panpareil

A reflex is an automatic response to stimuli, something done without thought or reason. The emotional agitation of unfairness is such a response. It is due to the expectation that an action performed (work) is rewarded with an expected result. When results for a specific action (work) by an individual do not match the results for other individuals, it produces the emotional agitation of unfairness. The unemphasized component in the studies on this has been the work aspect. Equivalent work is needed to trigger the response. Unfairness in results requires equal work being done. Monkeys reject unequal pay, Sarah F. Brosnan & Frans B. M. de Waal It is like the act of pulling a heavy weight to open a door for a reward. If you pull the weight and do not get the reward someone else does you feel it is unfair. But you do not if you do not pull the weight. In general, I believe envy is conflated with unfairness due to a lack of understanding regarding the work (not effort) involved in obtaining more desirable rewards.

Fairness is a biological reflex. Even animals understand what is fair. The question could better be posed as how does this reflexive response work, instead of describing an abstract.

Is fairness then dependent on ones ability to reason, and degree to which one is informed? Are the events in life inherently unfair for the ignorant and mentally deficient? What if an outcome is expected by one with more efficient reasoning but unexpected by the one with a mental deficiency? So, maybe expectations are not relevant to fairness.

So, you seem to be inferring that consensus is a condition for fairness. All parties in a transaction need to agree for a transaction to be fair.

What is fair?

Fine, if IP is not to be equitably redistributed outright, then it can be seized by eminent domain for a price set by the community and placed in the public domain for all to use, in the same way other property is seized for the greater public good. The IP itself is more valuable to the public than currency. The public can print its own currency. Besides the IP is already in the possession of the public in most cases, The claimed IP owner relies on the public to grant a monopoly to maintain their ownership privileges, even though there claimed property is already in the possession of many others. All that really needs to be done is the rescission of this monopoly The claimed IP owner will still possess their IP without loss. I used to have a dozen or so VIC20's, 64's and 128's. I imagine it is fairly difficult now a days to find 5 1/4" media.

Property is one of those things that existed before law or society. Many animals recognize property. They fight for food. They fight for territory. They fight for mates. Property is a requirement for survival in the animal kingdom. Law only recognizes the obvious, that property is necessary for survival. IP should be taxed as other riches are taxed. A portion of ones IP should be distributed to the public on a periodic basis, Just as ones money is confiscated and distributed. Only IP can be distributed to the entire population, not just a select few. The trap of entitlements may not be intentionally designed, but it is certainly an ignored byproduct. The benefits to government have so far outweighed any negative feedback that would move it to change. Its like they are handing out free drugs. There is benefit to the user but it perpetuates the problem and invites the creation of more users. Something like a 22 trillion dollars has been spent on the war on poverty when adjusted for inflation. This is enough money to make each person in poverty independently wealthy, and yet poverty has stopped its downward trend when the war on poverty started in 1964 and has actually grown 4 percent since its low in 1974 while the amount spent has more than doubled. By the way I loved Commodore computers.

Property is something that can be lost or destroyed. Theft of property deprives one of property. Property is also scarce. There is a limited amount for people to share. Ideas are not property since the have none of the attributes of property. Ideas can be share without loss to the owner. They are not scare, they are instead infinitely dispersable. Which means the public is impoverished by the artificial creation of government supported monopolies on ideas and their use and dissemination. IP rights are the supposed rights to have government supported monopolies to the detriment of the public. The argument for these monopolies is the same as for all other monopolies. If monopolies were not granted then the public would be denied the product or service. IP can support this notion no stronger than the oil industry could when they became the target of antitrust litigation. The government creates large corporations by eliminating their competition with IP enforcement and eliminating risk of loss to the rich by the fiction of incorporation. Large corporations exist with the coercive force of big government turned on the public. The larger the government the greater the power of corporations. Welfare is not meant to make your life better. It is meant to keep you where you are. The way to a better life is simple to understand, learn to do what people value more. But, it is difficult to accomplish. In physics, work is the force or energy it takes to get from point A to point B. There is no short cut.

You mean nothing right?

