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The Political Thread

Started by The Legendary Shark, 09 April, 2010, 03:59:03 PM

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Professor Bear

I really don't understand why no-one wants to vote for the sexist, racist, antisemitic, anti-sugar, anti-Falklands, terrorist-loving, Britain-hating, weak-willed, authoritarian, tax-raising, business-hating, muslim-loving Labour Party which is simultaneously in chaos and also controlling all events at all times under the personal guidance of Putin via an army of online trolls and offline crisis actors who wait around in hospitals to ambush Tory politicians with carefully-scripted scenarios involving their nonexistent infant children and which they play out for waiting cameras from the liberal media who are helping undermine the government's negotiating position with the EU, which is important even though we don't want or need any deal because we want sovereignty back from unelected bureaucrats and Boris Johnson our PM will get it for us.

Yeah this started out as flippant but I realise now that's it's just a summation of where we are.  The Tory Party have pulled The Gimp out of its crate and I am not one jot surprised that everyone is eager to vote for a violent bumming.

Frank

Quote from: Funt Solo on 19 September, 2019, 07:10:00 PM
Just the English..?

I'm assuming the Boris Bounce (see chart) is primarily an Anglo thing, but I don't have the data to back that up. The Welsh voted for Brexit too, so maybe they're delighted Dom Cummings is riding the mother of parliaments like a newly shorn merino.

There's a section of the green and pleasant land that just feels better being ruled by Downton Abbey.

Not that I think Tunnock-munchers will have to worry about England's midlife crisis for much longer - although the history of newly independent nations illustrates the nature of the Chinese curse. It's not as if we haven't been going quietly insane ourselves.

Hutus and fucking Tutsis, man.



JayzusB.Christ

Quote from: Frank on 19 September, 2019, 07:52:05 PM
Quote from: Funt Solo on 19 September, 2019, 07:10:00 PM
Just the English..?

There's a section of the green and pleasant land that just feels better being ruled by Downton Abbey.


Speaking as a Mick who's half English by blood, I must say that's one aspect of English politics that's always baffled me.  Why does every PM have to be posh?

Not that the likes of our barely-coherent Bertie are much better, mind you.
"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest"

Funt Solo

Quote from: Frank on 19 September, 2019, 07:52:05 PM
Hutus and fucking Tutsis, man.

Aye, tribalism. I was playing Alternative Ulster by the Stiff Little Fingers one time and my neighbor, who'd always been pleasant and up for a chat and a bit of drink, suddenly turned weird and starting ranting "No! No alternative! Never!" like he'd been possessed by the spirit of Ian Paisley. (Although I have no idea which variant he was: he just had a similar accent to Paisley.)

He calmed down when Closed Groove came on. I think it's really sending the same message, but is perhaps less clear.
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

Tiplodocus

Justin, Justin, Justin.

What is it?

I'll bet everybody on this forum has made it to some right venerable ages, 55 for me,  without once putting on blackface or dressing up as a Nazi or being charged with sexual assault or fucking a pig's head or wanking off into a potted plant in the presence of a co-worker*.

It's really not that hard to get through life without being accused of these things.


* Even this, the most likely, no, not even close.
Be excellent to each other. And party on!

The Legendary Shark

Um, yes. Of course. Definitely. Nothing like that here. Nope. Not one thing...
[move]~~~^~~~~~~~[/move]




TordelBack

I think it's just you, Tips.

Hawkmumbler

I had a jobby dressed as a Yeti in Tooting Bec Underground but my social worker says I shouldn't mention that under oath....

Funt Solo

Do you mean you had a job dressing as a Yeti or that you did a jobby whilst dressed as a Yeti?  :-\
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

Hawkmumbler

Quote from: Funt Solo on 22 September, 2019, 03:10:39 PM
Do you mean you had a job dressing as a Yeti or that you did a jobby whilst dressed as a Yeti?  :-\


Yes.

Frank


So, how does everyone feel about copyright and selling prints of fan art?

(ducks and zig-zags for cover)



The Legendary Shark


In my view, patents, copyright and IP restrict artistic, scientific and technological development and are actively detrimental to human progress.

If memory serves, patents and copyrights were created in the 16th Century as a way for the king to grant monopolies to his friends and supporters. One of the first (again, from memory) was for the printing of playing cards, of all things, so that only one person was allowed to print, and profit from them. If someone had come along at that time with a process for printing playing cards of an equal or higher quality for a lower price, they'd have been banned from doing so and prosecuted if they tried.

