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Author Topic: L. Neil Smith turns out to be a statist asshole  (Read 49354 times)

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dalebert

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Re: L. Neil Smith turns out to be a statist asshole
« Reply #135 on: July 22, 2010, 09:02:34 AM »

The very fact of having a "vigil" in front of someone's home is threatening.

Why are you putting "vigil" in quotes?

voodoo

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Re: L. Neil Smith turns out to be a statist asshole
« Reply #136 on: July 22, 2010, 09:26:21 AM »

The very fact of having a "vigil" in front of someone's home is threatening.

Why are you putting "vigil" in quotes?

Cause it's sceeery!
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BobRobertson

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Re: L. Neil Smith turns out to be a statist asshole
« Reply #137 on: July 22, 2010, 12:21:49 PM »

The very fact of having a "vigil" in front of someone's home is threatening.
Why are you putting "vigil" in quotes?
Cause it's sceeery!

In my opinion, the reason it is "sceeery" to those in front of whose houses such things are held, is because it makes their actions _personal_. They are no longer bureaucrats, functionaries indistinguishable from each other.

All of a sudden, they are individuals. Specific, identifiable, visible.

Bureaucrats HATE that. They're bureaucrats because they want to be invisible.
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"I regret that I am now to die in the belief that the useless sacrifice of themselves by the generation of 1776 to acquire self-government and happiness to their country is to be thrown away by the unwise and unworthy passions of their sons, and that my only consolation is to be that I live not to weep over it."
-- Thomas Jefferson, April 26th 1820

Alex Libman

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Re: L. Neil Smith turns out to be a statist asshole
« Reply #138 on: July 22, 2010, 03:30:02 PM »

I've decided to pile on another e-mail:


Code: [Select]
L. Neil Smith,

It has recently come to my attention that you have benefited from the
fruits of my mental labor without compensation or as much as an
acknowledgement of credit.  I present you with clear evidence that I was
the first to publicly identify two spelling mistakes in a paragraph of
your text (I didn't bother going beyond that one paragraph),
highlighting those errors in red in a related but distinct forum
conversation on the following URL:

http://bbs.freetalklive.com/index.php?topic=34318.msg606312#msg606312

Archiving Internet engines like those employed by Google, Yahoo, Bing,
and dozens of other neutral Web-crawling entities large and small can be
used to verify the timestamps of the events occurred, and there is every
reason to believe that your subsequent modification of your text was a
direct consequence of my effort.  According to your own philosophy, the
"little bits of my life" that I've spent remembering German vs Yiddish
surname translation trends and mediocre Babylon-5 novelizations are my
"sweat equity", which means that force or social pressure can be
employed to create an environment of artificial scarcity so that I could
profit from my ideas.  My "moral burden" of upholding "my"
"intellectual" "property" "rights" shall be fulfilled!

I am blind-copying this message to my posse of rowdy AnCap Internet
trolls, Free Staters, fan-fic writers, Somali pirates, Swedish pirates,
fat bearded UNIX administrators, and the A-Team!

Or  ...  (here's the point where this e-mail turns serious)  ...  we
could just agree to abandon this silly pettiness, and let our obvious
ideas transfer on the basis of utility, confident in the fact that, if
need be, ever-advancing information technology makes it ever-easier to
trace ideas back to their point of origin.

I am a capitalist, and I believe that a person's "capital" includes all
aspects of his self-ownership - body, mind, time, skills, health,
reputation, material assets, contractual assets, parents' rights, and
so on.  We use money as a means of material exchange, but we must
realize that there are things money can't buy - genuine love, youth,
career competence, academic accomplishment, freedom from some
consequences of one's actions, and so on.  Intellectual property is an
immaterial asset - you can prove that you wrote something and published       
it at a particular time, and a rational society would recognize and
value that to some degree.  The value of your IP can be measured in the
number of people quoting / applying it, the number of people visiting
your Web-site as the result, your prestige in certain intellectual
circles, and so on.

There's more to capitalism than just simply money!  A lot more!

Best regards,
Alex Libman





EDIT2:  s/possy/posse/
« Last Edit: July 23, 2010, 05:25:21 AM by Alex Libman »
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davann

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Re: L. Neil Smith turns out to be a statist asshole
« Reply #139 on: July 22, 2010, 05:05:45 PM »

Keeners seem to have a very high standard as to what constitutes a threat...when it comes to their words/actions.
Bingo, bingo, and ... Bingo.

