http://games.slashdot.org/games/05/06/01/126228.shtml?tid=98&tid=155&tid=10

[...]Where two IP lawyers try to convince the videogame industry of patenting everything in sight: ideas, technical contributions, etc. They show as an example a Microsoft patent on Scoring based upon goals achieved and subjective elements. They also have created a weblog, The Patent Arcade, to promote their business. Will this be the real end of innovation in videogames?"

GOD BLESS AMERICA - and their fu(ked-up patent laws...

Anyone want to join al-quaida with me ?

Greed runs America... what else do you expect.

You know, I think 95% of the people here visit slashdot. No need to dupe it here. Maybe blaming America for an antiquited patent law isn't the problem. Maybe the problem is nobody is changing how patents work. It seems only recently that patents have been abused to this extent in the US, and I think it primarily has to do with the intellectual breeding ground that the technological revolution had given us.

People are still trying to chase the dot-com bubble, and are still trying to get rich quick from technology. One way to do it is to patent something so obv it hurts, and then charge an arm and a leg to use it. Most companies that use patents in a threatening manner are smaller corperation looking to extort larger corperations into giving them cash.

The problem is that other small companies get caught in the mine field. If a patent is to be held, it must be protected against all infringers, wether or not they have the monies.

The technology revolution is owned by the big giant enterprises. It's time for an intellectual revolution. (I won't explain this. I'd be flamed. Yay.)

It worked for Microsoft.

I've been looking at some patents and a few corporate websites, like IBM. There's so much hype, it's almost sickening. Too much media involved on IBM's main site if you ask me, it's as if they're trying to sell less for more. I don't know how to explain it right now. Everything's too high paced in these technology-bubbles of society. There's no way for a small company to catch up. The issue on patents is growing absurd, soon all the good methods of doing things will be patented under excessively vague generalized patents, and nothing will be left for functionality.

Yes, but that was before technology was commonplace. Like Apple adn NES they were pioneers, they made computers something that everyone wanted or needed to have. They created the market. It wasn't "get rich" quick or a scheme, they just lucked out on the ground floor.

How is this the same as some Joe Schmoe in Hubunk NJ patenting lossless compression and than suing every large technocorp in existance that uses it for anything?

Apple did not invent the ideas of computers. I'm fairly confident that IBM had computer systems in development around or before that time. For Microsoft, it was a scheme - apparently when they sold their first OS for a computer manufacturer they didn't actually have the OS made.

Well, IBM released 500 of their patents into the open development community in January. Unfortunately they were granted 3,248 patents in 2004 alone and are estimated to own more than 40,000 patents in total.

[url http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4163975.stm]

Yeah, somehow that doesn't seem right. That's a ton for one corporation to own. Why do they own the patents, and not the employees themselves? Collaborative efforts involved?

I never said they "invented" computers. I said that they were on the ground floor of the computer revolution and the gave people reasons to buy them. They were innovators. And IBM maye have a ungoldy number of patents- but do they enforce them? Remember, they are putting money into Linux. They wouldn't want to shoot themselves in the foot.

It's a business, they own the patents and the individuals don't.

Wether they currently enforce them is a nonissue. They have the potential ability to suddenly enforce all of them without warning. This would cause massive panic and everybody would be scraping for cash to pay IBM for the rights to use the patented technologies.

It's a security thing.

Not really. What usually happens is the big companies cough up the dough while everyone else starts working on free alternatives until the patent expires.

Take for example gif and patents. Did everyone cough up money? No. PNG was created to replace gifs and people started using it. A Free alternative is almost always going to be more popular than one that costs $$$$.

Like I said before- Why would IBM push the patents if they hadn't done so already? Ownership of a patent does not make one evil. in fact, I personally think when properly used patents are very beneficial (and also note America is NOT the only place patents exist- if it was, Einstien would've been out of work) and are being abused currently by a minority of get rich quick schemers.

The problem is that vague patents pretty much screw over any attempts of a replacement.

And what is the free alternative for patents like "clicking on an image (icon) in orer to do some action" or "Scoring based upon goals achieved and subjective elements"? Or IP4 adress (its just 4 regular 0-255 numbers and easy concept of A,B..E adress class).

Those patents should not have been awarded. The whole point is that the patent needs to go through a review period. Also, most of those patents would probably be laughed out of court (it's happened before. Quite a lot actually).

Patents themselves are not the problem. It's the way they are handled currently.

Honestly, I believe the patent system in and of itself is a good thing, as long as there are strict definitions regarding what can be patented, and there is a set limit for all patent -- say, two years from the date of acceptance.

Corporate greed is a universal thing; we just perfected it before everyone else

This brings to mind the Family Guy skit were the guy walks into the German patent office to patent Relativity....and Einstien murders him and takes the papers he brought

Although- on a side note- I don't really follow the parent posters logic. American companies might patent video game stuff (level ups, monkeys, sparkly things when you beat a level, whatever)...how would this make us criminal? They can sue us, for certain. But it's not a criminal act. Nothing goes on any record, they won't put you in jail.

And I really don't understand (even jokingly) how this could force someone to bring up Al Queda. I'm certain what he meant was joining extremely religious terrorists groups who might be funded by Al Queda. Who might murder people in America.

From what I've read the Arhab terrorists in France are far more violent, far worse and have been doing it for far longer than any of the ones who have attacked the US. So, because of American patents you want to attack France as well? And why would this connect to murdering innocent people who hadn't anything to do with patents at all?

Sigh. I miss intellegant conversation.

And now we have to finish the job and patent the corporate greed itself.

The guy can barely speak English on a programming forum... although we all have to learn at some point, I don't think he has any clue about what he's saying.

What are you on about? We were talking about patents and you end up discussing terrorists and anti-american feelings?

And yet you still miss the "Spell Check" button at the bottom of the page

Whatever happens, I don't see anyone here being inconvenienced by it (in terms of their ability to make and release their games). This is all about the publishers... the EAs and Ubisofts of the world.

Heh, don't be fooled by the bad spelling.

Richard,

Simply, the US patent system is overloaded. Not nearly enough examiners, so they're overworked. It takes 2-5 years from the date of filing to final acceptance (if that happens). And the depth of review is rather shallow. (I know, I have a handful of patents under my name. ) For example one can find a fast-than-light communication patent.

That the system is overloaded is no big surprise. One can expect the number of patent applications to correlate to the rate of technological innovation, which is accelerating. Add new technologies that seem to go beyond traditional intents of patents (software, genetics, etc.), and the problem is only rapidly getting worse.

That's a spell check button? I thought it was a deliver pizza button. Damn. Need new glasses.

I'm more interested in what he's talking about. And most of his presented thoughts are cryptic and broken in half.

You're right. That was a mean thing to say- OTOH, I'm really getting tired of the rampant anti-American attitude I see all over the place.

From my point of view you are overly sensitive to any anti-american criticism. I'm afraid I think you are overreacting.

Not really. I'm not patriotic by any means, but I think that joke had nothing at all to do with anything in the original post.

nevermind, I should have controlled the facts

Um.. what joke?

