Law (was: evolving lisp)

[Francois-Rene Rideau]

The following message is a courtesy copy of an article
that has been posted to comp.lang.lisp as well.

This is way off-topic from comp.lang.lisp;
Followup-To: cybernethics@tunes.org
or any other more appropriate forum than you want (and announce here).

>>>: Larry Elmore <ljelmore@home.com>
>>: Fare Rideau <fare+NOSPAM@tunes.org>
>: "Pierre R. Mai" <pmai@acm.org>

>>> Microsoft is not a coercive monopoly
>> Of course it is! That's what "intellectual property" is all about:
>> coercive monopolies settled by governments [...]
> I guess that you are against privacy protection laws as well, then?

I reckon the natural right of anyone to take whatever measures to
protect one's own privacy, within the limits of one's property:
walls, roofs, curtains, opaque envelopes, strong encryption,
safes, faraday cages, non-disclosure agreements, barbed wire, etc.
I reckon the right of anyone to counter-attack or sue,
when an aggressor trespasses or destroys his property
while trying to invade privacy (or trying to do whatsoever, for the matter).
I deny anyone the right to counter-attack or sue
someone who would manage to gather information
without trespassing, destroying, or breaching anything.

I deny governments or anyone the right either to
invade the privacy of some people when it entails
trespassing or destroying private property,
or to enforce the privacy of other people after the fact,
when these people failed to take appropriate measures to protect themselves.

Actually, I deny governments the right to enact laws of any kind,
or to do anything that citizens couldn't do individually
in an voluntary organized way.
I reckon the validity of common law and case law,
in as much as it hasn't been tainted by forged law.

> Because the only thing that [IP] laws install are monopolies on the
> personal data of your self, allowing only you to control the sale,
> processing and use of such data.
No. They install monopolies on the use of their own resources
by non-contracting third parties.
They are no different in principle than the monopoly on trade with India.
You needn't any monopoly to withhold the your data and your services
until you agree to some conditions of sale with some customer.
Just like you needn't any monopoly to conduct trade with India.
Competition is not piracy. See abundant literature at
	http://fare.tunes.org/patents.html#pointers

> Don't fear freedom.
I don't.
Next, know what freedom is.

Yours freely,

[ François-René ÐVB Rideau | Reflection&Cybernethics | http://fare.tunes.org ]
[  TUNES project for a Free Reflective Computing System  | http://tunes.org  ]
Economics is the plural of Morality.