36 Message 36: From extropians-request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Mon Aug 2 06:13:16 1993 Return-Path: Received: from usc.edu by chaph.usc.edu (4.1/SMI-4.1+ucs-3.0) id AA19803; Mon, 2 Aug 93 06:13:14 PDT Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Received: from panix.com by usc.edu (4.1/SMI-3.0DEV3-USC+3.1) id AA22371; Mon, 2 Aug 93 06:13:01 PDT Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Received: by panix.com id AA03502 (5.65c/IDA-1.4.4 for more@usc.edu); Mon, 2 Aug 1993 09:07:35 -0400 Date: Mon, 2 Aug 1993 09:07:35 -0400 Message-Id: <199308021307.AA03502@panix.com> To: Exi@panix.com From: Exi@panix.com Subject: Extropians Digest X-Extropian-Date: August 2, 373 P.N.O. [13:07:21 UTC] Reply-To: extropians@gnu.ai.mit.edu Errors-To: Extropians-Request@gnu.ai.mit.edu Status: RO Extropians Digest Mon, 2 Aug 93 Volume 93 : Issue 213 Today's Topics: FSF: Some Useful Software, No Useful Politics [3 msgs] The Searle Argument [1 msgs] software rental surprise [2 msgs] Administrivia: No admin msg. Approximate Size: 53321 bytes. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 1 Aug 1993 23:35:17 -0600 (MDT) From: Stanton McCandlish Subject: software rental surprise Quoth E. Dean Tribble, verily I say unto thee: -=> Is there any logical reason for MS Word for Windows to cost $450? -=> -=>Yes. People will buy it at that price. Beyond that, marketing and -=>pricing issues are a black art: if they lower the price, they -=>discredit the product, if they raise, they piss off customers, etc. Then explain to me how it is that in 1980, and IBM PC cost about $2000 for a machine that you can buy now (with far superiour drives, memory, and monitor) for under $300. Please explain to me how in 1980, video tapes cost $80 for any movie you care to name, sometimes $120, and now average at $19.95. If lowering prices discredits products, please explain to me how putting the words "50% off sale!" in their ads will get the average store more customers than they can handle. People buy MS WinWord for $450 because they have no choice. If they NEED a word processor, they can buy that, AMI-Pro, WP, whatever, and guess what? They all cost about the same. -=>As for renting, people have tried that. For who-knows-what reason, -=>companies don't want to rent software if they can buy it. They just -=>don't do it. When have people tried that? Renting software is illegal. Yes it went on in the Old Days, but that was long before the current market explosion. There were just not enough people wanting software to pay for a small store's overhead in elec. bills, wages, etc. Things have changed. VERY much. And large companies choosing to buy, not rent, is largely irrelevant. This practice need not affect a rental marketplace at all. Simply charge the companies the same rate you offer to rental stores, or to those customer that DO want to purchase outright (ever notice at most video rentals you can also buy videos?) It just isn't a factor. The very rapidly expanding number of computer-owning consumers, which will boom like never before, when today's elemetary school kids get jobs in their teens and start consuming for real, will ensure a very eager-for-rental marketplace. -=>surprisingly quickly. Where companies make their serious money is on -=>upgrades: extendoing an existing product takes much less development -=>effort, many fewer extra licenses, much less support burden, and much -=>less cost of sales (because they've got a mailing list and a bunch of -=>committed customers). [pulling out hair] Of course! How many times have I said this? -=>The $60 upgrade to Windows 3.1 (I think that was the price). Made -=>several million dollars the first day. Advertising was -=>straightforward, all the dealers wanted it, all the magazines wrote it -=>up beforehand, most of the customers wanted it, etc. Because it was Yes yes yes! Now picture that market, when MS-Windows can be rented by anyone for $8, and copied. They have to pay a little extra for a manual, and even though tech support costs, it's still actually cheaper, because the techs are there, en masse. There is no waiting in queue. Instead of just the group who have used windows, because they bought it, without even testing it, they have a HUGE customer base because anyone can go try it out for very little outlay. Sound silly? I point you to the growing number of music stores that will let you "preview" CDs before buying them. That was absolutely unheard of until just a few years ago, but they are selling a LOT more albums now. As for the tech support, it will probably not cost any more or any less than it does now, to J. Random User. This is because the average tech service call to a software company of any size is about 20 minutes of waiting (add 5-10 if they have more than a minimal voice messaging system), plus anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes of trying to get any info of use out of the so-called technician. Companies hate providing techsupport, because it's a money pit, and so they provide lousy service. All the money from this enterprise goes right into the pockets of [X]Bell. Charge for tech support, and you instantly have a business, not a vacuum. You can afford to hire more techs, who actually know what the hell they are doing, and the customer, losing no money on the deal even if the call is $3 per minute, is greatly pleased because they are talking to real person, not a machine, they don't have to wait, the person is not an illegal immigrant that can hardly speak English, and actually provides the answers they need. For cryin' out loud, is this not the most obvious thing in the world? There are people making a killing in the tech-support-for-pay business RIGHT NOW. -=>When people buy a product, they don't buy a single thing, they buy -=>into an upgrade path. That's what customers tend to value, and that's -=>what makes money for software companies. Exactly exactly exactly. -=>The high price of the -=>initial buy-in is mostly to cover costs and fund the development of -=>the rest of the market. This structure is much better for the -=>end-user than renting is because they can opt out of the upgrade path -=>(stop 'renting') at any time with losing their current