I assume the smiley-face was meant to signify it was a joke.

Oh you said orginal post, I thought that meant any other post. Ok, the al-quaida bit was tasteless, but the first part is valid for me.

This is just sick.

Things to Patent: Method of pleasing a man, method of mass killing of biological lifeforms, extermination process of iraqi and islamic terrorists, public rumor spreading technologies, methods of killing one's own self, and comming soon: a patent covering the application of the laws of physics through the use of scientific processes.

I should write a site with questionably funny fake patents.

What happens if it is patented and still someone commits suicide? Who gets the blame?

The people who provided the items to be used in the process of killing one's self. It can easily be said that the manufacturer "obviously" had the intention of providing such a weapon of the said item, and should be sued due to the death of the person.

I found what some other guy posted on slashdot!

"And for a cancer detection firm in Utah, it ahs paid off. They "patented" a gene sequence which tests for the likelihood of breast cancer (I think). Note that they didn't patent the test process, but the information in the gene. Now, no matter what process you use to determine the condition of the gene, you cannot use it for cancer detection without paying a $10k fee to that company. They "own" the exclusive right to the "data". Sort of like patenting moon-dogs as a predictor of coming precipitation, or the presence of a high pressure as a predictor of clear weather. They're natural facts, observable by anyone with the proper instruments. But they're patentable now. (iirc, Canada got into trouble over the cancer detection thing)."

He wouldn't get blamed for the suicide, but rather get a cut of money from the parents of those who committed it using his patented method.

Too late. I've already got a patent pending on it.

What about drowning in ocean, keeping breath for long enough, twisting your own neck with your own arms, chewing off your limbs and bleeding to death and other things like that

Actually, the trick is to patent the process of filing a patent application. That would just totally hose the works.

What about patenting patent enforcing. That could either stop it or create a lot of revenue, both are good, at least for the patent holder

No, those are too absurd. You have to have some limits.

• Methods of Assasination -> Now not only do the criminals get to spend their life in jail, they get to pay a hefty fine for using a pre-determined method of killing somebody.

• Basic Doo-hickey Design -> Sue the people when they say "That's a doo-hickey" and what not. It's improper use.

• Software Download Process -> The method of selecting a file and downloading a pre-generated binary file for a specific system by the use of the HTTP and FTP protocols, as used in X and Y systems. Good bye APT systems.

.. And many more, of course.

Is the idea of patenting video game concepts necessarily a new thing? I believe that the people who stole Tetris attempted to seize legal control over it to no avail. Oh, but that was Russia; let a couple (2) American lawers bring up the idea and it's time to start advocating a violent overthrow of the US goverment and its people. Japan has been much more sucessful at capitolism is recent years but 95% percent of you are obsessed with anime so let's not even bring that up.

Casey-
is your sig from The Sandman comic?

Hehe, no it's a lyric to a Bright Eyes song. It makes me smile everytime I hear it.

weird. Sounded like something for it, or the Death comics.

You shouldn't be able to patent anything that has already been used.
Thus it would be pretty much impossible to patent any game design at all.

Yes, you shouldn'yt but that doesn't mean they can't

**********************************
"2014" G. Orwell.

or next part of "South Park"...
**********************************

In every TV set on all the world each people see Mr Georg wearing military wear:

- We have caught him !!!

He is shouting.

Near Mr. Georg is standing Mr. Bill (in military wear too):

- yeah, we have caught !!!

G. and B. see at big TV screen on the wall.
On this screen an American solider is removing small door to whole in ground,

He is shouting:

- go out, you penguin rat ... !!!

From whole is going out Mr. Linus, he is carrying laptop with penguin logo ......

In the same time in Guantanamo Base soldiers are building new barracks for next thousands
Linux users form all the world....

You musn't think about making of free operation systems,

this is PATENTED by .....

Marcin, I don't want to offend you or anything, but are you insane?

Heheh

I laughed out loud on this one. The entire planet runs on Greed my friend. To be greedy, is to be human.

I wonder how you can define greed? If there are 4 apples and I eat 3, is that greedy? Or is it greedy if I eat 1? And where the hell am I?

Only if move than 1 other person wanted at least 1 apple, then yes.

Only if you were totally full and 4 others were starving.

I think it's on a situation basis.

I would class it as having 6% of the population yet use up 45% of the earths resources and emit 40% of greenhouse gases. And not signing up to the kyoto agreement because it would affect big businesses and the US power base, despite it causing catastrophic effects on the future of the earth.

Neil.

Let's get the facts straight first.

I don't want to live like India or China. Is that greed? Maybe. But like I said, we all have greed.

Well... part of the reason Americans consume so many resources and pollute as much as they do is that they have no reasonable alternatives. The USA is a very big place, and increadibly spread out. As such, public transportation is really horrible, so everyone has a car. I think American's eat too much though.

We do have reasonable alternatives. If you are willing to listen to me, or other people, I can explain some ideas that can ... help.

Of cource you do.

Only problem is americans don't like to use them a lot(like planes&cars instead of trains&buses).

No, I mean even more reasonable.
Our problems with inefficiencies aren't going to be fixed by a few new types of vehicles. I believe it's the mindset of the people involved with the structure of the countries that needs to be changed (for the good of the people, not for the good of the country).

I would use a bus, but the bus station from where I live is 2 miles away. Then when it drops me off, my work is 3 miles away. Walking is out of the question since it would take me probably 12 minutes a mile. That would be an extra hour I would have to wake up. I already wake up at 5:30 AM. That time is just for the walk. Taking the bus takes longer, as you will have more stops. It takes me 30 minutes to get to work in my car. The bus might add another 15/30 minutes to that. So I would have to wake up around 4:00 AM each morning to get to work on time, and be sweaty on top of that from the walk on hot days. Then if it's raining forget about it. Oh I also forgot to mention that 9 months a year it's snowing here. What then? The choice is an easy one.

You might say get a job closer to your work. It's not always that easy.

Kanzure, I hope you aren't talking about "IT"

...insane or from al-qaeda. You know better that everybody can be...

Did you read "1984" or see one part of "South Park" ?

I don't know what "IT" is. Unless it's Industrial Technologoy, but even then, I was not reffering to that.

Rick, your problems are a result of more "severe" problems. The land is owned by the people, not the state/government (which would be the people, but acting for the good of all (theoretically)), and since some person owns the land, you are forced to live farther away from some optimal space. Or maybe I don't know your specific situation, but, for example, I have some hill country like area to drive through to get to anywhere useful. The people aren't using the land at all, requiring many drivers to spend money on gasoline to take insane routes around land segments and so on. Bad example for my cause (perhaps).

STOP. THAT'S ENOUGH

WE ARE IN:

G A M E D E S I G N & C O N C E P T S ...

"IT" is a South Park reference. It was Mr. Garrison's solution to the airport problems. A new vehicle that is, uhh, uncomfortable.

