[gurps] Treaty on Public Utilities and life support devices

[Knapp]

On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 10:09 PM, rekres <rekres at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 11:54 AM, David Scheidt <dmscheidt at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Nothing political in my post.  That intellectual property is a
>> distortion of the free market is merely a fact.
>
> It seems to me that you are stating an opinion and claiming it is a
> fact.  I'd be interested in hearing the proof of your assertion, but
> perhaps it'd be better to take it off-list...
>
> --
> Chris J. Whitcomb

wikipedia quote
====
A free market is a market that is free of government intervention and
regulation, besides the minimal function of maintaining the legal
system and protecting property rights[1], and is also free of private
force and fraud. In a free market, property rights are voluntarily
exchanged at a price arranged solely by the mutual consent of sellers
and buyers. By definition, buyers and sellers do not coerce each
other, in the sense that they obtain each other's property without the
use of physical force, threat of physical force, or fraud, nor is the
coerced by a third party (such as by government via transfer
payments).[2] In addition, in a free market, force is not used to
prevent competition among buyers or among sellers (called free
competition). Therefore, force is not a determinant of price, but
rather price is the effect of buying and selling decisions en masse as
described by the law of supply and demand.
====
Thus I would say Chris is correct. This is about property rights.

The really question here and in real life is, what is property and who
has the right to own it? Is it land? Is it my personal DNA? Is it a
bond? Is it a system of steps like a computer program? Is it an idea?
Is it a pattern of magnetic dots on a disk? Is it a plants DNA because
you found it first even if it were on someone else's land or country
(The GMO VS Hawaiian Natives taro is interesting here)? Should some of
these be community property, tribal or even "all human's property".
Who owns the mood? Who owns the moon? Who owns the poles? Who has what
rights in the deep sea? Does one country have the right to pollute the
air (water) if it blows to some other country? These are questions of
our times. Our game worlds get to explore all this!


-- 
Douglas E Knapp

Why do we live?