ability to -=>operate. First part: yep. 2nd part: nonsense. If rental is legalized, you have who knows how many more people who can and will buy software. It would be an explosion of spending, and any given software co. might have 10, or 50 or whatever, times as many customers in just a few years; distributing the cost throught these people will not only keep the cost to the end consumer down, but will make MORE money for the companies right off the bat. The idea of this rental idea is not that one rents forever, but rents once, keeps a copy, buys support and docs, plays with it, learns it and keeps it, and wow guess what buys right into your upgrade path. Anyway, at the top, you stated that legalization wasn't viable because of such things as lowered cost causing loss of wares reputation, more or less. The real reason, is that it will take cooperation, and the industry as a whole will lose some face when it runs to Uncle Scam, and says "Oops. We goofed. Can you take this law back off the books and bandaid our boo-boo?" Right now, they make enough to not need to lose any face. Yet. This will change. As development costs skyrocket, no one will be able to afford the software they need (and I do say NEED. Right now, for my chosen occupations, I NEED certain software, or I have nothing to work with, nothing to stay competive with, and it's Burger King for me.) People will pirate like mad, just to feed themselves, the laws arm will flex, people will get pissed and companies will topple like stoned Goliaths. All that can be neatly avoided by kissing congressional butt for a season and getting it over with. Anyway, I should be off the list soon when my feed is cut, so any replies should come privately if wish me to respond, or at least be CC:'d. -=>can be used in commercial products just fine. I dislike the GNU -=>copyright, so we're going to compete with a less restrictive one :-) That's the spirit! -- Stanton McCandlish * Space Migration * Networking * ChaOrder * NO GOV'T. * anton@hydra.unm.edu * Intelligence Increase * Nano * Crypto * NO RELIGION * FidoNet: 1:301/2 * Life Extension * Ethics * VR * Now! * NO MORE LIES! * Noise in the Void BBS * +1-505-246-8515 (24hr, 1200-14400, v32bis, N-8-1) * ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Aug 93 0:11:52 PDT From: thamilto@pcocd2.intel.com (Tony Hamilton - FES ERG~) Subject: FSF: Some Useful Software, No Useful Politics > Reverse engineering an implementation is theft since it is in a "jar" > (an implementation). An implementation is a perfectly clear boundary line > around the property analogous to a fence. Engineering is so diverse > that the probability of you coming up with a circuit layout identical to > a Pentium is astronomically small. > Be careful, Ray. This particlur example is one with many twists. For obvious reasons, I keep well abreast of the issues related to the reverse engineering of computer chips. When you say that reverse engineering is a theft, you should qualify what you mean by that. ALthough there are no issues with Pentium yet, take the 486. Real-life examples of reverse engineering efforts include studying physical chips and making direct copies (which is still a kind of reverse engineering, since this study reveals little about the manufacturing process), reengineering from studied schematics, to the most difficult kind, total redesign based on observed performance characteristics. Which of these things is "theft", in your model? I only ask because the specifics of what you consider theft is important in order to understand your argument. > Besides all of what I've said, NO ONE on the affirmative side of > this debate has called for government protection of ideas or implementation. > Such things could be taken care of very easily by contract and private > arbitration. Can they? Again, interesting that you mention Pentium, because Intel, the company behind that chip, has had nothing but bad experiences with private contract and arbitration over older-generation chips. The most notable problem has been with AMD, the company which sells 386 and 486 chips, and which Intel has been locked in legal battles with. All of the disputes _started_ with contracts. One went through arbitration, and still went from there to the courts. Both companies seem to be using the courts as their only means of settling their disputes. In today's society, that's just how it works. What if these problems between Intel and AMD had surfaced in an anarcho-capitalist society? My guess is that AMD, the ones doing the copying in this case, would be better off. Intel would have little recourse. And they are the ones who soaked all the R&D expenses and such into developing these products. How would they fare? Well, I'm generally against any "inherent" property rights, physical or intellectual, of any kind, and feel that any given person or organization has the "right" to whatever they can defend, through whatever means are at their disposal. Its difficult to _defend_ against much in an anarchist society. WHat is one to do? Well, I'll continue with the Intel example (which is so dear to me :-) In fact, Intel has, in my opinion, done fairly poorly in the courts. They've lost more than they've won, and even most of the wins have been reversed or put on hold. So, they're not doing too well at defending their intellectual property - just as I suspect they wouldn't in an anarchist society? How are they doing then? Well, quite well. In fact, they're propsering and growing. How? By being competitive. And that, I believe, is the key to keeping one's head above water in a future where intellectual property can no longer be termed "property". I won't go into the details of how competitive and successful this company is, but I can say that in some cases, actually in most, where they have "lost" their intellectual property to a competitor, it spawned a new growth period. Not because of some natural phenomenon related to this kind of thing, but because the leaders of the company found ways to make it so. Strangely enough, the largest rough spots this company has are related to times when it is more aggressive at enforcing its patents. I know, only a sample of 1 here, but one sample I'm very familiar with. SO, in