From: Louis Newstrom (louisnews@comcast.net)
Date: Wed Jun 12 2002 - 06:36:56 MDT
From: "Hal Finney" <hal@finney.org>
> Anyway, Zuboff uses the example of a novel. If the last copy is
> destroyed, the novel is lost. But if there are two copies and one is
> destroyed, the novel still exists. It's the same idea, the change from
> 2 to 1 is qualitatively different than the change from 1 to 0.
Although this is true, I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that destroying one
out of two has practically no effect. You are cutting in half the number of
people who can read a book.
To make an extreme example, suppose someone enforced the idea that there
would only be one copy of Star Wars, instead of making millions of copies.
Not only would it be a relatively unknown movie, but the producer would have
significantly less money.
The NUMBER of things, even identical things, is a signifigant property.
Destroying duplicate copies DOES make a difference.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:14:45 MST