I see a lot of keeniacs backing away from personal responsibility the moment there could be any consequences to their actions. When there is a credible suggestion that such-and-such protest was a Bad Idea, what response do we get? "That wasn't 'Free Keene', that was a collection of certain individuals" (always, of course, ambiguous as to whether the speaker was in fact one of the "collection of individuals")

How about: "yeah, I was there, and boy was that a bad idea"

Chalk it up to youth. That is what I do. Even in this latest episode of screwing the pooch. There is no doubt in my mind who fucked up first and I will think less of them for it. It is good they put their bad behavior right out in the open. Lets everyone know who can not be trusted.


Who is this "them" of whom you speak, who had "bad behavior"?

Those that stole this man’s writings and did not offer just compensation. I have no dog in this fight but it is nice to get a glimpse of how these individuals operate. They will be avoided. This whole situation makes me very very happy that I did not uproot my life to live near these unsavory criminals.
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BobRobertson

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Re: L. Neil Smith turns out to be a statist asshole
« Reply #140 on: July 22, 2010, 05:12:07 PM »

Those that stole this man’s writings and did not offer just compensation.

Demonstrating my conclusion that the arguments used by the involved people with different opinions on I.P. are not converting anyone.

Those that think it's theft continue to do so, those that don't, don't.

How utterly pointless it all ends up being.
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"I regret that I am now to die in the belief that the useless sacrifice of themselves by the generation of 1776 to acquire self-government and happiness to their country is to be thrown away by the unwise and unworthy passions of their sons, and that my only consolation is to be that I live not to weep over it."
-- Thomas Jefferson, April 26th 1820

Sam Gunn (since nobody got Admiral Naismith)

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Re: L. Neil Smith turns out to be a statist asshole
« Reply #141 on: July 22, 2010, 05:26:46 PM »

Those that stole this man’s writings and did not offer just compensation.

Demonstrating my conclusion that the arguments used by the involved people with different opinions on I.P. are not converting anyone.

Those that think it's theft continue to do so, those that don't, don't.

How utterly pointless it all ends up being.
They were extremely disrespectful about the whole affair.

This shouldn't even have anything to do with what the law says or what the law should say or anything like that.  It's extremely disrespectful to copy someone's work without permission or at least giving credit.  To make matters worse Smith went nuts and ballooned the whole thing into a pointless fiasco.  He could have taken advantage of the situation and gotten a lot of good PR.  Terrible strategy on his part.  Terrible manners on their part.
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Alex Libman

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Re: L. Neil Smith turns out to be a statist asshole
« Reply #142 on: July 22, 2010, 07:09:08 PM »

He replied to the above e-mail (the subject line for which, as I forgot to mention, was "Still Very Disappointed With Your Irrational Behavior"):

Code: [Select]
   Don't teach grandpa how to suck eggs, kiddo. It wasn't even a nice try.

    But I do have two observations about your beung disappointed with
me. The first is that if I hadn't disappointed you or someone like you,
then I clearly wouldn't be doing my job. Your puling and puking, like
that of the rest of your coterie of marxoid trash are music to my ears,
so by all means keep it up.

    The second is that if you're disappointed now, you ain't seen
nothing yet.

N.


[SNIP same long signature as his last replies]


I replied:

Code: [Select]
Alright, grandpa, why don't you teach me, substantively, point by point,
on how I am "marxoid trash".  If you can show me how I'm wrong, then I
will publicly admit that, apologize, and adjust my philosophy
accordingly (as Google will attest, I have a very long history of doing
precisely that).

Or, better yet, you can debate the matter publicly with better minds
than mine by calling in to the Free Talk Live radio show Mon-Sat 7-10PM
EST at 1-800-259-9231.