summary, I don't think government laws help much, but I also don't think private laws and contracts are much better in the absence of government. I think commerce in the future will have to be based on deliverables - physical (or electronic) trades of goods. Currency may or may not still exist, but I think it would be difficult to draw up contracts to govern pending transactions. Reputations will play some part, but only in limited areas (and/or networks). > I'm about to quit this debate because the other side > seems opposed even to private contract/arbitration, and sales discrimination > (not selling to reputations who have a history of pirating) One person, > (Tony Hamilton), referred to the keeping of records and tit-for-tat > refusal of sale as big brotherish. If this is so, than all humans are > big brothers because people automatically register reputations in their > head all the time. "IN their head" is the key phrase. We don't all go around telling everyone every little detail, because we know that, outside of the proper context, details can be misleading. Keeping records is one thing. Giving them to everyone else is another. This is nothing different than the credit reporting agencies in the US - which DO NOT WORK. More credit reports than not are in error at least in part. If one of your premises is that systems such as these actually work, then we cannot argue further. But ask yourself why the economy is so stagnated, why it is difficult to get loans, and you'll end up back at all the "tit-for-tat" reporting and legislation that the US has become bogged down in. Tony Hamilton thamilto@pcocd2.intel.com HAM on HEx ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Aug 93 4:22:09 WET DST From: rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray) Subject: FSF: Some Useful Software, No Useful Politics Stanton McCandlish () writes: > > > This is erroneous. "Elite BBS" is a blanket term for any pirate board. > The leeches are called lusers, or just leeches, not Luzers. And most > software does not require cracking, but can be zipped up, complete with > volume labels and directory structure if any, with an included text file > giving the serial number. This how almost all BBS-based software piracy > (which likely amounts to about 1% of piracy, most of which is "BuddyWare" - > "Hey, Jo, look what I got! Coreldraw! Copied it from my neighbor; want a > copy?") is performed. The largest flaw in this rather mythic view of BBS > pirates is that "lesser" boards must wait for hand outs from the big boys. > This is absurd. No special elite of the elite has a monopoly on software > access. USERS (lusers) upload this stuff, not sysops for the most part. Stanton, you don't know what you are talking about. You sound like your only computer was a PC or Mac. I can assure you that copy protection is alive and well, and that everything I described went on on platforms such as the Amiga, Atari, Commodore 64, Spectrum, etc. (I did not want to reveal this but for the sake of establishing my knowledge of this subject...) Background: From summer 1986 to Decemember 1989, I was a software pirate, but more than just a pirate. I wrote "intros" which were elaborate colorful screens that are put on cracked games, I "converted" European PAL cracks which wouldn't run on NTSC computers because of precise raster timing, I "trained" games (added infinite lives, infinite energy, etc), and I removed look-up-manual protection and disk based copyprotection. I know quite a bit about how most copy protection works and I even wrote some myself including a cryptographic "scrambler" to prevent other groups from removing our "intro", putting their intro on it, and announcing that they had released it first. (a sort of "crackers property") The pirate world is very competitive. The vast majority of all software on the Commodore 64, Atari, and Amiga was copy-protected using various schemes (alternative sync marks, half tracks, extra tracks, encrypted loaders, etc) Amiga users are constantly complaining of CP because it forces them to run the software from floppy instead of hard drive. The pirate groups that I was a member of were very elite. I was on bbses which only allowed members of other crack/import groups on. Whenever I or another group member would finish work on a new 'ware, we would upload it to these bbses only. (typically 3-4 bbses) I can assure you that no ordinary pirate bbses got our stuff for atleast 3 weeks. Your assertion that new cracks are spread by users is erroneous. The structure of each pirate group is made up roughly as follows: 2 people who are programmers. 1-2 people who get original software (usually by working in a software shop). 1-2 people who hack phone codez (to make free long distance and conference calls), and 1-2 "spreaders" -- those whose job it is to spend all day uploading a new release to all the big elite bbses. The only reason crack groups spread warez is to impress other crack groups, not the "lusers" who use the cracked software. Thus, they only care if opposing groups see their cracks so they can brag that they released it first. The purpose of cracking wasn't to use the software but to gain fame and boost your ego. There are two lurkers on the list who can confirm this if they wish to reveal themselves. (none of what I said above is meant as bragging. I wouldn't want to brag about something like that since it would be hypocritical -- that I _was_ a big pirate, but now I am anti-pirate. I have an excuse though, I was a young and ignorant teenager then. I saw CP as a intellectual challenge to beat, I didn't think I was hurting anyone's livelihood.) I can tell you from experience that there is a trickle down effect -- significant delay between the original release and the time everyone else gets it. It may be different on the PC where most software is not copyprotected (or manual protected) and thus copyable from the time you buy it. > Little Sam's mom just got WP 5.1? Guess where it ends up, on a dozen BBSs > in the region (or did, back when such boards were common.) Users have a > vested interest in uploading, since they get credit for doing so, which > can be spent playing games, leeching more warez or whatever. Otherwise Elite users