#Giving or Taking. It Can’t Be Both.
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Piracy is TAKING things away, not giving.
That’s obvious, right?
Burglary: Removal of property.
If I give you something, that’s the opposite of taking.
# The very first time I ever saw the word “piracy” associated with GIVING was the Napster controversy, and I just assumed it was obvious to everybody how transparently greedy that interpretation was. People were GIVING each other files. Not taking them away.
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If you share an idea and I share an idea. We both end up with TWO ideas.
If you share a file and I share a file. We both end up with TWO files.
# Obviously the word “pirate” was being misused here. This is the exact opposite: Sharing. Even better… duplication!
# Downloading is duplication. If we could duplicate all the food in the world, nobody would starve. What if we could duplicate all human knowledge!? Education for everybody!
Can you imagine how horrible that would be?#Basic Ethics
# I feel like people have forgotten the basics. Or maybe they somehow never grew up with them? You know, stuff like Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers, and The Berenstain Bears. Or pretty much anything else on PBS.
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It’s good to share.
Good people share with each other.
Only greedy people don’t share.
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Everybody is unique and different. No two people are alike. Don’t generalize.
Don’t judge a book by its cover.
# Maybe kids no longer grow up with these things? I know this seems like corny kiddie stuff, but that’s the whole point. Kindness and sharing are the most basic ethics we learn as kids. The bare minimum. These concepts should be obvious. Are these ideas really being forgotten? Yes… yes they are.
Who are THESE bozos?
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OMG! That bird is violating a copyright!
“Um… he is??”
There’s only one book!
“And…?”
There are 3 people.
“They’re sharing it.”
They’re stealing! They should buy 3 books!!
“That’s stupid. One is clearly enough.”
#The March of Time
# Lately I have come to realize that these “eternal” values from my childhood are really just the fading echoes of the hippie era. The ideas of compassion and community were the lingering aftershocks of US culture rejecting the puritanical 1950’s and the warmongering Vietnam era. Just a moment in time. And now the pendulum swings again.
# Labels and Politics make no sense to me. Life isn’t a Saturday morning cartoon where the entire human race is neatly divided into “Good guys” VS “Bad guys” The concept of cramming every possible opinion about every possible thing into just 2 boxes seems ridiculous. This is obvious right? My distaste for politics isn’t because I don’t care. I still vote. But I can’t really wrap my head around the concept of only “2 parties”. Human beings just don’t work this way. Everybody is a unique individual, different from everybody else.
# You can’t solve all the world’s problems by just killing all the bad people. Most problems do not come from a cartoonish villain. There are exceptions… but they are exceptions because they are not normal.
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"Unless both sides win, no agreement can be permanent."
#It’s Just Me I Guess
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Media often mentions Boomers and Millennials.
But I’m somewhere in between. A “Gen-Y” kid I think?
I didn’t grow up with Spongebob and Gameboy Advance. Those were my college years.
I’m not a hippie or baby boomer either. My parents were.
My grandmother worked at a library.
Maybe that’s why I grew up with these “love and sharing” values.
But I always just took it all for granted. I assumed that these were eternal human values that everybody understood since the beginning of time.
Mothers read books with their kids.
Your parents give you food and clothes.
Raising kids is an act of sharing.
It is literally 100% percent of the process.
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The idea that sharing is somehow controversial seems bizarre to me. Wasn’t that just part of the “You Wouldn’t Download a Car” bullshit that we all laughed at? And we laughed HARD… It’s wasn’t just a little dumb, it was COMPLETELY stupid.
Sharing is “stealing” now? What is this… opposite day?
Are there too many good people in the world or something?
Too much kindness?
# When I support artists on Patreon, I could not care less about “exclusive access.” I am THANKING them for adding awesome art to the world. Making the world better. I support them so they can continue adding themselves to the world. I am not buying or owning “property” when the whole world receives it, so I don’t think of it as a purchase.
# By definition a purchase is a transfer of property. Ownership of a single thing. But digital things are not singular. They’re something better. They are infinite. Which means they do an infinite amount of good and create an infinite amount of happiness because they affect an unlimited number of people.
We are halfway to a post-scarcity culture and don't even realize it# I remember 2005 when the XBox 360 first introduced the concept of digital games. It was convenient. But everyone still knew that buying stuff meant owning it. If I buy a lightbulb. I could use it or break it. I could paint it. I could give it away. Nobody gives a shit what I do with MY LIGHTBULB. You can do whatever you want with the stuff you own. It’s your property. That’s normal.
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If I have something temporarily. There’s a word for that: Borrowing.
If I paid to have something temporarily, I am renting it.
If I purchase it, I own it permanently.
# If you think about it. Buying only makes sense for physical objects that cannot be duplicated. But when a digital file exists on the internet, the whole world has it. Because every single part of how the internet works duplicates information. It is infinite. You can’t own something that is infinite.
Browsers Download Everything You See
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I live with my mother and sister.
My mother is too old to earn a living, she’s almost 80, but we didn’t ship her off to some lousy nursing home. It seemed obvious that it would not make sense for each of us to try to rent separate apartments, owning 3 refrigerators, 3 stoves, 3 toilets. Instead we just share ONE house. It’s way less expensive. It’s not fancy but there’s enough room for us. Last night we even shared dinner. Sharing is not a crime. It’s the only thing that makes sense. It’s also the only humane way to care for people when they get old.