"Man is good, mankind is evil."
The key to understanding this is the "Problem of the Commons". In a nutshell, it goes like this: Imagine you have 10 farmers using a piece of common land together to keep their sheep, each of them with the freedom to keep as many sheep as they want. Of course, when the land gets overpopulated, the sheep will not have enough food and grow less quickly, so it's desirable that there be not too many of them. The part where it becomes a problem starts when you find the perfect profit algorithm for an individual farmer. It goes like this:
1) Adding a sheep to my flock will increase my personal profit by 1 sheep.
2) Overpopulation by 1 sheep will decrease my personal profit by 0.1 sheep.
3) If I add a sheep to my flock, my profit will be at least 1 - 0.1 = 0.9 sheep.
So regardless of the number of sheep already there, the best thing to do in all scenario's is to add one sheep (read: use more resources). More generally, the total profit is 1 - 1/n where n is the number of parties sharing the resource. This is why communism only works for very small groups: where n == 2, for example, the profit is only 0.5, while at n == 10^9, the profit is almost 1. Which comes down to "whoever takes the most resources wins". Which is exactly what happens in capitalist societies, as well as world trade, although the connection is less obvious. And this is also why I believe technology alone can never be the solution to our economic and social problems.

Tobias, why do you presume that profit is the goal of life (and more specifically, the goal for communism societies)?

We have many of the same social structures and conflicts in the animal world (i.e. alpha males, leadership challenges internally and externally). So I'd say that our societies all will follow this model until we change our DNA.

Everyone's "goal" in life is different. I don't think he thinks profit is the "goal", it's just something everyone wants. Everyone want some sort of profit. It should be money, more sheep, or more education. Yes, even wanting more and more education could be seen as greedy. Look at some people here that have been in college for 5+ years. This is a form of greed. Most of them are getting their education for very cheap or free. Yet NOTHING is for free. I would call them greedy. They would say it's something that is there for the taking. Well so is money. If Microsoft can charge $100/hr for phone support they will do it. If someone can get free education they will do it. This is all greed, and a person is greedy.

Hrm. I thought all of the failed attempts at communism would lead people to realize that it's flawed in nature. Especially since communistic societies still need to trade with the world at large, and will need money to do so.

There's arguments for both sides to that.

In that example.
In life, profit is most likely not the goal.
I'm more confident in my generalized goal: The goal is to find the goal of life. (The best way to do this, currently, is to seek out more goals and studying what's involved and moving onward.)
(Although a person's goal can vary accordingly. It's best if a person's goal relates to an overall goal. For example, some people devote their life to the FSF and GNU project.. sort of.)

Because of the current systems and societies.. there are some very (very) small tribes inwhich there are people without greed. Unfortunately this is like the sheep example - the whole system works only on a small number of people. When you have a large group of people, knowledge is shared, which leads to greed among those that can use the knowledge to get something they want, based off of their emotions.. Emotions should be used as a tool, not as a thought process. Greed (and other various emotions) should not be guiding a person.

I think you have been misinformed about communism.
The "communal societies" would trade with resources and products. The government would have $100 USD (heh, hopefully more). When they need to import a foreign product, the money can be used to pay for it. Internally, there's some sort of credit system to give "money" to people to buy unneccessary items (the idea is that the government keeps productive people alive. A happy worker is a productive worker; Give the worker "credits" ("money") to pay for entertainment, more food, etc.)

The failed attempts at communism? Do take a look at the other factors involved with each attempt.

Edit

Nobody spends their life working for their home, their community, and themselves? Hm. What the heck are we doing?

Life is a never ending battle between laziness and greed. They're the two fundamental human constants. No-one spends their life working for the good of their country, except for a few mentally ill people.

Back OT, a lot of these patents are very easy to get, but they're also not worth very much. There's a reason you don't get sued for using tab to select elements in a GUI, even though its patented. Not because they're being merciful, but because the patent is most likely unenforceable. Bringing it to court costs money, brings negative publicity, and gets you nowhere.

They're still useful though. You can threaten poor people with lawsuits, and use them to defend yourself against lawsuits from other companies. If you get enough junk patents together they start to form a critical mass. You can bet at least ONE of them will stand up in court if push comes to shove.

I don't think this would be true. Their greed may not be as noticeable to us, but I'm willing to bet they have it.

I'm not. But it is the main factor in capitalist and capitalistoid (that a word?) societies like ours. Everybody, however, no matter what kind of society they live in, relies on a basic supply of resources (food, shelter, your basic needs really), and most people try to make their lives as 'easy' and 'comfortable' as possible, which generally requires more resources. Capitalism takes this general observation and generalizes it to 'more goods == more happiness', which implies 'money == goods == happiness', which in turn leads to the assumption that anything can be expressed as a sum of money.
Back to the Commons Problem, let's assume there are two possible kinds of philosophies: the Social Thinker (S) and the Egoist Thinker (E). E pretty much lives by capitalist rules and therefor follows the 'perfect profit' algorithm, adding as many sheep to his flock as he possibly can. S, on the other hand, will only ever take as many sheep as his share of the commons can handle. Now if the whole group is of type S, then everything will be fine; each farmer has exactly the right amount of sheep (enough to survive), and the system remains stable (provided the commons offer enough resources to support all farmers).
But if there is only one single type E farmer, then the whole system is bound to collapse; there will be more sheep than the grounds can handle, therefor everybody's profit will decrease. At a certain point, the S-farmers' profit will drop below the minimum they need to survive, forcing them to act as E farmers as well. Of course, this will only make the problem worse, and at some point, there will be farmers who cannot survive on their flock. Those farmers will either starve, or leave the town or otherwise disappear from the scene (bankrupt). In effect, wealth is automatically spread unequally, up to the point that there are only one or two farmers left. Only then can the system regain stability, but the outcome is an absolute monopoly, and chances are resources are exhausted before this stadium is reached.
This is another reason why self-regulating communal or communist systems only work for small groups: the larger the group, the greater the chances are that there is at least one E-type member.
Which leads me to the following conclusions:
- Free market is not the answer, but the problem.
- We need sort of a limit to personal income / wealth, say, 500x the average salary (sic!)
- We need to find a balance of the good things in capitalism (innovation, general wealth) and the bad things (above problems). This is IMO closely intertwined with democracy in theory and practise.

Tobias' assesment is spot on: a situation where everyone cooperates is not a stable equlibrium.
People (I say people, but it works quite well for animals and other entities too) try to gain as much as they can with as little effort as possible: the more energy you have to spare to do other things, the better.

What happens is that people play `prisoner's dilemma' with each other: you can either choose to cooperate, or you can cheat. Now, if two people cooperate they will both benefit. However, if one of them cheated, he would spend less effort and still get all the benefit: he wins more and does better - the tactic will spread because it pays to cheat. Now, if everyone cheats, then no one will really benefit, but the losses aren't so large as they would have been if you had been trying to cooperate and been cheated by someone else.
In the long term, people benefit from mutual cooperation, but in the short term being selfish has a higher average profit. Since most people go for `short term'... well, you get the idea.