Since when is wasting detrimental to others when it does not belong to them anyway. Unless behind the comment is also the belief that there is no such thing as private property. I am all for living a tidy frugal life that impinges no ill on others. Which is also why I am opposed to all who purposefully do impinge on others, for any reason that they might claim to have. The knowledge required to effectively and beneficially interfere in the affairs of our fellow men against their will is unattainable, not now or ever.

I am green as it concerns my wallet, which is the most accurate measure of my future physical well being. I ride a bike to work because I enjoy it. If I had the money I would live far away from work and commute by helicopter, even more fun. I separate my garbage to save money on garbage bags, none needed for recyclables. But the ban on shopping bags will eliminate that money saved because I will no longer have the bags from weekly grocery shopping for my trash. The government giveth and always taketh away more. I do not irrationally hate or avariciously envy those who are better off than myself, but instead seek to emulate their actions to the best of my understanding and ability, and see them as a source of possible income through mutually beneficial trade. Doing both in order to make my life better, and thereby be a greater benefit to society as a whole. One can easily tell to what degree they are a benefit to society by the level any other individual is willing to trade for their services or goods. The thing about the irrational desire to make the rich poorer is that this will also make everyone else poorer, since human wealth is based on production not availability of consumption. To consume without production is to impoverish society as a whole. But back to nature, who is not effected by human existence more that any other life form. Why would one think the number of humans and their habitation is any different than other life form. To take the position that the diminishment of these life forms should be compensated for by the diminishment of those life forms only makes sense if there is a benefit in the action. Any benefit would have to be a measured effect to some entity. Changes to the balance or even existence of life has no benefit to the Earth as a planet. Changes to the balance of life have been ongoing and from evidence even extreme changes have not eliminated life. In fact stasis of the number and kind of life on the planet is not in life's best interest because this is the source of its robustness and longevity. Because of this life values no life form above any other in kind or number. So, short of the obliteration of the planet life will be just fine. So if the planet is fine and life is fine, for whose benefit are environmentalists acting? If they are acting for other life forms they are not acting for the benefit of humanity, because all life forms are meant to expand to the limits of their environment (another one of life's strategies for survival). If they are not acting for the benefit of humanity there is no moral support for their actions, and any inclusion of environmentalism into any system of thought makes it immoral as well, to the degree it supports it

Why would you think a subset of humanity would be better at managing the environment than all of humanity reasoning and acting on their decisions independently. 7 billion average independent minds are smarter than even a 140 million genius minds in unison. (There are at most140 million geniuses in the current world population) If you are not going to use force and confiscate or redistribute resources how do you expect to control what happens to the environment? Mankind's greatest skill is in adapting to the environment, not controlling it. Man controls very little on this planet. We sandbox off small areas of our environment to live inside as an adaptation to the environment as a whole. We control our homes, our cars, our clothes, our work and play spaces. which is not very much at all. When the hydrocarbons are all burnt we will have alternative energy, not before. Until then alternative energy will be like any other new technology a rich mans toy.

I see the world as an egg that gives birth to humanity. If there is a planet intended purpose for humanity it is to leave this planet and take the life it has spawned elsewhere before the planet inevitably dies. If you place environmental causes above economic many people will suffer and die, mostly in the third world. I see that as an unconscionable immoral act. Environmentalism as a means of redistributing resources is nothing more than Socialism, a fact which has spawned the descriptive Watermelon, a fruit that is green on the outside but red on the inside. While keeping the environment clean is worthwhile and enhances the standard of living, schemes involving the plant food of carbon dioxide are designed mainly to part select people from their wealth, to instantiate a bureaucracy to control the lives of all in the world to the smallest detail, and to enrich and empower those who are running the scheme.

If I have no impulse to post in a manner that would illicit banishment, then I am totally free to post as I wish. What you are saying is that freedom is dependent on uncivil behavior. It is not. Besides you are free to post anything here. However posting certain things will get you banned. Still total freedom. Consequences for actions do not impinge on freedom. Neither does the inability to act. Again, the value of freedom is not what you get but what you give to others.

I do see notation at the top of every webpage on this site acknowledging its connection if not its being a representative of the source of the quotations I provided. That said, they are free to deviate from that source in anyway they see fit, as is everyone here. That is what freedom means. I see the TOC as a framework to facilitate and preserve the freedom of discourse here, not as means of limiting or controlling it. If I felt the intention was otherwise I would probably no longer frequent this site. The point of freedom is not what you get but what you give.

