Explain to me how creative works can even be encouraged to exist without copyright.

The best selling book of all time was authored before copyright was invented. Explain to me how that happened.

~Loyal

So what is your model?

I get my choice? I think I'll pick...Charlize Theron.

So we have creeping automation that is working its way up the social-economic ladder. This is happening.

Absent the loaded adjective...I can accept that. So stipulated. Let it show in the record.

The why of that fact is that the users of that automation find it profitable to eliminate the cost of employing people.

Yeah, you're focusing on one part of what has to be at least -- at least -- a four-part system. Automation and employing people both have costs. Those costs can be initial, repetitive, and exiting. Whenever the cost of one type of interchangeable economic input is more attractive to a producer than another then it benefits him to use the more attractive choice. That removes that choice, those resources, from other users, but releases the other choice for other producers or consumers.

Now it is pretty incontestable that if the trend continues - and it will - at some point, we will hit a unpleasant point where manufacturers cannot squeak more profit out of a system that has been made very lean, coupled with and overall economy in which most of the population is nothing more than a drain.

Yeah...no. It's not as incontestable as you're letting on. You're neglecting, among a myriad of other things, the fact that there are advancements in productivity, and the fact that preferences change. As an example of the former I offer the cyanide process for gold extraction, and as an example of the latter I offer the buggy whip.

So if we use the current model, there will be a need for a massive culling...[massive deletion]

Given that your premise is false, none of your conclusions follow.

This is a massively complicated issue. 19th century economics will not solve it. Our lizard brain is not going to solve it.

Well...you're not going to solve it.

~Loyal

It would take about three seconds for any human to come up with a workaround that could justify doing just about anything and still technically conform to the laws. Less than three seconds if you allow the zero'th law.

That wouldn't matter, because Asimov's robots don't obey the sixty-three words of the three laws. They obey the literally thousands of thousands of positronic pathways created for them in the factory. The sixty-three words are a sort of executive summary of what the three laws require, so creating a workaround would be unavailing to the robots.

~Loyal

The whole point of the Three Laws was to illustrate the holes in the concept of the Three Laws.

You couldn't be more wrong. The three laws grew out of a conversation with John Campbell where Asimov asserted that the endlessly repeating Frankenstein's monster-type robot stories wouldn't happen in the real world. Designers would place safeguards around robots just like they place safeguards around every other dangerous thing. I'm reminded of an anecdote regarding a new energy source that was presented to a college class. It had the unfortunate traits of being an odorless poisonous gas that also happened to be explosive. The class was allowed to vote, and they voted to prohibit the energy source. It turns out that the energy source had been used for home heating for decades. Among other safeguards, designers added odorants and automatic shut-off valves for when the pilot blew out. Campbell challenged him to describe robot safeguards, and then challenged him to write stories about them.

EVERY Azimov Robot story was designed to show the unintended consequences of the Three Laws....

Susan Calvin would slap you backhanded.

~Loyal

Helene Fritzon received a proposal which would create crimes of gross infringement under both copyright and trademark law, leading to sentences of up to six years in prison.

You can get a lot of political contributions from copyright holders; hardly any from murderers.

~Loyal

It isn't in society's interest to ensure that Damore has a job like it is for convicted felons. We often don't allow employers to ask convicts whether they've been convicted, because if the convicts can't find a job they may turn to stealing or murder for hire in order to support themselves. If Damore has to steal or murder to feed himself, then we can throw him in prison, and society is no worse off.

And it's not like embezzlers or murderers make for a threatening work environment. All co-workers and employers are as pleased as can be that they're supporting society's best interests. The most important thing is just for us to remain consistent.

~Loyal

We will reduce our total workforce to less than 50,000 people by the end of this year, from some 60,000 staff at the end of 2017.

That's outrageous! People really need to contact them and let them know what they think about this statement. It's not less than 50,000 people. It's fewer than 50,000 people.

~Loyal

First of all in socialism governments have no monopoly on invention

Socialism, not socialism governments. Socialism happens when governments control the means of production. I've found that on Wikipedia, before, and in more scholarly publications. I'm sure you could find it after a short search if you have more than a very minimum level of competence. Article I section 8 of the US Constitution grants to congress the power of securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries; Congress has chosen to exercise that power through patents, copyrights, trade marks, service marks, and trade secrets. A patent is a monopoly right on the production of a good or service. Thus, monopoly is socialism.

you are an idiot.