don't have credit. I had infinite credit on every bbs I was on and I detested the job of "spreading", but in some cases I had to do it because uploading it to an official spreader would take too long. (One time I was fixing a release when a rival group called me up and said "You can stop working on [Scorpion], we are releasing it now. Ha ha!" It turns out that it was a bluff to stall me, and we ended up getting a working release out first) > they generally have to pay real money, or go find a new board that will > let them leech for free for a while. It's all a matter of economics. BBS > piracy works more like the PC marketplace, with a thousand competing > vendors, each offering certain unique or interesting features or services, > rather then the Apple-like monopoly you seem to picture. The #1 feature of competition in the Elite BBS world is simply how fast they get new releases. Nothing else matters. Not the bbs software, not the message areas, nothing. Most Commodore 64 elite pirate boards ran a system called "Ivory BBS" which amounted to little more than a directory command, and upload/download. (two other things back then mattered slightly. If the bbs didn't have a 1200 baud modem, forget it. And it had to have atleast 1meg of storage) > I think you've been a victim of some "investigative journalism" or > something. What I've told you up there is based on personal experience > and observation of these people. Nope. I was quite a pirate for a while, and I was in 5 different groups before I quit, two of which were #1. I was also acknowledged as "one of the best" pirate programmers (on the Commodore 64) in the US at one time. > Disclaimer, in case any lurking narcs are present: don't even bother. All > of the boards I used to call are gone, and I never knew who they were in > real life anyway; I don't even have the phone numbers. My HD's been > formatted a dozen times since then, not even a vestige remains on the disk. Double ditto for me. I don't even own a Commodore 64 anymore, never had a hard drive (all floppies gone, 5 1/4 1541 disk drive) and the Commodore 64 is dead as a market. > -=> Because selling software leaves behind traces. A bit of applied > -=>stegnography and you can identify who was the source of the leak. > -=>(consider hiding 32-bits of information on a 500mb CD-ROM which has > -=>lots of random information on each disk. Very low probability that someone > -=>could find it.) Offer rewards for turning in pirate bbses, etc. > > Cute and all, but what happens when the folks that work for the co. steal > (as they currently do, and have always done) from the company itself? > Lots of never-sold, brand-spankin'-new ware on the black market (if such a > market ever develops here; I have yet to see it. As I pointed out most > piracy is buddyware, and most done via BBSs, FTP sites, etc is done for > free, on general principles.) The scheme fails if there is an insider, but in general insiders are rare in small companies. There is also a way out which many companies do use (Hash Enterprises, makers of spline modeling software) and that is to sell only direct to the customer. Hash not only sells direct, but customizes the interface. However, because of limited distribution, their software is expensive. (to date, no working copies of their software has been pirated) Another way out is the super-dongle. The NewTek video toaster uses this scheme. NewTek's paint and rendering software is written in hard-coded assembly to use the video toaster's hardware. Nothing short of a complete rewrite would succeed in pirating it. (there is no way to remove the dongle without rewriting all the gui/video routines. And there is no one subroutine entry point to rewrite because video assembly programs use lots of inline macros) In fact, Rebecca is onto something. Distributing software on ROM wouldn't solve the problem, but distributing it with a custom i/o chip would. There is a growing market for so-called "backup" systems which dump Nitendo/Sega cartridges to disk and allow play from them. They fail to copy Nitendo/Sega games which have custom hardware on the cart like the "Super-FX" vector graphics processor. Only manufacturing of the custom chip would suffice and that would cost money unlike pure software proection. (although pirates could rewrite the software to emulate the custom processors, but it would slow the game down too much) > -=> By identifying uniquely who the original leak was (with stegnography) > -=>you could limit the amount of pirating. I'm not saying you can stop it, > -=>but I doubt piracy will grow bigger than it is now. > > ROTFLMAO! > > One other thing, anyone can set up their own domain. If I wanted to, in a > week or 2 you'd see my mail coming from nitv.indranet.net or something. I > can create as many "users" as I like. One handle gets ostracized from the > future NaziNet(R) you seem to envision? So what? "Crunch all you like, > we'll make more!" Whole site get's banned? BFD, make a new one. > Networks are like realms where you can build a new house, and new people > (persona, whatever) just by typing a little. It's like fiction. You assume, that, as default, new sites will be allowed credit. If your theory is true, then how does the banking industry work, huh? What prevents me from making up an alias, waltzing into a bank, and getting a loan? I also dislike the need to bring "Nazis" into the discussion. What ever happened to "freedom of association"? Are the Extropians Nazi's if they boot pagans out? There is a saying on the net: Whenever the Nazis or Hitler are mentioned in an argument, the argument is over. > -=> There are two opposing forces here. The definate need of companies > -=>and individuals to gather information (to protect themselves) and > -=>the need of individuals and companies for privacy. For the longest time, > > All talk of digital reputation being the deciding factor of your > relationship to society (I'll reserve judgement on that, though I lean > toward not buying that), see the proposal I already posted before, that the > software industry model itself on the video industry (which is in fact > just another part of the software industry, like CDs, all of which will be > melding before long; witness