 :lol:

« Last Edit: July 22, 2010, 07:24:15 PM by Alex Libman »
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Amazing Richard

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Re: L. Neil Smith turns out to be a statist asshole
« Reply #143 on: July 22, 2010, 08:24:33 PM »

I've decided to pile on another e-mail:


Code: [Select]
L. Neil Smith,

It has recently come to my attention that you have benefited from the
fruits of my mental labor without compensation or as much as an
acknowledgement of credit.  I present you with clear evidence that I was
the first to publicly identify two spelling mistakes in a paragraph of
your text (I didn't bother going beyond that one paragraph),
highlighting those errors in red in a related but distinct forum
conversation on the following URL:

http://bbs.freetalklive.com/index.php?topic=34318.msg606312#msg606312

Archiving Internet engines like those employed by Google, Yahoo, Bing,
and dozens of other neutral Web-crawling entities large and small can be
used to verify the timestamps of the events occurred, and there is every
reason to believe that your subsequent modification of your text was a
direct consequence of my effort.  According to your own philosophy, the
"little bits of my life" that I've spent remembering German vs Yiddish
surname translation trends and mediocre Babylon-5 novelizations are my
"sweat equity", which means that force or social pressure can be
employed to create an environment of artificial scarcity so that I could
profit from my ideas.  My "moral burden" of upholding "my"
"intellectual" "property" "rights" shall be fulfilled!

I am blind-copying this message to my possy of rowdy AnCap Internet
trolls, Free Staters, fan-fic writers, Somali pirates, Swedish pirates,
fat bearded UNIX administrators, and the A-Team!

Or  ...  (here's the point where this e-mail turns serious)  ...  we
could just agree to abandon this silly pettiness, and let our obvious
ideas transfer on the basis of utility, confident in the fact that, if
need be, ever-advancing information technology makes it ever-easier to
trace ideas back to their point of origin.

I am a capitalist, and I believe that a person's "capital" includes all
aspects of his self-ownership - body, mind, time, skills, health,
reputation, material assets, contractual assets, parents' rights, and
so on.  We use money as a means of material exchange, but we must
realize that there are things money can't buy - genuine love, youth,
career competence, academic accomplishment, freedom from some
consequences of one's actions, and so on.  Intellectual property is an
immaterial asset - you can prove that you wrote something and published       
it at a particular time, and a rational society would recognize and
value that to some degree.  The value of your IP can be measured in the
number of people quoting / applying it, the number of people visiting
your Web-site as the result, your prestige in certain intellectual
circles, and so on.

There's more to capitalism than just simply money!  A lot more!

Best regards,
Alex Libman





LOL...but Alex...I'm pretty sure that "possy" is actually spelled "posse"....just for future reference.
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Alex Libman

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Re: L. Neil Smith turns out to be a statist asshole
« Reply #144 on: July 23, 2010, 05:17:27 AM »

LOL...but Alex...I'm pretty sure that "possy" is actually spelled "posse"....just for future reference.

UrbanDictionary.com...  Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me!!!  :lol:

Well, at least I was making an effort, unlike some winners of literary awards that they themselves have established...


Anyways, new round!  "Grandpa" replied:

Code: [Select]
  You know you're a thief or an enabler of thieves. I don't need to      
prove it to you. Nor will I subject myself to a public appearance
controlled by my ideological and economic enemies. No, I have broader
plans which you will zll just have to wonder and worry about.

    Hey, there's always Venezuela, where your moral outlook will be
welcomed.

N.


I fired back:

Code: [Select]
Alright, you don't have to make any live appearances and you can choose
which individuals you debate with and on what terms, but your
ideological argument is not going to defend itself.  All that you've
done so far is insult (and possibly threaten) myself and the people who,
if anything, thus-far have brought you an overall profit by bringing
your name back into the libertarian spotlight.  You have come nowhere
close to addressing the logic of the arguments that I and others have
presented, like the distinction between the actual "negative" and the
non-existent "positive" and Intellectual Property Rights.  And by what
standard of justice -- past, contemporary, or theoretical -- can a man
call others "thieves" and not bear the burden of proof?

Your insults continue to get more ridiculous by the day.  Venezuela?
Seriously?!  One could expect a mindless jab like that from some
sheltered housewife who doesn't know Murray Rothbard from Ayatollah
Khomeini, but what differences between our positions (which probably
aren't that vast aside from IP) would you say brings me closer to that
socialist shit-hole?  Hugo Chavez would protect your intellectual
monopoly for "Life + 60 years" - longer than Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan,
South Korea, New Zealand, etc!  Please educate yourself about the use of
IP laws / "author's rights" as an instrument of oppression in communist
countries, including my native Soviet Union, just as IP laws were
originally created by tyrannical kings and theocrats to protect their
dogma and penalize free speech.