There are subtleties that this crude and simple model does not take into consideration, but it quite adequately describes many aspects of human culture and behavior.
Now that I'm on the subject, the study of this field is the branch of mathematics called `game theory'. Does anyone know any good books on the subject? I've looked around a bit and what I could find was for the most part too... erhm... non-technical, if you see what I mean.

Yeah, but my point is: Unlike most other entities, humans have the ability to evaluate their own behaviour (like we just did). Doing so, we can draw the conclusion that our "normal" behaviour is undesirable in the long run, and that in order to achieve a stable system, we must establish some sort of control mechanism to prevent the unstable scenario described above. Democracy has failed to do so, although I'm unsure whether this has happened because immanent flaws of the general idea of Democracy, or whether it's because of the bad implementations and / or practical problems.
Communism, in theory, is a beautiful solution. Unfortunately, it requires each and every member of such a society to be a true communist ("type S farmer"). In reality, so-called communist systems have found the need to establish rather harsh control mechanisms to ensure everybody is a "true communist". Ironically, this always results in a totalitarian system, the perfect opposite of communism (although this scenario is generally referred to as communism today; just look at Cuba or China).
A monarchy (or dictatorship) is a similar solution; if the sovereign is a social thinker and doesn't take more than he needs, yet carefully guards the equilibrum by spreading the resources evenly, the system works. The problem is that the sovereign is also human, and the whole monarchy system makes it especially easy (and therefor tempting) for the monarch to abuse his position, resulting in the same old dilemma - only that now the monarch is the E type farmer.
Then there's anarchy - but that's the per-definitionem starting point of the Commons Problem.
So there's no perfect solution, really.

Being an ex-registered member of the American Communist Party, I think I would disagree to that.

Name once where this had worked. Most countries want to exchange money for such things. A communist society can't trade with a global economy that's based on capitilism without resorting to using money. You can't just say "I'll give you x amount of grain for your x amount of oil". And that's assuming that a communist government would produce anything a capitilist society would want or need that they couldn't get from somewhere else without the hassels of dealing with said government.

This didn't work for any of the Communes in the US in the 60's and 70's. Why would it work in a large scale government today? Also- by replacing money with credits you still have the spirit of money and exchange. What about each according to his needs? There is no need for entertainment. And why would he have to pay for it, with credits or anything else? Shouldn't it be free as in beer? Shouldn't his clothes and his hospital bills and his food all be provided by the state? Shouldn't he own only government provided shoes and combs, created by government approved workhouses? There wouldn't be any stores in a true communist society. They would go stand in line at the local Ministry of Shoes, fill out the paperwork for a new shoe request and then have the shoes delivered to him.

How would they be able to export anything like this? Or import?

But there has been NO successful attempt at Communism on a large scale, and only a handful on a small scale (usually tribal or nomadic communities). In fact, looking at the history of the world and societal as well as civilization, Marx had it backwards. Communism is not the last step on the evolutionary ladder of commerce, Capitilism is. If you look at it from a Darwinist perspective (which he did).

There have been lots of successful attempts at Democracy. Going from a perspective of what works it seems that Communism is just another Failed Utopian extreme. In the end, Communism was much more of an opiate for the masses than religion ever was.

Yes. You can see the problem, obviously.. it's based off of everybody's happiness. Different people are pleased differently, it's a basic fact. Pleasing ourselves should not be our main goal in life. (Although happiness is important: see sig.)

That's why you should "filter" the incomming people to understand and learn more
about the philosophies behind everything. If they don't understand why it's a communist system, then they shouldn't be let in. (In this instance, my assumption that there are valid reasons, is correct. But I welcome some debates within the issue some other time.)

Yeah, we shouldn't just throw other ideas out the window.

No, I don't know any books, but I know a few people that might. I'll have to
remember to ask for you.

And Calxism is a way to logically generate (completley?) "correct" human behavior.
(These posts have been a shameless plug for an ideology I've recently been introduced to. )

And what if it made sense, i.e. could be logically proven, to be a "type
S farmer"? I don't mean just about communism, but any other system that required all members to share the same viewpoints. Those who reject the system wouldn't be allowed in as a citizen (but other ways to get in, i.e. as a contract worker,
could possibly exist).

Was that a "so-called communist system", or an actual communist system you were reffering to?

The problem is (1) determining if the "leader" is completley a social thinker, and (2) getting a second leader who is also a social thinker. Among many others.

Not yet; Let us not let that limit us.

Hm. I disagree? (Why'd you stop participating?)

I'll get back to you about this.

Some people need to be ammused to remain happy. Some.

From the viewpoint of "evolution"? We have evolved through intelligence - there's no excuse for us to keep ignoring intelligence, in place for emotional values, when creating a government system.. happiness just doesn't sound like the goal to life. (Your happiness doesn't insure your family's, community's, or (entire) community's happiness.)

(Sorry to slaughter your text with markup. )
Realize that "what works" isn't the best. Just because it works does not mean we
shouldn't attempt to improve upon it or quest for another system. Also, Communism (reffering to Marx), is not what I'm talking about. I hope I'm not, at least. From what I know, it's not a very good system at all.. But still. The ideas of communism, i.e. communal societies, should not be ignored. I hope you agree with me on this one.

Oh boy.

No, from the concept that society evolves like biology. Not our evolution, but the evolution of our society. Have you read Marx?

And I would rather have my eyes ripped out than be forced to consider the happiness of an entire community above my own. Making choices towards the perceptive happiness of a majority has always proven to lower the quality of life and happiness of that majority.

But not all. You are now looking at the happiness of the individual, which you say shouldn't matter when desiging a government.

Because Communism is a false hope. Because I looked at Communism with a logical eye, rather than one as a twenty something easily influenced by inflammatory manifestos that are written to incite revolution, and saw it wanting. I also saw it as something I wanted no part of.

[edit]

No, actually I don't. Communal societies are throwback to a primitive era. You might as well suggest that we ditch modern medicine in favor of shamanism. Democracy is the evolution of society, and when properly created (with the ability to evolve itself) it can keep moving and keep evolving to fit the needs of a large society.

I haven't yet heard of a communist system that would remain stable on a large scale without becoming a dictatorship.
Cuba is officially a communist country, yet some have such a lot more power and wealth than most, that it is de facto a dictatorship. Same goes for all other recent attempts at communism on a larger (read: state) scale (that is, all attempts since the word "communism" was invented). China? Totalitarian. Cuba? Dictatorship. Sovjet Superstate? Totalitarian and corrupt.

Nay.

Good, you're obviously not Christian.
The idea is that you wouldn't be forced but would think that it would be the correct thing to do. Then again, this is out of context.. in which situation are you considering the "happiness of the entire community" above your own? But then again, the happiness of an entire community should have no effect - happiness isn't the goal to life... so I don't think you would need to consider it unless somebody has come to you requesting that you stop doing something causing displeasure, i.e. beating them up (heh).

Ouch... maybe the communist systems need to stay small and individual? A hundred or two people per commune, all working in a Peer-To-Peer like system?