CD-ROMs, video/audio disks, and floppies > accompanying or even comprising, releases by major artists like Front 242, > Peter Gabiel, and Billy Idol.), and based their income on royalties, > initial sales to rental businesses, and sales of things that are far more > difficult to pirate: manuals, tech support, upgrades keyed to specific > people's IDs (probably cryptographic in coming times), etc. This mess you > envision would be completly avoided by a shift such as this, and in my > optimist view almost certainly will be. I debunked this theory before. CD-distribution succeeds because it has a natural copy protection, the fact that CDs are hard to master and current networks make uploading prohibitive. When large, writable, random access disks hit the market, and faster networks get here, say goodbye to this "hide the cost in the media price" scheme. An hour of CD music takes rougly 300-400MB of data to store. A T3 line will transfer this in about minute. Your scheme would cause media prices to soar so high that no one could afford them. The CD industry opposed the writable DAT for this exact reason. > -=> And these competiting nets won't have any software companies located > -=>on them. If they do, those companies will soon go bankrupt or they will > -=>look like FSFs. (the FSF is near financial trouble too) > > Or they will be smart, and restructure how they make their livings, and > partake of these more open, and more popular, networks. Such nets will > thrive anyway, just as they do now. What on earth makes you think that > the presence of computer corporations determines whether a net is viable > or not? I didn't say the net wouldn't be viable, I just said it wouldn't have any commercial companies online selling software over the network. So you'll have a net like you have now, one where commercial activity is effectively banned. > -=> I simply believe that it is possible to enforce effective copyright > -=>without physical force. I believe there are utilitarian reasons for creating > -=>intellectual property. If America wants to maintain its status as the #1 > -=>software producer, it had better keep intellectual copyright. > > Why is only physical force to be objected to? This strikes me as a > particularly capital-L Libertarian hypocrisy. In today's world, and > especially in the one we envision on the way, physical threats will have > far less importance than economic and social threats; Threatening my > food/money source, net access, etc are just as much a threat to me as > telling me you'll kick me in the balls, and to me, more so. It's still > statist (or corporate, statist-emulating) coercion. Free market my rosy butt. And therefore we need socialism right? Guaranteed work, affirmative action, free net access for all,etc etc. Looks like this conversation is over. The Nazi comment triggered a warning sign but this takes the cake. If you would have told me you were a socialist in the beginning, I wouldn't have tried to argue with you. I thought I was arguing with someone who thought that property rights are useful and ethical. You talk of threatening someone's food/money source, but pirating software does exactly that. The reverse is not true. Witholding new software or _private_ net access from someone does not threaten their food source anymore than with holding access to the extropians list does. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Aug 93 4:48:24 WET DST From: rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray) Subject: software rental surprise Stanton McCandlish () writes: > -=>The $60 upgrade to Windows 3.1 (I think that was the price). Made > -=>several million dollars the first day. Advertising was > -=>straightforward, all the dealers wanted it, all the magazines wrote it > -=>up beforehand, most of the customers wanted it, etc. Because it was > > Yes yes yes! Now picture that market, when MS-Windows can be rented by > anyone for $8, and copied. They have to pay a little extra for a manual, > and even though tech support costs, it's still actually cheaper, because > the techs are there, en masse. There is no waiting in queue. Instead of > just the group who have used windows, because they bought it, without even > testing it, they have a HUGE customer base because anyone can go try it What happens when someone rents a copy for $8 and puts it up on compuserve/internet? As Harry will tell you, there is a growing trend to online/tv selling away from in-store selling. With a data super-highway in place, why bother with buying manuals or renting? I simply go online, Archie/WAIS/Gopher to a Microsoft software site, and download everything. The manual will be in PS/Dvi form so I simply print it out. Support available in any newsgroup or user group. An $8 rental would have to cover the cost of running the store, marketing, plus packaging, and Microsoft's pay back. Let's say Microsoft employs 4000 people at $50k/yr. That means $50000*4000/$8=25 million copies must be sold just to keep microsoft staff employed. With this "tech support" fairy tale that people are bandying around here, let's assume another 30,000 support people employed at $20k/yr (30,000 is typical for a large company like IBM). That yields 60 MILLION support calls at $10 each to finance the whole thing. Add in a 10% profit margin and we have a ridiculous number of people renting and paying for support, not supported by current rates or even the wildest estimates. > number of music stores that will let you "preview" CDs before buying them. Because you can't pirate CDs. > First part: yep. 2nd part: nonsense. If rental is legalized, you have > who knows how many more people who can and will buy software. It > would be an explosion of spending, and any given software co. might > have 10, or 50 or whatever, times as many customers in just a few > years; distributing the cost throught these people will not only keep > the cost to the end consumer down, but will make MORE money for the > companies right off the bat. The idea of this rental idea is not > that one rents forever, but rents once, keeps a copy, buys support > and docs, plays with it, learns it and keeps it, and wow guess what > buys right into your upgrade path. I don't why any of this would