It is equally interesting that this is the sole form of property that is honored by the left, I on the other hand totally approve of honoring property rights. It's just there is no such thing as intellectual property. Property requires scarcity and inalienability meaning it can be lost by the original owner and possessed solely by a new owner. Intellectual property has neither and is therefore not property. Ideas can be owned until death, and can be infinitely reproduced at no loss to the original owner. What IP does do is facilitate the enforced transfer of real property in exchange for imaginary property, or even of less value the temporary use of imaginary property. It also hampers innovation, and therefore the standard of living tor every human. Remove the state protection of corporate (another government fiction forced on the populous) ownership of ideas and they will only hold possession of ideas they can keep secret. Everything else will be public domain and available to each human to better their own life. I know all the objections to this, but i do not have time to list them all and bat them away.

Ok, let me be more specific. All artificial barriers to entry are created and maintained by the state, The rest are a natural part of competitive business. Amazon and Google can only hold their place because of state protection of their trade secrets. Without it their secrets would soon be in the public domain and competition for their business would be all over the place.

Barriers to entry are created and maintained by the state, which maintains the monopoly on force. Licenses, copyright, trademark, patent, taxes, tariffs and regulations are all designed to create and protect monopolies. Predatory pricing for instance is unsustainable and cannot create a monopoly. If you continuously sell something for less than it is worth or at a loss you will go bankrupt. If your competitor is unable to match your price he may go out of business too. But, if you raise your prices after your competition is gone you are inviting new competition and you have to lower prices and operate at a loss again. Whenever you raise your prices to gouge the consumer you incentivize competition. The only way predatory pricing works is if the state steps in to eliminate competition and facilitates the gouging of consumers with force. Other supposed barriers to entry are just facets of completion, which fosters efficient businesses and a higher standard of living for consumers. The cost of entry into an enterprise is paid for by higher efficiency, or by additional and original value added to the product. This is one of those things that the average man can not conceive of overcoming, and settles in his mind that those who do overcome this must be cheating, stealing, or exceedingly lucky.

I thought Hawking is a theoretical physicist, not a biologist or a neuroscientist. The experiment in question measured the conscious decision to press a button and the neural activity that preceded and predicted the pressing of a button and when the button was pressed. The conscious decision was one second before the button was pressed. The predictive neural activity was seven seconds before the button was pressed. From this they concluded that the conscious mind was made to make the decision six seconds before it did so. They also concluded that this decision was the mechanical consequences of mechanical neural activity in the brain, like so much clockwork. This second part is where they jump to a conclusion bases on their pre-experimental bias. It is also just as likely that the unconscious mind made the choice and then directed the conscious mind to make the choice to consciously move press the button. Most overly rational people such as empiricists conclude that the conscious mind is what runs things when it is just a shell used to communicate to others and subsidiarily to ourselves. The unconscious is what runs the show. As much as these neuroscientists would like to believe they have not proven their case.

Yes, the future can affect the past. The best way to look at the universe in time is that it all happens at once everything causes everything else, throughout space, throughout time. The idea that this thing causes that thing later is just appearance. In a way determinism still exists it is just open ended now. Outcomes can be unexpected from all past causes. It also reopens the intellectual space, in the searching for cause and affect, for things to direct themselves.

The Congress can't. State and local have their own restrictions. You could imagine implied meanings outside of what it explicitly says, but someone else could imagine the opposite. That is why they need to be explicitly written down in a document like say The Constitution.

Socialism is not the evil. The hubris to control other human beings and take their freedom is the evil. The avarice to take other peoples possessions is the evil. Voluntary socialism is a good if ineffective thing, to the same degree that crony capitalism and other government sponsored monopoly (the only kind) is an evil thing.

No. Bigger is a measurement of space. Space is limited to the universe. There is nothing bigger than the universe. The multiverse may only be potential universes that have statistical influence on this universe. Our universe may be the only one that exists because it is the one we are in. Whatever god is, bigger than the universe is not one of their qualities since size is a quality of the interior of the universe.

Living (organic) things tend to create order out of the chaos of inorganic things.

I probably should have said, "The difference between what is living and what is inorganic is creative free will." to be more clear.