And why, praytell, would I think that without being forced to? If I don't think like that currently, how would you change my mind without forcing your thoughts on mine? Giving me a logical arguement that can't be reputed is a form of force. Changing someone's mind to follow your own way of thinking is a form of force, no matter how you help them see the light. I'm certain most christians don't think they are forcing their gospels upon people, but instead helping them by providing them logic that any reasonable human being will see as being right and true.

BTW, according to google, wikipedia, amazon and every book store I've been trying to get a hold of, Calxism doesn't exist. Is that spelled correctly?

Claxism?

/me points at Kanzure's sig

Yes, it is. I'll e-mail or PM you a link to a PDF "pamphlet". A book is in progress.

I suppose it is. I don't like arguments, I prefer debates.

Because these topics have something to do with you. Your obviously interested and not just saying "that's a load of hogwash". Surely you could come to a point where you can derive the reasons willingly, instead of through forceful methods (arguments).

Your conclusion that the free market is the problem doesn't follow: you start with a society of Social thinkers. The conclusion that "Social thinking" is to blame actually makes more sense. Instead, start with a society of Egoists with (or without) perfect actions and see where that leads.

Furthermore, the comment about the probability of the presence of an E-type member strengthens the argument that a free market is more the answer rather than the problem.

Again, the conclusion about the need to limit personal income/wealth seem to be founded on the assumption that we start out with an S-type society and that E-types operate perfectly. Sort of a logical fallacy here.

[edit]

By "stable system", you seem to be referring to an S-society. Why can't an E-society be stable? Perhaps in an E-society, democracy has been successful in maintaining stability. Perhaps this is why democracy and free market economies tend to be linked.

Ah, but what if I don’t come to those reasons willingly? You don’t need to argue to convince people of anything. A well planned debate can eventually corrode a less willful person into agreeing with anything. People, by nature wish to agree with people they like, and can be easily persuaded to do things that they would not normally do simply to make somebody else happy.

This is still force. If you have an agenda it is a form force, whether subversive or not.

There was no 'scheme'. They were the middle man. This sort of thing happens all the time. They were in the right place at the right time. This has nothing to do with ridiculous patents.

As a side note this OS was DOS.

This post doesn't exactly follow the flow of this thread, since I started writing it last night but got too tired to finish, but I figured I went to all this damn work, so I'll post anyway .

Also, sorry for the length, but I think it's an important topic. (but I think I'm now burnt out on making this kind of post for a while)

------------------------------------

The main problem with communism(and why it can't work, in my opinion) is that the farther away from small bands of people living together and the more interconnected society becomes(modern times is a pretty good example of this), the less people are able to keep track of everyone's relative contribution to the group.

To set up the issue, think of two caveman families living together long, long ago. The point of living together would be that both families can benefit mutually working together and achiving more than they could on their own(a non-zero-sum game: basically, when more total 'worth' can be generated with multiple people working together than can be if each act individually). For a simple example, we'll say that working together they can take down bigger animals(more food) than they could alone. Of course, they still do work that could otherwise be done individually, such as forage for food, hunt small game, make tools, etc.

Now imagine the temptation for a family to do one of two things:

1. slack off in their share of the work (we'll say foraging for food), or

2. still forage and hunt small game, but keep some of it hidden from the other family so their own children have more to eat.

This deceitful family still takes their share of the 'communal' food that the other family brings in, but doesn't contribute as much as the other family, which shares equally. Mankind has evolved a pretty good ability to detect when others don't contribute to a supposedly joint endeavor in order to avoid being exploited by this kind of dishonesty. Just think about all the gossip that goes on in modern workplaces about who does or doesn't do what(I've sure seen it).

Fast forward from our cavemen to a more complex culture with lots more people. The natural cheater-detection of people is now much less effective because of the disconnected nature and increased complexity of society, and the specialization of 'job tasks'(baker, programmer, spot welder, car dealer, financier, political analyst, city planner...lots of 'em). Basically the non-zero-sum game of human interaction/cooperation is MUCH more complicated. People never see or know the vast majority of other people involved in the functioning of their socieity, let alone see if someone is cheating the various non-zero-sum aspects of the social system.

Communism makes this natural problem worse by complicating the value of and distribution of goods and services, and putting it totally under central control. The value of goods and services and compensation for work done would be set somewhat arbitrarily by the government and not reflect the eb and flow of the 'real' worth of things as they shift between scarcity and over-abundence or obsolescence(If your skills are in an area that is becoming obsolete, you're going to raise hell to make the govnerment think that it ISN'T obsolete). The control mechanisms in government to adjust and measure the worth of everything would be determined by people who wouldn't have a true feel for the cost of things, or worse, would have a vested interest in getting the value of something raised or lower. And over time, those relatively few positions in the government that have this control over value will learn(or decide) they can exploit the system for their own benefit, or those positions are specifically sought by those who can benefit from holding them. Basically, think organized crime a la Soviet Union

Obviously other forms of economics and government (ie. the united states) aren't immune to these problems either, as they are inherent in any non-zero-sum system. However, Communism/Socialism institutionalizes these problems into the government much more than a democratic/capitalistic system does, which lets people generally control value in a non-centralized way with their own money generated by their own effort.

Think of it this way. Say one of our caveman families IS cheating the other. It may even get to the point where the other family would have been better off if they'd never even lived with the first one to begin with (imagine the freeloading family eating the winter stores of food rather than adding to them). Faced with this kind of situation where the other isn't just 'not contributing', but is actually hurting the honest family, they(the honest ones) could threaten (with violence, say) the freeloaders, or just not live with them anymore.

Today, however, neither are an option. You can't just 'not be apart of' society if you feel that you are getting less than you put in (making it not worth playing the overall non-zero-zum game), and violence isn't an option (unless you're overthrowing the communist system keeping you down ). This is where a system of private ownership is better. Being able to own your own property and choose the best deals offered provides a hedge against people cheating the system.

At the end of the day, everyone is opportunistic in how they deal with society. Any given person has the prepensity to both work with others and try to cheat others (or just get a larger share of the surplus generated by working together with others).

My examples were kind of rough, in particular I didn't really give much of an example of how the total production of two or more people working together can be greater than if each worked individually. But I hope I still got my points across. Also, I've tried to avoid going off into tangents dealing with other aspects of evolutionary psychology--its a pretty complicated topic and I'd do a horrible job explaining much of it .

[edit] Oh yeah, wanted to comment that I agree very much with your posts Mandrake.

And thus the horror movies of the societies that keep track of a citizen's every movement.

Hm.. on a different note, think about what they were capable of doing at that time. They were to pursue their emotional values. We obviously have a lot more options these days, and that does not mean we should follow our primal-instinct. (Be happy all the time, retire early, etc. Whatever. )

I think we could be better off not having to worry about people cheating the system. (And now to make sure only "good" people get into it.. )

Are you sure you understand it? I find that I don't completley understand something until I'm able to explain it to others.

Oh Bryan.:'( I just hope you're not being(or already have been) brain washed by some sort of scientology-like organization.
Watch out, be careful and DON'T BELIEVE in ANYTHING THEY TELL YOU.
It will of course all sound logical, reasonable and stuff, but in the end you will be totally burned out, since no human and i mean that: NO human can be satisfied by emulating a machine ordered to behave "correctly".