Innovations are often adaptations and/or amalgamations of existing technologies, such as Henry Ford's assembly line, which was based on a novel arrangement of existing technologies, or the invention of the typewriter, which was inspired by the piano. When adaptations of existing technologies are outlawed, it can only restrict innovation.

Imagine if there'd been caveman patent lawyers. The person who invented the flint blade would have had control over their invention and nobody else would have been allowed to copy it, improve the technology or adapt it without paying Ug the Napper. In such a world, the knife handle might never have been invented, or the arrow head, or even the metal knife.

It's also not uniformly enforced. Einstein should have made oodles from his work, and every sat-nav maker (for example) should be kicking back a percentage to his family and descendants - and yet the family of the creator of Dan Dare (for example) control that character to this day, which seems arse about face to me.

As a wannabe writer myself, I'd expect to be paid for my work if I wrote a worthy novel or script and sold it to a publisher. Once it's been released into the wild, however, it's not mine any more and belongs to everyone. If another publisher comes along and decides to reprint my work then it would be nice to receive payment but - so long as my name was attached - I couldn't, in all conscience, insist upon it. I also couldn't complain if another writer came along and extrapolated from my stories or used my characters, so long as that writer used their own name and not mine (which would be fraud anyway and thus unlawful to start with). This other writer might want to pay me for endorsing or "authorising" their work, which would be nice but, again, not compulsory. Their work might be much better than mine anyway - a real treat for readers. Then again, it might be about the same or inferior, but that's life. Me keeping tight control of my "IP" deprives readers, writers and publishers of revenue, innovation and enjoyment.

Whilst JRR Tolkein was in negotiation with a US publisher, a "pirated" copy of The Lord of the Rings was released and he simply asked readers not to buy it and to wait for the "official version," which worked quite well - especially as this was long before the internet.

Once an idea is out in the world, it cannot be realistically controlled or restricted and belongs to everyone.

*hides behind Frank*

[move]~~~^~~~~~~~[/move]




Professor Bear

Disney famously lobbied for an extension to the term required before a character can enter the public domain so that they could hold on to the rights for Steamboat Willy, the first appearance of Mickey Mouse, which they could still have used however they wanted if it had entered the public domain, it's just that others could have made their own Steamboat Willy cartoons, too (why they want to is anyone's guess).
If Disney hadn't successfully lobbied for the extension, Spider-Man would have entered the public domain this year and Disney could have gone on making movies featuring the character that raked in billions instead of losing control to Sony and getting fuck all.  LOL, I guess.

Funt Solo

Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 22 September, 2019, 05:04:06 PM
Once an idea is out in the world, it cannot be realistically controlled or restricted and belongs to everyone.

Or, yes it can and no it doesn't. I mean: things are (copyrighted) and then free-for-all usage is blocked (legally). Me wandering around saying it ain't so will have no material effect.

It's a bit of a broad brush to state that being able to copyright your work is "detrimental to human progress", which is what you actually said. When I read it, I spat my cornflakes all over my screen so I've had to clean all that up to make sure I didn't just imagine it.

I suppose it's like any kind of ownership, really. Would you also argue that I should be able to walk into your house and take your stuff? No problems with that? The older I get, the more I think anarchy is as dumb as a bag of hammers. It's like a free-for-all idea that relies on humanity's generally decent good nature. The trouble is there are too many examples of humanity's generally indecent bad nature for me to accept it as a good idea.

If the world was in a state of anarchy, the first thing I'd want to do is organize some collective resistance. In other words: avoid anarchy at all costs. Just a terrible idea. Like giving in.
++ A-Z ++  coma ++

Frank


That's a reasoned and considered response, Shark. I was talking about the fuss that happened on social media when a fan sold prints of their art, which was very closely based on original work by a 2000ad artist.

The insanity that ensued seems to have spread across social media, with one 2000ad artist being asked whether he'd sought permission from a dead creator to provide cover art for a collection of their work.

The way everyone instantly divided into one camp or another, and the ferocity, vitriol and absolute conviction with which they argued echoed the dynamics of the other divisive issues of our time. I think we've been infected with a kind of madness.


It's not relevant to Shark's point, but Dan Dare is owned by the Dan Dare Corporation, which is controlled by a TV producer who was a fan as a kid. The whole point of the tragic, emblematic story of Dan Dare is that his creator(s) - and, therefore, their heirs - had no control or financial interest in the future exploitation of their creation.