be true. Given a data superhighway, people would much rather just download the thing off the net. Much easier than going to a store and renting. > Right now, they make enough to not need to lose any face. Yet. This will > change. As development costs skyrocket, no one will be able to afford the > software they need (and I do say NEED. Right now, for my chosen > occupations, I NEED certain software, or I have nothing to work with, > nothing to stay competive with, and it's Burger King for me.) People will And when you get software for free, it's Burger King for programmers. How nice. You get to live off of their products, and they get the shaft. You may need certain software, but you don't have a right to it. Ditto for health care. -- Ray Cromwell | Engineering is the implementation of science; -- -- EE/Math Student | politics is the implementation of faith. -- -- rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu | - Zetetic Commentaries -- ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Aug 93 5:04:56 WET DST From: rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray) Subject: FSF: Some Useful Software, No Useful Politics Tony Hamilton - FES ERG~ () writes: > Well, I'm generally against any "inherent" property rights, physical or > intellectual, of any kind, and feel that any given person or organization > has the "right" to whatever they can defend, through whatever means are > at their disposal. Its difficult to _defend_ against much in an anarchist > society. WHat is one to do? Well, I'll continue with the Intel example (which > is so dear to me :-) Copy protection and ostracism is equivalent to putting walls up around your house to defend it. It's not difficult to defend property in an anarchist society, you simply shoot (or ostracize offenders) who trepass. > In fact, Intel has, in my opinion, done fairly poorly in the courts. They've > lost more than they've won, and even most of the wins have been reversed > or put on hold. So, they're not doing too well at defending their intellectual > property - just as I suspect they wouldn't in an anarchist society? How > are they doing then? Well, quite well. In fact, they're propsering and > growing. How? By being competitive. And that, I believe, is the key to > keeping one's head above water in a future where intellectual property can > no longer be termed "property". I won't go into the details of how > competitive and successful this company is, but I can say that in some > cases, actually in most, where they have "lost" their intellectual property > to a competitor, it spawned a new growth period. Not because of some > natural phenomenon related to this kind of thing, but because the leaders > of the company found ways to make it so. I know how sucessful Intel is, but like CDs, the only reason they are sucessful is because their chips are hard to copy. Reverse engineering them is hard, and even if you had the blueprints they would be hard to manufacture. Intel had to spend 1 BILLION dollars to build their newest Pentium plant. As chips get small and faster, this figure will go up. There is a significant lag time between when Intel puts out a chip and someone comes out with a clone. (this is analogous to the 17 year monopoly patents give you.) Intel gets a free 1-2 monopoly on their designs before anyone has the resources to copy them. If CPU's were as easy to copy as software, Intel would be in the poor house. They'd have to come out with new designs every week and the payback wouldn't cover development costs. In fact, the payback in cutting edge stuff doesn't. Most high-tech companies "write off" development costs and start counting profits from zero. (e.g. Saturn. They report profits but they haven't factored in the 1 billion in Saturn development costs.) > "IN their head" is the key phrase. We don't all go around telling everyone > every little detail, because we know that, outside of the proper context, Humans gossip all the time. > details can be misleading. Keeping records is one thing. Giving them to > everyone else is another. This is nothing different than the credit > reporting agencies in the US - which DO NOT WORK. More credit reports than > not are in error at least in part. If one of your premises is that systems > such as these actually work, then we cannot argue further. But ask yourself > why the economy is so stagnated, why it is difficult to get loans, and you'll > end up back at all the "tit-for-tat" reporting and legislation that the US > has become bogged down in. Sure they work. Banks/Insurance companies aren't out of business because of bad risk assessment. If they end up not giving a loan to someone who has good credit it is better than giving one to someone who has bad credit. I won't argue with your Intel example because I don't know the details of the contract but it could be just a badly written contract similar to the Apple/Microsoft/HP "look-and-feel" suit wherein Microsoft got suckered into signing what amounted to a look-and-feel copyright and Apple tried to use it to take advantage of Microsoft. -- Ray Cromwell | Engineering is the implementation of science; -- -- EE/Math Student | politics is the implementation of faith. -- -- rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu | - Zetetic Commentaries -- ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 2 Aug 93 5:05:56 WET DST From: rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray) Subject: The Searle Argument starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu () writes: > >I decided not to respond in detail, since Tim* admits that he doesn't > >need: > > > >-- falsifiability as a criterion of truth > > Yes, I don't see why axioms ought to be excluded from truthfulness. Physical axioms aren't excluded from truthfulness as long as they are testable. In the physical sciences, axioms are called postulates. Einstein's speed of light postulate is accepted as 'truth' only because we can find no counterexamples. For 70+ years, people have been trying to find a single instance where relativity's postulates fail, and they haven't. In mathematics, axioms are accepted if the resulting theorems that come from them are consistent and aesthetic. The ``truth'' of the axiom of choice