If "calxism" is supposed to "logically generate completely correct human behaviour"...then it has to keep track of every citizen's every movement. This is logical. Think about it. You can only calculate, logically derive anything if you're keeping track of all the variables(people in this case) involved in the model as a whole.

Which it isn't; My hasty descriptions are flawed. Besides, an ideology can't generate nothin'.

Hm, that's a good point: Some people gain satisfaction from their behavior. Interesting. You have to admit that there are behaviors that are good and bad.

Let's get an example going. In this example, the reader (hereforth "you"), has a goal: survive with little to no risk. There is a man with a gun in his hand and points it at you, how about point blank range. And uh, you're tied up to a chair. He asks, "If you say yes, will I still shoot you?". You have to answer either yes or no. The logical solution is to say "no", even though you don't know the outcome of either answer.

When I said "completley correct", I was reffering to choosing the best solution/choice in a situation based on goals guiding the person through life. (Get a house, stay living, etc - but these are too simple of examples.)

I don't "believe in `it`".

Completely correct human behaviour is only a Point of View I'm afraid. All theories that try to force humans into an ideal model will fail because every person is different.

Phipps, you have been forced into your society.
You were born, you were taught the language, you were told not to do this and that. Et cetera.
Unless you weren't born and moved on your own decision.
Besides, theories can't force anything. They can provide answers and solutions (that should be tested / examined / etc).

I'm not trying to define current human behaivor. Calxism attempts to define the most appropriate human behaivor, and applying it best that we can to humans.

Our societies don't try to force only 'correct' action. They allow a broad amount of actions, but even with this many people commit crimes against our societies.

I'm just concerned that you think people can be made 'perfect'.

Explain social moores then. Eh?
People conform. People being different has no bearing on the "ideal model" at all. (The ideal model being the one I'm talking about.) We all have the same basic needs - shelter, food, etc. People being different won't change the fact that they need those things.

People aren't made, they are grown.

Stop the 'perfect' nonsense. Forget I said 'perfect', ever.

Please don't say things like that. I used to say stupid things like that, and I regret that I can never go back and change what I said.

So they're still dictating what you can and cannot do, therefor telling you the "correct" action.

I'm curious; how can there be crimes in a society that doesn't believe in wrong? Sure, harming another could be considered a wrong, but what if the current society (of an imaginary country) sees it as alright? If you're the one being harmed, you might see it otherwise. But which one is "right" in this case?

That's a thinker (for me) and I look forward to your answer.

I meant it in the interest of this conversation/debate. If he was, I'd not bother going on - I've had too many failures explaining these things to Christians in the first place. I'm not going to bother wasting my time. I have things, you know, to do.

(Well, it's actually telling you which actions are not correct, .. but still. )

Everyone has done something illegal at one point. Whether they know it or not, or whether they got caught or not doesn't matter. Therefore, society does not force you to do anything, as people can go against society's rules and still be a part of society. You merely get "corrected" if you're caught (with such correction being no gaurantee that you won't repeat the offending behavior).

People are generally pack animals. They will usually attempt to follow societal standards as it gives them the greatest chance of survival. But humans aren't perfect. Everyone has their own distinct flaws.

Realize it's not just about what's illegal and legal. Think about the behaivor of the society. What's legal and illegal is a different matter (although close). How do the people view work? Why do some not contribute? Et cetera.

I don't have to but i agree. But "good" and "bad" is relative to the point of view.
Simple(even silly) example(i hate making simple examples, as they don't prove anything but this thread is so crowded with simple examples that one more will probably not do any harm):
Starving-man approaches a man with a backpack full of food. Food-man refuses to give any food to starving-man(for whatever reason). Starving-man knocks down food-man, grabs food and runs away. Good behaviour for starving-man(can satisfy a basic need) but bad behaviour of starving-man from the point of view of food-man(probably injured badly, dead in the worst case).

"right" is always the opposite of "left" per definition of left and right:P
talking, seriously: Humans are gregarious animal(i'm not sure whether my dictionary gets this word right, its supposed to be an animal that lives in herds) they tend to follow the "force of the mass", whatever the majority does, seems right to them and they will follow that behaviour. (Of course you can voluntarily choose to refuse doing what everyone else does, if you know about that, but the "average JimBeam" is not making himself a head on these things.) So if you get beaten up in that "imaginary" society where no one cares it is just right and deserves you well if you don't strike back:-X

Summing these two comments up, leads to the conclusion, people all over the world, every now and then again have drawn and will draw again over and over again:
Everything is relative and everything which is not is merely a question of definition.

I really don't want to get into a serious drawn-out debate, but in reply to just the above: the man who beat up the man who refused to give the food is in the wrong. Nobody has any obligation to help you no matter what state you're in, and nobody has the "right to eat."

And as far as my understanding of Christianity is concerned (my beliefs, this is not a thread on christianity!), they've both sinned. The one man should have shared, the other should have accepted whatever he recieved (even if it was nothing).

I don't want to irritate anyone, I just felt like sharing.

Thanks for reminding me of your freedoms, sherlock.

I was talking about behavior. You behave for a reason. I behave to accomplish goals. Thus "good" and "bad" is relative to the goals I have. So, yes, it is possible to say if something is "good" or "bad" in a situation like I have just described. If I fall off a cliff, that'll be bad behaivor because it doesn't let me accomplish the said goals.

In your opinion. Given that there's no other circumstances surrounding the issue, I'd say neither was wrong. People need to eat to live. Living is an instinctual desire. Hence the person did what he needed to survive. By the same token, the man with the food had no obligation to give the food. That's just the way the cookie crumbled.

IMO, there is no objective right or wrong. Just consequences to chosen actions.

The consequences can be deemed "good" and "bad" for a goal. If a goal is to save the planet, blowing it up is definately bad. It's not good. There's just no way that blowing up the planet is good.

I win. This is the biggest thread hijack.. ever!.
(Oddly enough this discussion has been going much better than threads that are actually about these issues.)

For which the goal is also just another action that will have consequences, only to be determined "good" or "bad" by it's effect on other goals, which are only determined "good" or "bad" by its effect on further goals.... see where that's going? Good and bad are subjective. One person/group/society sees something as good, another sees the same thing as bad.

A goal is not an action. (It's the aim of actions, "That which should be striven for.") The actions to reach the goal will have consequences. In the context of the goal, the actions that help to reach the goal are considered good. Out of context, .. well, there's problems.

Maybe this is a good time to mention "teh ultimate goal" that this could apply to. The goal of life is to find the goals to life.

There's some special cases:
1) There is no goal.
2) The goal is to not find the goal.

#1 is nihilistic in nature and should be ignored, goals are very real. #2 is unrealistic because it contradicts itself.

"On a different note"? Your debate tactic seems to be to change the subject.

I suppose using the term caveman was a poor choice, as it has a lot of loaded meaning. I intended to merely set up an example with 'modern'(in terms of evolution) humans in a simple social situation. I think this would be kind of obvious by reading the rest of the example, but then, I'm not even sure you did, since you ignored almost the entire post.

