting reality based evidence or lack of logical consistency). At best it ends up being mental entertainment where you posit incredible statements just for the fun of it, since you could never possibly verify them as actual believable truth. Still, even if one was a representation of ideas that exist even without him, if you own yourself (and thus the idea that makes you up) you clearly own all of the subsequent ideas. Quoting:anarchism Voluntaryism. @vainrveenr: Quoting:Granted, Greve's POV is a legal approach here, but perhaps one or both of the two primary commentators here can more successfully bridge the perceived chasm of more idealistic vs. more practical suggestions ??? Well to start with, I reject all of the mentioned Greve's conclusions except that interoperability trumps patent. I don't believe in legal means of solving issues if "legal" here refers to "terms and conditions of one group of people imposed by force on the others". To me the only restriction that applies is that you don't coerce anyone into anything. Therefore coercive means of resolving issues are invalid and the only thing that remains is an emergent free market. That said, as a matter of fact, idea ownership that I described is far more supportive and compatible with Free (Open Source) Software than proprietary software. The idea is that you own your own self and thus your own brain and thus your own mind and therefore all of the ideas which it contains in the same way as you own your own computer and thus should effectively own all of the software that is installed on it, and this kind of control is EXACTLY the point of the Free Software movement. This control, this *ownership* is the freedom that Richard Stallman relentlessly keeps advocating. And he's right. The only objection I have for him is that exactly because you own your own computer you can also decide to sign away some of those ownership rights. So if you wanna sign a contract that says you wont be able to see the source code of the software you're installing on it and you wont copy it, that's your perfectly valid right, exactly because you own it. So RMS kind off goes on the extreme when he effectively makes your choice to sign such a contract (or agree to such a license) as something unethical, when it's in fact just an exercise of your ownership right. Just the same, if you own yourself you own ideas in your mind, but that doesn't mean that you can't or must not sign a contract where you agree that a particular idea you're receiving you wont act as if you own it. So, as far as practical suggestions go I suggest to simply reject the whole paradigm of patents, the whole paradigm of coercive regulation and embrace the market means of resolving issues, private initiatives for standardization, private initiatives for quality certification, innovation incentives, contract writing or even a market alternative to government enforced patents: invention insurance (you pay a yearly fee to have a private agency insure you against loss in case someone breaks a contract in which you say that the idea you're releasing should not be used by anyone except you for a certain period of time). That's if you really believe that releasing an idea to the public without letting them actually use it, really benefits anyone. You don't need government for any of it. Quoting:The obvious limitation on the practicality of "owning" ideas is that the majority of this discussion is overwhelmingly skewed towards the Individual. There is nothing more than an individual. It is the fundamental unit of every "collective". The "public" does not exist as an entity in and of itself. Quoting:So Individual Patents and their focus upon more "private ownership" of ideas juxtaposed with Public-Standards and their focus upon more "collectivist ownership" of ideas ?? That's an entirely false dichotomy. First, the way I described idea ownership has nothing to do with patents. The only way that your ownership over an idea in your mind can lead to an equivalent scenario as a patent would be if you offered to communicate your idea to an unlimited number of people under a contract stating that only you have the right to use this idea within specified amount of time, something you don't need government and their legislations for. Second, "collective ownership" doesn't exist. It is impossible. No two persons can occupy the same point in space and time and no two persons can have ownership (absolute and exclusive control) over the same thing at the same time. "Collective ownership" is a fallacy. What did you think my "much larger epidemic infecting humanity" statement referred to? :) It referred to collectivism, a self-contradictory philosophy which introduced such concepts as "public property", "collective ownership", "public good", "common good" etc. as if they represent something in reality, when in fact they don't. It's failing to see the distinction between forest and the trees. http://anarchyinyourhead.com/2008/11/24/failing-to-see-the-t... Perhaps you can see now why insisting on some sort of a "legal" perspective is quite meaningless to me. I truly have absolutely no suggestion as far as "legal" goes except: get rid of it, stop thinking legal and start thinking real. |
