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Originally Posted by
Mario F.
Sure. And you naturally expect to pay for such funding through a tax increase. And since Sweden has a population in the 9 million mark, being that tax payers should make... 60%?... of that, you are willing to support with a considerable tax raise, the development of new technologies being done in such companies as Ericsson or Volvo, who then still need to market it and sell it back to you at a profit.
I'm not quite sure i understand what you are trying to say, could you rephrase that?
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Oh, make no mistake. It is democracy, I agree. But it is also ignorant democracy. Or is it that if one is democratic, they can't be ignorant anymore? But it's ok. I'm perhaps being a little too harsh. Especially because it's not a good option to debate by diminishing the adversary... oh, but we are talking about politics. Scratch that.
Democracy in itself is flawed, since ignorance is prevalent in the majority of the population (imo atleast). But surely, if anyone is willing to place a vote on a certain political party, then it's existance is warranted, no? Ignorant or not.
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The sudden increase in ermm "political interest" you speak of, coincided exactly with the guilty verdict on the PirateBay court case. One of the most widespread illegal content distribution services in the web. Coincidence? Of course not. The third political force in Sweden is all to well suited with hackers, crackers and anyone interested in software, music and movie piracy.
Yes, political interest coincides with added publicity, this is not new, and it is not a coincidence. And of course you can expect the people that vote for the Swedish Pirate Party to be pirates themselves, just as you can expect the communist parties to have mostly communist voters for example. Again, i don't catch your drift?
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I'm a Socialist too. But for the state to pay anything, it needs the money. And that money comes from you. You pay! Not the state.
Obviously, USA is afaik one of the only nations to print new money when they need it, around here we pay expenses with taxes.
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Unless... nationalizations. If you nationalize half of the country industry, hey there will be money to pay for that and a lot more! But then you opened room for corruption, lost your European economical dominance and your way of life. Should be interesting to see a Ericsson or Volvo nationalized. That would make a lot of the competition much happier.
I don't recall mentioning anything about nationalizing half of any country's industry. I was just arguing that if removing patents and altering the copyright laws would result in fewer innovations being made, the state (or us if you will), could fill in that role, with public research institutions.
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NASA is only possible due to the huge economical power that supports it. The equivalent in Europe the ESA and it needs a collection of ~18 European countries (and american funding too!) to provide it with a 3 billion euros budget. Nasa is maintained by one government on a 17 billio dollar budget.
You simply cannot use this as an example, unless you propose that Sweden or any European country can even come close to these numbers and then indeed justify such a thing anywhere close to NASA.
Merely an example, other examples that work well here in Scandinavia: Public Healthcare, Public Postal Service, Public Schools and really, anything public, funded by the state around here works very well.
We even have publicly funded research right now, why not focus more on that to fill out the possible holes that removing patents might leave in the private sector?
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But more important. Every country in Europe supports investigation thought state funded programs. You aren't asking for anything that doesn't exist already.
Right.
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What you do seem to be against is private ownership. And that my friend is something you and I know very well over here in Europe who always defended it.
More like private monopolies and the concept of intellectual property.
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So, are you a Socialist indeed, or are you Marxist? Maoist perhaps?
I'm not sure, my political compass is in the far 3rd quadrant. But i'm not sure which dictator i resemble the most :D
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Very well. I can't say much more than what you already did in this paragraph. You clearly delineated the idea that if you can't beat them you should join them. Or, if you can't beat crime (which no country in the world was ever able to) we might as well all become criminals.
If you can't beat a specific crime, then what point is there with the law that makes it criminal?
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And to appease our minds and makes us think we are walking the legal road after all, we should change laws so that Criminal behavior becomes acceptable.
I wish not to change the current copyright laws so that i can feel good with pirating. If i feel bad about something, it is probably because i did something immoral, since laws do not define what is immoral and what isn't, how i feel about piracy has little to do with it's legality.
Laws define what the majority of us think should be legal and illegal, if the majority of the population agree that the law is meaningless and that we can do better, then the law should be changed, do you not agree?
If the law is changed, then the criminal behavior ceases to be criminal, and is then just...behavior. It seems as if you have ethical problems with piracy, even if laws were changed to allow it to some degree, why is that?
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Curious:
What do you think of Theft? You agree we should pass laws to make it legal?
Wat do you think of Commercial Espionage? You think we should pass laws to make it legal?
What you think of Child Abuse? You think we shall pass laws to make it legal?
ad nausea...
None of these laws are meaningless, none of them are impossible to enforce, they all make perfect sense.
Piracy is not theft, only if you buy into the whole intellectual property enchilada, or arguably, it is theft of income (Which some would then argue against since most pirates rarely intend to buy what they download.)