depends on whether it produces a consistent mathematics. (e.g. there are no internal contradictions. Some people don't like the Axiom of Choice because it leads to the Banach-Tarski Paradox where, in mathematical theory, one could take a sphere the size of a pea, chop it up, and reassemble it into a sphere the size of the earth) > >>From: rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray) > > > >starr@genie.slhs.udel.edu () writes: > >> >All physical laws are causal and well-stated. > >> > >> Meaning? > > > > Meaning a computer can simulate them. > > What I mean was: By what standard are they "well-stated"? Doesn't "physical" > mean "natural"? > You seem to imply that all physical laws must be stated in the form: If X, > then Y. Have I got this right? If so, then what is the status of laws which > can't be stated in this form, such as metaphysical axioms? A physical law is well-stated because it is compactly represented by the mathematics behind it. A physicist might say "a projectile always follows a trajectory that looks like an upside down hill" but he doesn't get the nobel prize until he correctly identifies it as a parabola. I do not know of a single physical law which is not well-stated. Areas of physics where results are not described exactly by exact laws are known as frontiers. And to answer your question, physical laws are generally phrased as mathematical relations mapping one set of physical quantities to another (generally, the fundamental quantities are length, mass, and time, but there are others such as charge, intrinsic spin, etc) So to use my other example, if we have a thermodynamic system, I can relate a space of pressure and volume to another space of mass quantity and temperature. +-------------+ +----------------+ |Pressure |<--------------> physical law <----------->| Moles | | And Volume | | and Temperature| +-------------+ +----------------+ So you see, physical laws are not merely vague rules of thumb. If they were, there's no way we could navigate a space probe _BILLIONS_ of miles remotely because slight errors in the physical laws would build over time. The probe Galileo was able to point its camera into the dark of space at a position that was calculated from equations only to have an asteroid in it. It caught the asteroid in its sites perfectly in frame. (i.e. it did not have to search around visually and "lock on") > > Biology is grounded firmly in chemistry, and chemistry can be completely > >derived from quantum mechanics, thus biology is mechanical. A cell > >is a machine, a virus is a machine, and a neuron is a machine. (you may > >argue that biology is not derived from chemistry, but I'd challenge you > >to provide a shred of evidence that it is not.) > > "Derived" and "Grounded" don't seem adequate to explain how chemical > reactions can cause a machine to become an organism. How is this done? The difference between calling a cell an organism and a machine is purely aesthetic. A living cell, amazingly, resembles a turing computer. Molecular machines in cells (using enzymes) use DNA to make an RNA "tape". The RNA tape contains instructions for making proteins. Ribosomes are like minature tape readers which look at the RNA genetic code and put together protein molecules according to recipe. And, proteins do useful things. A cell is a computer driven self-replicating manufacturing system. A collection of cells becomes an organism (and plant or animal). Very complex animals develop intelligence for processing signals from their world (Dolphins and Sonar, Humans and Language/Vision) The idea that "living matter" can not merely be a machine is called "vitalism". Biologists, I think, first challenged this notion when they studied viruses. (viruses are sufficiently simple that their machine like properties can be studied easily) Here's a chain of linking scientific principles to life: Thermodynamics \ >- BioChemistry -> Molecular Machines -> Proteins Quantum Mechanics/ | / +---------------------/ | Macroscopic Living matter (cells both plant/animal) | Multicellular organisms and structure (organs, vascular systems, sensors/vision) | Intelligent beings The last step you may disagree with but that would beg the question. Is there a difference between the matter that a dog is made out of and that a human is made out of? It seems all mammalian brains are made out of the same "stuff". Therefore, the only difference is one of arrangement/structure, not one "non-mechanistic physical laws" for the same laws should govern both dogs and Man! Conclusion: Man's intelligence comes only from the arrangement of ordinary matter, not some kind of special undiscovered non-mechanistic physical law. Ordinary matter is understood extremely well and we can simulate its interaction, in principle, to any degree (neglecting the uncertainty principle in measurement of initial conditions) > > So all that we have left is 'mental laws'. Either the "mental process" > >(and by calling it a "process" we subject it to computational simulation) > >is governed by brain chemistry/physical law or it is not. If it is > >not, we are left with a ghost in the machine, the super natural. > > Calling it supernatural presumes the mechanical view of nature. Why must > nature be mechanical? It seems possible that mind could be natural, physical, > but non-mechanical, in which case it wouldn't be "supernatural," but "super- > mechanical." Give me an example of a physical system that is "super-mechanical" An answer of "the mind" would be unsatisfactory because you have already defined it to be so. > Mind seems to lack an essential characteristic of machine: extension. It > seems to have location - my mind is "in" me, yours "in" you - but it doesn't > seem to have extension. My understanding of post-Cartesian physics is that > its objects of study are things with extension. Have I got this right? If > so, then how can physics study non-extended mind? I'm not familar with this metaphysical principle of extension but perhaps I could give you an example from physics. Photons and electrons do not have extension. Photons and electrons do not have a volume (or radius). Children are taught to envision them as little red and green spheres, but in reality we