| tracyanne Dec 05, 2008 6:00 PM EDT |
You own the idea that's in your mind, that's truly wonderful |
| Libervis Dec 05, 2008 6:14 PM EDT |
And that's my whole point tracyanne. :) Isn't it amazing how hard it can be to convey something so simple? |
| tuxchick Dec 05, 2008 7:00 PM EDT |
so Libervis, you're saying that all the hundreds of words you wrote on this can be condensed into "You own the idea that's in your mind, that's truly wonderful"? That is some world-class condensing! |
| theboomboomcars Dec 05, 2008 7:15 PM EDT |
If I had an idea and didn't share it did I have an idea? If so prove it. |
| Libervis Dec 05, 2008 8:13 PM EDT |
TC:Quoting:so Libervis, you're saying that all the hundreds of words you wrote on this can be condensed into "You own the idea that's in your mind, that's truly wonderful"? That is some world-class condensing! That's my special new super compression algorithm, and it's an idea I own, and wont tell. :D Seriously though, that text addressed a little more than just "you own idea in your mind" specifically, although it's all more or less relevant to that point; the nature of an idea and a mind and a brain, my perspective on "legal" (relevant to practical application of idea ownership vs. patents and standards and related legislation) and collectivism (which I dread). theboomboomcars: Quoting:f I had an idea and didn't share it did I have an idea? How should I know? If you had it it's yours. If you didn't, you didn't. It's completely irrelevant to me because I am not you. |
| tracyanne Dec 05, 2008 9:52 PM EDT |
It's a bit like the sound of one hand clapping. |
| ColonelPanik Dec 05, 2008 11:11 PM EDT |
This is a werethread. Will the wereadmin please put the stake in its heart? |
| tracyanne Dec 05, 2008 11:27 PM EDT |
hand cast silver bullets are the only remedy. |
| jdixon Dec 06, 2008 12:14 AM EDT |
> ...hand cast silver bullets are the only remedy. Oh, good. Now we can bring the subject around to guns. :) What caliber do you think would be best for this particular prey? Would we need regular, hollow point, or armor piercing rounds? |
| Libervis Dec 06, 2008 12:36 AM EDT |
Sometimes it feels like these forums are overrun by trolls. First someone starts with offtopic nonsense chit chat and then on that basis calls for a lock up. Anyone else noticed the trend? Oh who am I kidding... |
| tbuitenh Dec 06, 2008 7:47 AM EDT |
@vainrveenr: Do not, ever, say the words "public good" or "collective" or similar to Libervisco. Trust me. You'll just get in long discussions in which nobody gets convinced of anything, which will be repeated on a monthly basis until you just give up. ;) @Libervisco: Yup, I am a dualist. Well, not exactly, but getting into the complicated details of that is pointless for the purpose of this thread. @Libervisco again: Don't you know regulation 876.34 A? All threads must not contain more than 20% intelligence. They're just trying to help by posting nonsense to compensate for the intelligent debate. Anyway as far as I'm concerned we're done here, so let them have the thread. Cheers! |
| Libervis Dec 06, 2008 1:26 PM EDT |
> Trust me. You'll just get in long discussions in which nobody gets convinced of anything You're being way imprecise here. Discussions with you have brought me towards exploring some things I otherwise wouldn't and solidifying my views. That you can't convince me to stop believing in non-initiation of violence.. well.. tough luck, but I kinda think that a reason why I'd stick with such a belief is almost self-evident. I just freaking don't want to initiate violence nor have other people do it to me!! Apparently that's such an incredible tough cookie for people to swallow. What a sad reflection of humanity. That said, it at least made you think, and a few times it seemed like you actually understood what I'm talking about. You simply have an internal issue which is preventing you from going any further. Meanwhile, at least 2 people have been convinced, and I wasn't even trying so hard. ;) As for that "regulation".. yea looks like it, and it's pathetic. Anyway, cheers. |
| tbuitenh Dec 06, 2008 5:43 PM EDT |
Obviously I disagree about who is the one with the internal issue, but never mind ;) . |
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