Of the two things you actually did respond to:

You seem to misunderstand my statement, or rather, you responded to it before reading the rest of the post which, gasp, is intended to back that claim up. I guess it can be an honest mistake, since it is common practice to respond to posts on a phrase by phrase basis in forums. But if you read the rest, perhaps you should have later revised this comment.

To breifly sum up what I said, it is genetically inherent in people to pay attention to what others contribute to you, versus what you contribute to them. But the more complex and expansive society becomes, the harder it is for people to observe the 'fairness'(to them personally) of other people's contributions, since they never even see most people involved in general society, unlike that of a small tribal group where everyone knows everyone.

And don't most of the horror movies you speak of depict highly socialist/communist societies? I'm not even sure what your point was.

How do you 'not have to worry' about people cheating the system (any system)? People have a genetic predisposition towards cheating when it is benificial to them. We can't be better off not having to worry about people cheating the system, if only because it's a completely unobtainable ideal/mental-abstraction.

My comments, such as private property being a hedge, still stand.

And as for you final statement(that doesn't deal with the actual points I was making in the post):

Yes, I'm sure I understand it. How nice of you to insult me. An unwritten reason of why I'd do a bad job explaining much of the topic is because I'm not going to spend a month sitting here trying to write what takes entire books to cover.

Also, I'm not that great of a writer, but that doesn't exclude me from knowning a topic. If you really need an example, let me simplify: you can find, say, a farmer who is an expert at what he does, but he might not be very good at explaining the various details of grain drying(that determines final yield quality), crop management, fertilizers, affects of rain and temperature in varying parts of the season, different kinds of possible pests and ways to control them, etc. Let alone explain them in a forum post, revising and re-revising his writing until he's cross-eyed.

I have this incredible ability to respond to a post completely out of order.

If you insist, I'll go back and respond. Edit: I believe the reason why I did not reply directly to the topics involved is because they do make sense. I don't have anything against them directly. Or, perhaps it is that you just posted a semi-summary of topics. There was no "essence" to respond to. (Or perhaps I am confused. Correct my errorful ways. (?))

My point was that there are some stories authors have tried to warn us to stay away from. This point wasn't exactly a contributing factor.

I won't flop over to your ideas without an explanation. Nevertheless, if you don't want to explain something, don't bring it into a debate. It's like abandoning your opinions. "Well, they're just right because they are mine.".. something to that liking. (Perhaps you have seen people talk like this before.)

Yes, it doesn't exclude you - of course not. You know it. But it excludes me.

I don't know. It depends on which system we are talking about. People have self-control; Some do not practice it. Given time, self-control can become more so that they don't want (or need) to cheat the system. That brings up another point - why would a person need to cheat the (un)said(?) system?

Gah! I've just come back from a night out drinking and dancing. As such I'm in no fit state to respond to the replies to my last post.

It's a complicated subject and my brain hurts.

How was there was no 'essence'? The essence (thesis) was the first paragraph after the intro:

"The main problem with communism(and why it can't work, in my opinion) is that the farther away from small bands of people living together and the more interconnected society becomes(modern times is a pretty good example of this), the less people are able to keep track of everyone's relative contribution to the group."

I should have made the thesis statement more precise by adding "and a communistic government doesn't have a mechanism to compensate for this problem." I certainly included this aspect in my supporting arguments, but it was a mistake to leave it out of the thesis.

To help you follow the flow of my original post, here's the breakdown:

1. Thesis statement.
2. Three or four paragraphs explaining the idea of cheating vs. cheater detection in people, in both small and large scale societies, which my thesis needs to build on.
3. Five paragraphs supporting my thesis.
4. A final paragraph where I am just describing how I feel about the quality of my post.

Hopefully that clears up questions about what my overall point was.

#4 above seems to be causing some confusion/contention. Mentioning evolutionary psychology was not ment to be a supporting argument for anything, or even a point in and of itself.

Basically, to paraphrase and simplify my statements in the final paragraph: "I felt this essay was a little rough. Also, I did my best to avoid going into tangents about evolutionary psychology in general (the cheater/cheater-detection concept is just one aspect of it)."

What ideas am I not explaining? As I said, I wasn't even arguing anything else about evolutionary psychology.

This comment is irritating not only because I have explained the ideas I brought up, but also because it apparently stems from a misunderstanding of what I ment to begin with in the final paragraph of my original post.

(Starting with the last part of this quote)
Asking why someone would 'need' to cheat a system isn't the right way to think about it. It's like asking why would someone need to eat an icecream cone, or why would someone need to paint their house green instead of blue. 'Cheating', and this is not a very accurate term for the concept, is generally more ingrained into one's personality. For example, laziness is a form of cheating. Someone who doesn't really like to work, or just doen't like the work he's been assigned to might cut corners or slack off.. generally just not get as much work done as other people. Lazy people(unless they're also kinda dumb) also tend to try and give the impression that they aren't actually lazy, so they don't get spurned by their co-workers or employer. While you could sit there and specifically decide 'I think I need to be lazy, so I'm going to do X amount less work today', it generally just doesn't happen that way. It's ingrained in people--it's not a matter of need.

As for self-control about 'cheating', you seem to assume that everyone will come to the conclusion that cheating is wrong, and that it won't benifit them. Of course, it's pretty much guaranteed that at least someone is going to keep or develope the attitude of 'hey! this is great! all these suckers are easy pickings!'. It isn't like someone that binges on food, knowing it's bad for them and just not yet having the self-control to stop. People can actively decide that maniuplating the system to their advantage is a worthy goal for themselves. Someone will 'cheat' a system because they think it is in their best self-interest to do so(meaning they like the potential benefits, and feel they won't get caught). And don't forget, it's also in the self-interest of a cheater to hide the fact that he's cheating.

Anyway.. time for bed(been up since 5 this morning to go fishing )

You see, the big FATAL flaw with governments today is they don't discourage "cheating" and laziness. At least with communism/facism/etc, the lazy people are sent to gulags or killed.

Since you can't seem to get it, I'll try to end this small fued with the following information.
1) In response to the quote: Ok.
2) I don't have anything (useful) to respond to that.
3) Somehow copyright laws and patent (laws?) exist to make sure that some contributions are protected. And thus we start over at the original topic..

Nezi, about cheating. I'm going to bring some religion into this. There are many religious people that would never think about manipulating anything to their advantage because it would displease their God or send them to hell. This has appeared to work for those that truely embrace that religion's system. (This could be considered unhealthy - embracing something, like a religious system, without putting enough thought into it (i.e. children)). With well-thought out ideas and concepts, a person could surely bring her or himself to be guided by another (i.e. non-religious) system . Your argument is that it's just the way humans are. I'd prefer to believe that we can improve ourselves.