Stupid is as stupid does.

Secondly, vitamins are not invented.

Legally, they are. If they weren't then congress would be violating the constitution when they granted monopolies to vitamin producers. The supreme court has heard cases on this and very similar products, and has been disinclined to rein congress in, therefore, under US law this vitamin is an invention.

Idiot.

You repeat yourself.

You seem to think vitamins only exist in forms of pills and people need to eat them to be "more healthy"

I can't imagine what I might have said to give you that impression.

you are mistaken.

If so then you would be able to show me where.

~Loyal

Socialism is an easy fix for cases like this.

Socialism is not an easy fix for cases like this. Socialism caused this case. Namely, it was caused by socialising the cost of inventions by a) granting a government-created monopoly to the inventors of this vitamin and b) creating a government bureaucracy with the power to test medicine for safety and efficacy,

In a socialist system this vitamin wouldn't even be available because it never would have been developed in the first place.

The parts of that claim that are not vague are false.

~Loyal

Darn! They'll never convict him now.

Which frankly if you haven't found work in over a year, your motivation to find work must be nearly zero.

I haven't found work in over a year, and my motivation to find work is far from zero. I have two college degrees in a STEM field, but was laid off March 15, 2016. I did find work for three week in January, but nothing other than that. I'm not counted in the unemployment figure since my unemployment insurance ran out over ten months ago. My wife also has a college degree. She works two days a week, six hours a day, so she doesn't bring in much money. (Well, except for last week, when they asked her not to come in, so she didn't bring in any money.) She, too, isn't counted in the unemployment figure. My oldest son finally got work two months ago. He has a college degree, but is working for barely more than minimum wage. Despite being greatly underemployed, he isn't counted in the unemployment figure. My middle son also has a college degree, but is working for barely more than minimum wage. He, too, isn't counted in the unemployment figure. His new wife just got a job. She starts work next month. She, too, isn't counted in the unemployment figure. My youngest son it attending college. He, too, isn't counted in the unemployment figure. So, amongst the six of us who aren't working or are working for far less money than our educations suggest we should be making, none of us are counted in the unemployment figure. I know how we could get 0% unemployment in this country. Just don't count anyone.

~Loyal

You're only counting the negatives. If you count only the negatives, anything looks bad. Just as if you count only the positives anything looks good. Counting only my weight losses, I've lost 150 pounds. I must be the most resolute health guru on the planet. Coal-fired heating provides power for hospitals, homes, industry, research. It frees up oil for plastics, detergents, medicines, paints, fertilizers, plastics, synthetic fibers, and synthetic rubber. It frees up natural gas for hydrogen, ammonia, fabrics, glass, steel, more plastics, and more paint. It frees up purified silicon (from photo-voltaic use) for computers, televisions, automobile electronics. It's tempting to say that if it saves one life we should do it, but on the other side of the ledger, if it saves one gallon of gasoline to run one ambulance to save one two lives, then maybe we shouldn't.

~Loyal

I recall reading a book authored by Richard Feynman where he recounted a party where he used that as a party trick. He had one of his guests lay an arm somewhere inside a book, and Feynman was able to smell which two pages the person lay his arm between.

~Loyal

It ran on an RCA 301 computer.

So let's say it doesn't receive any special treatment (not like private ISPs don't get special treatment because they do). According to the libertarian conservative narrative there's no way a publicly run enterprise could possibly be competitive with the lean, efficient, absolutely perfect capitalist private sector. There's just no way that could possibly happen so why not let them?

Because if you were to try it then the municipality would have a vested interest in the success of the publicly run enterprise. The municipality would find it irresistible to refrain from putting their thumbs on the scale, especially if it means that failure of the publicly run enterprise would reflect negatively on the municipal government. If only one enterprise could go first, then the publicly run enterprise would get first choice. When measuring success, profits by the private sector would be counted as a negative. Costs of the publicly run enterprise wouldn't be counted because they are paid for by government. (Office space in city hall, for example.) The list is endless.