Your threats are not a priority for me - if as a tax resister I can
stand up to the "divine right" of multi-trillion-dollar nuclear-armed
governments, why should I think twice about an insult-spraying semi-
incoherent crusty comic book peddler who is quickly becoming an
embarrassment to rational libertarians everywhere?  You also need to
understand that you are no Ayn Rand!  She was brilliant, innovative, and
genuinely interested in the pursuit of truth, and that is what makes her
blunders (aesthetics, foreign policy, IP) for the most part forgivable
to future generations of rational capitalist philosophers.  You come off
as a kook who can't even muster up a decent article to clarify, much
less defend, his position!  Whatever podium of authority you think
you're standing on is grounded in quicksand - libertarians respect
logic, not fame.

Libertarians like myself are increasingly willing to donate thousands to
content creators who give away their work for free, on the basis of
their shared values with the author and their personal reputation, but
they are increasingly unwilling to spend as much as a penny to profit
people they don't agree with and/or don't respect.  You should really
read up on a free market information flow phenomenon called the
"Streisand effect" - a variation of which just might be remembered as
the "L. Neil Smith effect" from now on.  Your LP primary loss to Harry
Browne (9% to 71% as I understand) will seem like a close call compared
to the new implosion you're headed for, and you have no one to blame but
yourself.  Please don't act surprised when your books can no longer even
be found in libraries, but all of your eBooks and even unauthorized
audiobooks can be found all over sites like The Pirate Bay!

Of course it doesn't have to be like this.  Your reputation within the
libertarian community has been pretty decent up to the Shire Society
incident.  They don't need your words - in fact you no longer deserve
that honor, and I believe there's already several better versions in the
works.  Just please, please drop the whole "you've read my books, now I        
own your brain" shenanigan, and your Titanic legacy can yet avoid the
iceberg it is rapidly steaming toward.

Best regards,
Alex Libman
« Last Edit: July 23, 2010, 05:24:17 AM by Alex Libman »
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The Muslim Agorist

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Re: L. Neil Smith turns out to be a statist asshole
« Reply #145 on: July 23, 2010, 11:27:24 AM »

One could expect a mindless jab like that from some sheltered housewife who doesn't know Murray Rothbard from Ayatollah Khomeini

Oh my god. That was hilarious!
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Re: L. Neil Smith turns out to be a statist asshole
« Reply #146 on: July 23, 2010, 11:32:17 AM »

Smith's attitude isn't unique. I've dealt with a friend of mine who is an author of one novel and a book on 19th century premillennialists. In the case of the second book, some dude was photocopying it to sell it for five bucks a pop to fellow students since it was a required text in the class he was taking. She got all bent out of shape about it. I don't blame her in the sense that the dickhead should've at least given some residuals copyright or no. But I disagreed with her on the whole point that it was a law. I asked her time and time again to show me how she can own an idea. She simply kept going back to the Barney Fife position (IT'S THE LAW!).
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The Muslim Agorist

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Re: L. Neil Smith turns out to be a statist asshole
« Reply #147 on: July 23, 2010, 11:41:36 AM »

I asked her time and time again to show me how she can own an idea.

My head just went in a loop... "owning an idea" is an idea that some people own. By telling me that they own an idea, and I can't have it without their permission... they are also saying that I must take the idea "owning an idea" from them whether I like it or not... I think I'll short circuit if I think about that too long.
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Laetitia

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Re: L. Neil Smith turns out to be a statist asshole
« Reply #148 on: July 23, 2010, 12:23:50 PM »

some dude was photocopying it to sell it for five bucks a pop to fellow students since it was a required text in the class he was taking. 

Whether or not you agree with it, this does count as theft under the current laws. Had "some dude" taken the time to type up a summary of the book, and photocopied that to sell... then it falls into the gray area. He could have even quoted the original, as long as it was attributed.

When an author is pissed off about an incident like this is not exactly the right time to have a discussion about how they would come up with a rational way of handling IP without government force. While still stinging from a financial/reputation slap, it's understandable that the reply would be "It's the LAW!"... because the natural urge is to hit back.
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Re: L. Neil Smith turns out to be a statist asshole
« Reply #149 on: July 24, 2010, 02:13:01 PM »

Laetitia, I agree on the legalistic part of it, but I'm looking at it from the perspective that it was a shit headed thing to photocopy the text book and then sell it that copy with no residuals going to my friend who wrote it. I think that is a minimum to not be a shit head (a la take a penny, leave a penny attitude). What bothers me is that she focuses too much on the idea that law is immutable and not the extension of social interactions. That lack of nuance in her arguments is what made me side with the college kid even though I still find him a shit head.
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