User:BobbyDeanMartin

Bobby Martin's interests:

   Practical Ethics
   Java Programming
   Perl Programming
   Software Development Methodology
   General Software Development Best Practices
   Futurism (well grounded speculation about the relatively distant future, not the art movement)
   Nanotechnology (or, more accurately, molecular manufacturing)
   Fantasy Role Playing Games
   Infant education

Some notes on my thoughts about ethics, to be worked into a full-fledged wikipedia entry. If you want to format this, correct grammar, etc, go right ahead. If you want to provide dissenting opinion, please separate it (as a line item? in Talk?) rather than alter the opinion listed here. I subscribe to utilitarian ethics.

The end goal of any activity should be to make people (and other creatures) happier, and to improve our chances of continued propogation.

Regulations given out by authorities should be assumed to be of positive value unless you can give good reasons otherwise (very frequently you can).

Waste of value is bad.

Giving value to those who have little is better than giving the same amount of value to those who have much. Corollary: Actions that move value from those who have much to those who have little are of net benefit.

Style (that which is artistically pleasing) has value, but not great value as compared with substantive value.

Freedom is good except where it gives freedom to violate the basic freedoms of others (tough one; needs lots of expansion).

Hurting others is only good when it benefits the community in the future. (A controversial example: do not punish a murderer when the circumstances of the murder would never occur again).

Sharing information is almost invariably better than hoarding it.

Sharing tangible goods is of net benefit.

---

Discourse (rant?) on intellectual property:

Recent trends of the governments of many nations seems to be toward restricting the sharing of information. For now, these restrictions seem mild and, in some cases, even warranted (copyright protection). However... the only valid reasons for restricting sharing of information according to utilitarian ethics are:

       *to give a limited monopoly to the creators of information with the notion that it will encourage the creation of new works, since the creator is rewarded more
       *to restrict people from finding things out that will hurt them or others

In my opinion, the second reason is bogus except when the information is very clearly only usable for harm, and it is actually possible to restrict access to the information altogether. This is true so seldom that I think it can be discounted altogether.

The first reason is more interesting. I think it may still hold true in our current 'copying information is almost free' economy, but it is certainly weakened (since the cost to produce and disseminate(sp?) new information is greatly reduced). However, more importantly, governments seem to be viewing the 'benefit' of reimbursing the information creators (or their agents) as an end unto itself, even when it is detrimental to the society as a whole! For example, the period of copyright was originally 14 years in the USConstitution. This period has gradually been increased to the lifespan of the creator plus 90 years. These extensions have been applied retroactively to materials already under copyright. This means that copying (and thus value to the community) is restricted, with no additional value given at all! Obviously, extending copyright on existing materials doesn't encourage anyone to produce new materials; only extending copyrights on new contributions can do that. The only purpose to extend copyright on existing materials is to take money from the community and give it to the creator. Meanwhile people who may need access to that information are restricted from legally getting access to it.

Media companies are forming cartels which have no interests but their own at heart, and who convince the average citizen that it is good and right that the average citizen be restricted from copying what is easily copied. Right now, this is in most cases not a terrible thing. Restrictions on copying Britney Spears albums or Disney videos are not going to hurt anyone. However, many respected scientists and engineers believe there will be a time in the not too distant future in which a wide variety of things can be manufactured from raw materials to finished product, requiring no significant human involvement. When this comes about, information (instructions on how to build things) essentially is as good as the thing itself. If the same evil intellectual property laws rule then as now, what might have been freely available for everyone (including those really in need, such as the homeless and members of third world countries) may be available to only those who can afford whatever price the media giants wish to charge.