This is possibly because the governments have almost "pledged" to stay out of personal affairs. There is a healthy zone that governments and other people should definately stay out of, but, the general well-being of a person is overlooked. Too much is assumed about the person - i.e. that they are a good citizen. Schools in the U.S. don't make good citizens, or so it seems that they aren't responsible enough to fix what's wrong with the country, so I think that there should be another way to inform citizens on life and things that we're talking about here. And if they can't understand some concepts (i.e. "Why does everybody have to contribute? Why can't I just waste my life away?"), they stay in school (I'd prefer to call it a "camp").

I like orange juice!

This is not about what you, or I, like at the moment.

Let's hijack it again:
I like crackers. Polly wants a cracker8-)

Not to hijack the hijack... but...

Happy Juice! ... Happy Juice!

A few observations from widely dispersed posts: (Also, I'm from the US)

The spell check hasn't worked when I tried it.

You can "sue" people for anything, I can "sue" somebody for being ugly (if the lawyers & courts decide to throw it out that's a different matter)

The aborignal (sp?) societies that "don't have greed" can manufacture all their artifacts from natural materials in a few minutes. The movie "The Gods Must Be Crazy" c. 1985 depicts havoc rendered on a native tribe when a passing plane discards a (unique to them) Pepsi bottle which proves to be an extremely efficient mortar (mortar & pestle for grinding) and is fought over.

The starving man & backpack man are merely rediscovering Malthus, the Four Horsemen, etc. We've merely pushed the problem back for a few years with technology.

I think some patents are procured in a defensive manner, like a few years ago when somebody bought the domain name "www.mcdonalds.com" (I think) so they could sell it to McDonalds Inc. for an extorbitant price. Thereafter, large companies bought up all foreseeable domain names to prevent this. The point here is about getting domain names to prevent others from charging them, not the dweeb who got it to extort in the first place.

They'll have to pay in the first place. Like we determined, there's a lot of people trying those "get rich fast" schemes (some by buying the domain names). This might be considered a way to cheat the system. But again, I ask why do they feel they have to cheat the system? Why do they act on those feelings?

I'm sorry, I fail to see the connection between domain name registration and patents. Can you explain?

That's funny, to me, you don't seem to get it . I will agree to end that part of the discussion though.

I do have to say, however, that you seem to think that if someone doesn't reject relgion, then they haven't 'put enough thought' into it. But keep in mind, not many other things have had as much collective thought put into it than religion has over the course of history. Some things, such as creationism(I obviously believe in evolution) may be incorrect, but the values that religion teaches people to live by are pretty solid. It is people themselves that cause problems. Not all people who profess to be Christians live by all the teachings, and some people may even abuse the church structure, but that does not make religion invalid. I could say that if everyone truely lived according to the teachings of Christianity, then the would would be a happy, perfect place. Of course I then run into the same problem that you(I argue) do, it just doesn't work that way.

You seem to say that you are a tolerant person, and that we must be tolerant and consider your ideaology(until we accept it, I guess), but in some of the posts you've made in this thread, you seem pretty intolerant towards christianity.

This is the second attempt at this post, the original was lost.

That's correct. Christianity has nothing to offer me.

You don't agree with somebody's facts when you present facts that disprove's the others. The other person's facts are hence now invalid. Think of what I'm talking about like that - you must present the facts to invalidate that which is said to be a fact / "the best way" (according to them, but still, I don't want to provide "the best way" - such an accusation seems punishable by law. Heh.)

Before I make my main response to this, I want to define "values", not for your sake nor for mine, rather for this debate. I'm sure you have a reasonable idea about what values are. I'm assuming that these values you speak of are morals. Yes?

Let's define morals.

Personal behavior is actions based on influences. Influences are everywhere, such as a painting, or a color - they all influence a person. One of the main things that things influence is emotion. For example, a painting that makes somebody depressed has influenced their emotional state. We have previously determined in this thread that "right" and "wrong" are not constant determenants, "from my point of view what you are doing is wrong, but you say that it is right" (etc). What somebody is doing can be said to be obiding by their morals (see definition) - their morals are influencing their behavior. If objects are influencing their emotional status, which is thus affecting personal behavior, can't it be said that their morals are also being affected? Morals can be "applied" to this influenced behavior, moreso influencing it. Things need not be influenced but rather have directions of their own!

And when something has a direction, it can easily be considered a goal. "Something that which should be striven for" is a goal - a direction is applied work, towards something - a goal. The direction can't (shouldn't) be influenced, it's aiming for the goal, and that's where it was pre-determined to go.

This is where my system crashed last, so I'll post this and go on in a second with an edit. Edit;

What I wanted to do was to find a list of "plainly stated christian values/morals/ethics", but so far my search attempts have not found anything. I was going to respond and prove that you don't need to have "morals" to live a life full of accomplishment and progression (of your goals and the goal). With a goal throughout your life and knowledge of what it will take, you can derive that killing your neighbor is probably not the best idea (for most circumstances I can think of, let's not go into counter-examples). You don't need morals and virtues to derive these things.

They may be solid, but you don't need them. They also obscure the vision of "the path" (or whatever direction you are taking in life) with a replacement of "God's will". (Am I wrong about the replacement aspect?)

I ment to say that you seem intolerant towards christian beliefs of other people.

On morals, it doesn't matter if someone has never even heard of religion. If they believe something is right or wrong, for whatever underlying reason, they have moral values. Thinking that killing, stealing, and lying are wrong are examples of moral values.

Moral values are tools for people in society to get along. If someone goes around constanly lying to people(perhaps because he just doesn't care about the affects the lies have on people), people will shun the liar and not deal with him to protect themselves from misinformation. People as a group can recognize that lying is harmful and collectively decide that it is 'wrong'. They just came up with a moral value, and they, hopefully, teach it to their children. As time goes by, more and more things are realized to be harmful, and so moral values are created in the society stating that they are wrong things to do.

Over time, lots of moral values become determined--a lot of which deal with more and more complex situations. Especially true a couple thousand years ago, but still true today, people don't always know all the ins and outs of all of these moral values, and can't teach it their children or others, and obviously can't teach it to themselves. The need arises for an institution to act as a tool to teach this collection of complicated moral values.

You may say that people should be able to just 'put some thought' into the issues and figure out everything for themselves, but I'm sorry to say that learning moral values is like learning any other subject--people can't very easily come up with every concept dealing with a subject on their own. Why would we need schools for anything if we could?

Religion is the institution that many use as a tool to help teach tried-and-true moral values, even if those moral values can be arrived at independently or learned through other institutions.

You also seem to imply that devout christians blindly spout out whatever the church tells them, and they never consider the topics on their own. Have you ever been to a sermon or study group at a church? Believe it or not, churches do explore the affects that certain behavior(good or bad) have--that is, the reasons why they are good or bad.

If you've argued with religious people in the past and felt that they were idiots for not being able to defend their postition, perhaps they are merely bad at debating? LOTS of people are bad at debating, and when people use debate tactics against them that they aren't familiar with, they can get frustrated and upset. Don't confuse debate ability with the worthiness of one side of an issue versus the other.

Then you agree with my almost confusing explanation about influences on behavior?

I can't really say for sure--that part was fairly confusing.

Did you agree or disagree with anything in my own post?