Sunday, February 20, 2011

The Mind Really Does Have an Eye (and you can use it to build a memory palace)

Joshua Foer explains.

3 comments:

  1. What a great piece.

    On top of that, the NY Times also has a terrific oped by Scott Turow, one of my favorite writers/thinkers, about the necessity of IP protection for intellectual creation.

    It convincingly rebuts all the sophistries you hear from IP socialists.

    Hmm. I am going to have to stop my NY Times bashing....

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  2. @Rajiva: perhaps you need to read and think over
    http://mises.org/journals/jls/15_2/15_2_1.pdf
    to settle your mind about 'IP socialists' ;)

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  3. "IP socialism?" Be reasonable. If someone is going to throw around derogatory terms, then I can say you are a supporter of state monopolies or a merchantilist.

    I suspect you've already heard this argument, but physical property is tangible and very finite. From an ethical and practical standpoint, it makes sense that these limited resources have owners. But IP or imaginary property, as I like to call it, is intangible and infinitely reproducible. It doesn't follow that something imaginary should be allowed to be considered property.

    Copying, emulation, and imitation is what moves the world along. IP is a way for larger entrenched companies to harm smaller ones. An externality like state granted monopolies on ideas is just a way to harm consumers and new entrepreneur entering the market.

    Of course, this doesn't mean that everyone should be giving away their information free of charge. But it does mean they don'y use the state to force others from competing with them.

    If you haven't already, please check out probably the best empirical case against IP:
    http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm

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