Sploosh the Water

Dive into the Fediverse.

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 9th, 2023

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  • I don’t believe in the concept of “intellectual property” so any laws built around that concept are nonsense to me.

    Laws about protecting intellectual property are to me, like laws preventing the poaching of unicorns, they don’t make sense because the thing they are built around doesn’t exist.

    I do think there should be protections against fraud, ie: falsely attributing somebody else’s work or not giving due credit. But the idea that a person, group of people, or a company can “own” a concept in the same way somebody owns a shovel or owns a house, that just makes zero sense to me.

    It’s a fallacy, it’s like somebody saying, “I tried to go see Harvard University, but the tour guide just spent hours showing me a bunch of different buildings. I never actually saw Harvard University.”

    I can understand owning an object, I even understand owning a piece of land to some degree, although that’s somewhat dubious IMO. But an idea? It just makes no sense to me.

    I’m thinking of a planet right now called “HS-9970 Xagian Prime” where the oceans are all honey and the land is all gingerbread. How do I “own” that idea? What does that even mean?

    I came up with the concept in my imagination sure. I’m the person that originated it, I put some kind of labor into it. But it’s impossible to steal from me, unlike land, a shovel, etc. Unless you literally went into my brain, removed the idea somehow and placed it into your brain.

    Do I have some sort of rights to that idea? What rights though. Rights of ownership with normal property seem to be rooted in some kind of basic violations of person. As in, the only way you can steal my shovel is if you deprive me directly of the ability to use it. Your stealing directly entails me losing the ability to use that thing. Stealing my land entails kicking me off of it by force against my will, depriving me of using it.

    But if you “steal” my idea of Xagian Prime, what am I being deprived of? Anything you add to it is your own creation, it follows the same rules as my ideas I came up with. One could argue that you couldn’t have come up with your new ideas without starting from mine, but that seems somewhat dubious, and even if true, it’s not like my idea of Xagian Prime was 100% original. It required concepts and ideas that other people already came up with too, and we don’t see that as “stealing.” I still have full access to my ideas of Xagian Prime.

    One might argue that I am deprived of potential profit or social gains, but that seems extremely dubious. How am I “owed” potential profit that isn’t guaranteed?

    It seems to me that the only arguments that are compelling for so called “Intellectual Property” are actually just arguments about fraud. Like it’s wrong to claim my idea of Xagian Prime is actually yours and then sell books on it. Sure, but that has nothing to do with property ownership, that is just fraud. That’s the same as saying it’s wrong to go around pretending I’m selling medicine when actually it’s just water with food coloring.

    I am open to changing my position, but I’ve been discussing this for years with folks and I’ve never heard a compelling argument for the existence of IP. The most compelling arguments I’ve heard are ones about rights of people to have their work represented in ways they allow. That makes sense, but again, that seems like an argument against fraud, not for IP.


  • I think it’s generational. When I talk to folks about gaming in their early-mid 30’s, the majority of them either also game, or at least don’t think it’s weird. Video games and board games too.

    I think once you hit that rough age cutoff for millennials, late 30’s-early 40’s it seems video gaming and board gaming also largely falls off. At least that’s been my experience.

    My spouse and I are in our 30’s and most of our peers game. Keep it up and never stop having fun!



    1. Fallacious argument. Just because something hasn’t been successful before or people don’t see how to make it work doesn’t justify an existing unethical/immoral system. Plenty of people thought it was crazy to imagine a world where slavery wasn’t a thing. That didn’t justify continuing that system though.

    2. There are many of examples of anarchist or pseudo-anarchist communities that exist. Many Shaolin monastic communities are anarchistic, and egalitarian depending on the sect. Some Mennonite and old world Amish communities are anarchistic also, having only collective property and some personal property, no privatization.

    Some first nations tribes were pseudo-anarchist, operating as a collective with egalitarian leadership based largely on life experience and wisdom, they maintained completely voluntary relationships with other tribes in the region and had no private property.












  • I like dogs in general, grew up with a bunch. My spouse’s family always had cats though. After a few years of living with cats vs dogs, cats take the win easy for me for general ease of living.

    No needing walks, liter box is easy to scoop, they spend most of the day sleeping and will come by to play or get pet for a few minutes, then move on lol.

    Two things though:

    1. Some of this is culturally American. In other countries, dogs are not given the same free reign of the house as here.

    2. I’m probs gunna get a lot of flack for this… A majority of people have horribly trained dogs. In my experience, most folks consider their dog a “good” dog if it has a good mood, that’s all. Doesn’t matter that it doesn’t listen to commands, doesn’t matter that it jumps all over people slobbering and barking. Doesn’t matter that it is always butting into meals and begging.

    Can’t tell you how many times I’ve had a dog jump all over me, licking my face and getting stinking drool all over my clothes only for the owner to say, “oh sorry haha, he/she just loves people!”

    If your dog won’t stop barking the moment you tell it to, it’s a badly trained dog. If your dog jumps up on people when they enter your home, your dog is badly trained. If your dog constantly comes over to the table while people are eating and whines, badly trained.

    And it pisses me off that when this behavior happens, the owners either don’t care, or get angry at the dog and do something asinine like lock it in another room alone.

    I like dogs! I still want one when my spouse and I have property. I don’t care if your dog gets to lay on the couches and roam the house freely, that’s fine, but it has to act civilized like any other member of the family. Yes it’s possible BTW, any professionally trained service dogs will behave like this and more.