treat them as point-like singularities. These particles do "take up space" in that they prevent other particles from getting too close, but they themselves do not have extension. (well, the photon does not "take up space". Bosons, particles with integral spin, do not prevent others from coexisting with them. Millions of them can "dance on the head of a pin.") (for the nit-picky, yes, there is a theoretical photon-photon scattering, but it is infinitesimally weak compared to coulomb repulsion) > (Aside: this distinction was the purpose of the thought-exercise of the > Scholastics that so many make light of: "How many angels can dance on the > head of a pin?" Angels were supposed to be beings of pure thought, lacking > extension, too, only having location.) Photons lack extension. In fact, all bosons lack extension. The opposite of your example exists in physics. There are particles which have extension, but lack a precise location. > Searle hits the nail on the head in his reply to the paper Ray kindly posted. > The foundational issue here is ontological, metaphysical, a question of > what mind consists of, not the epistemological question of how we can know > other minds. You can not state what a mind consists of unless you can figure out how to measure its constitution. Philosophers' answers to this seem to consist of "I know I have a mind" and the bald assertion that "other humans have minds to" If you assert I have a mind, I must have some measurable criteria which you used to tell if I had a mind. > > It all seems to go back to Descartes bifurcation of reality into the mechanical > and the mental, the extended and the non-extended. You (plural) seem to have > accepted his exclusion of the mental from the same part of reality as the > mechanical, and simply rejected the mental. Why? Why not reject Descartes' > metaphysical foundation of the mind-body dichotomy, and include both mind and > machine in the same part of reality, rather than insisting that mind must be > machine, or that if it isn't, then it's impossible? I do reject the mind-body dichotomy (which amounts to dualism). As far as I'm concerned, life is mechanical, the human body is alive, and the mind and the brain are one and the same. If I put a bullet in your head, your mind is affected. You seem to think that physics is confounded by non-extended entities but you could not be more wrong. > >To claim that it could > >deviate would be the same as claiming that human bodies aren't made out of > >real matter that behaves the known physical laws! > > What physical law makes me type these words? What physical law makes us > disagree about this issue? Human bodies behave in many ways that seem > inexplicable by mechanics. They don't behave in ways that are contrary to You have just made an unsupportable assertion about the laws of mecahnics, now I wish you to support it with evidence. Frankly, after everything you have said, I don't believe you know anything about mechanics, biology, or physics. The weather seems to be inexplicable to people who are ignorant of meteorology too. > mechanics - as Ernst Mayr puts it, living organisms are teleomatic - I > admit. I don't mean to suggest that they can. It just seems to me that > mechanics doesn't include mental "objects." So life doesn't behave contrary to laws of mechanics it just does things which are inexplicable by them? Say what? In physics, if a system does something which isn't explained by the laws associated with that system, then the conclusion is that the laws are wrong. (physicist speak: incomplete) Relativity and Quantum Mechanics came about because classical mechanics couldn't explain high-energy or microscopic pheonema. > >From: extr@jido.b30.ingr.com (Craig Presson) > > > >Ray, thank you for explaining Science, The Universe, and Everything to > >Tim so patiently. > > I'm also grateful for Ray's patience, but I haven't come up against anything > in the explanation of any of these three things that I didn't already > understand. I do think we're getting closer to what I don't understand, > however, which seems to be the justification for the mechanical view of the > universe. I think there is a great quote by someone famous who said something like, "For some people, the word mechanical conjures up images of steam engines and heavy machinery. For others, it conjures up images of dancing lights and changing colors." It seems you are clinging onto your viewpoint because you believe in free will -- that your thoughts aren't simply caused by chemical reactions or spinning gears. Postulating seperate physical, but "non-mechanical" (uncomputable) laws, is almost identical to postulating a soul except calling it a physical law makes you sound less irrational. Realize that throughout time and in the present, most people put unexplainable data into supernatural categories. That's what I think you are doing. If we could discover these "non-mechanical laws" we can simulate them, period. The only reason AI isn't here yet is because biological intelligence is much more complex than particle dynamics. It will just take longer to study. In high-energy physics, and economics, we are also finding that we need more and more complex mathematical models to explain new data. This is nothing new. We needed Calculus to explain classical physics, we needed Tensors and Non-Euclidean geometry to explain cosmology, we will probably need topological quantum field theory (TQFT) to explain gravity on the atomic scale, and for human intelligence, we will need some theory of the mind. (note: in practice, chemists don't use quantum mechanics to do chemistry calculations, and rocket scientists don't use relativity to build rockets, because there is too much calculation involved. To say that Quantum mechanics explains the chemistry, and chemistry explains life, and life explains the mind, simply means that they all can logically be reduced to the QM level. Likewise, for a "mind theory") -- Ray Cromwell | Engineering is the implementation of science; -- -- EE/Math Student | politics is the implementation of faith. -- -- rjc@gnu.ai.mit.edu | - Zetetic Commentaries -- ------------------------------ End of Extropians Digest V93 #213 ********************************* &