It depends.. Is this a toaster or a raccoon?
Posted on 02/18/2017 8:42:50 AM PST by mac_truck
In a non-statist, non- interventionist, non-socialist state with a normally functioning, free civil society- the question you ask isn’t even relevant. It’s like asking - with all the advancements in medical technology, will women become superfluous?
I’m not being sarcastic - because your question in a highly regulated, centrally- planned, collectivist society is a very common one
The question that SHOULD be asked is - in a highly productive society, what is the mechanism or means by which are the fruits and benefits of all this advancement distributed?
How many bookkeepers & accountants did you put out of work with all your software, Mr Gates???
Have you picked up their salaries? IF so- You missed mine.
Consider the following as my two cents and a bit of thinking out loud. It is meant more as a point of discussion and idea brainstorming than advocacy.
Intellectual property rights reform is needed to address the coming glut of displaced workers due to rapid technological change.
Keep in mind that intellectual property rights are a legal construct and not part of the principle of ownership that exists under natural law. Therefore citizens, having forfeited a subset of natural rights under such laws, are rightfully entitled to benefit directly from the innovations that are protected by such laws.
Reduce patent protection on software to the 5-10 year range. Companies can either do that or keep their software a trade secret. (Can’t do both. If it is commercialized while it is a trade secret, it cannot later be patented.) Require software protected by patents to become fully open source (including comments and supporting documentation) after the patent expires. Innovations to such software can also be patented and cannot incorporate open source software into the patent. (In other words, you can patent a plugin or extension but cannot patent a forked version of the open source code.)
Either heavily tax all patented products or pay the owners (i.e. innovators) a hefty purchase price to nationalize them. Use the taxes, royalties, and fines for infringement collected to subsidize and retrain displaced workers (or any other “entitlement” programs that continue to exist). Penalize other nations that do not enforce the treaties they’ve entered into.
I have written in the past that the idea of a universal basic income is not intrinsically a Socialist / Communist concept. The usual proposal may be socialistic, but it does not have to be. While I am not sure a UBI is a good idea, and I am not an advocate of such, I think it should be within the realm of debate among conservatives. To me the conservative position on government subsidies and “hand outs” should be that all citizens are treated equally. This would necessitate the end of means testing, for example. If anyone gets subsidized food, EVERYONE (i.e. citizens) should get subsidized food. If anyone gets subsidized housing, EVERYONE (i.e. citizens) should get subsidized housing. Etc.
If we continue to tax income, it should be a flat percentage for EVERYONE, i.e. for ALL income earners, regardless of citizenship status.
Companies could be required to share a certain amount of ownership with employees. So when companies innovate or buy innovations that displace workers, those workers benefit from the increased profitability of the companies.
agree.
People like him worry about the possible consequences of disruption, such as job loss, while the rest of us are busy working as hard as we can to make ends meet. On the surface, it seems like he cares. He does not. It’s all part of the leftwing agenda.
For every disruption, there are opportunities. I can imagine a world where all of today’s boring and mundane jobs are done by robots. A disaster for the displaced workers? I think not. This would free up millions of workers to spend their time on jobs they choose (rather than jobs they are stuck with). New jobs and new autonomy would allow people to hone their skills and create things with fine craftsmanship, with artistry, with uniqueness. It would free minds to imagine new products. And yes, it would free many to sit in front of the boob tube for more hours per day. But those who choose that have always chosen that.
Not disagreeing. Merely pointing out the fact that Bill Gates is now the “Establishment”. If he really feels that way... Write the Big Check. Don’t sit there an moralize about what others might be permitted or prohibited from doing in the future.
"Before the development of electronic computers, the term “computer” referred to people, not machines. It was a job title, designating someone who performed mathematical equations and calculations by hand. Over the next thirty years, hundreds of women, most with degrees in math or other sciences would join those first five computers at Langley. Tucker herself helped recruit many of them, traveling to universities and women’s colleges across the South. By 1946, as the overall supervisor for Computing, Tucker presided over a vastly expanded department that had trained about 400 women and placed them in sections across the facility. Reading, calculating and plotting data from tests in Langley’s wind tunnels and research divisions, human computers played an integral role in both aeronautical and aerospace research at the lab from the mid-1930s into the 1970s, helping it keep pace with the high output demanded by World War II and the early space race. Along with their contribution to the field, Langley’s computers also stood out for another reason: they were all women. "
The problem is that the Government never seems to deliver on these promises. Or if they do they 'underdeliver'. In any case all they are doing is establishing a poverty floor -- which is a relative thing.
Do we want an arbitrary command-controlled economy or one that is open to innovation?
No, they’re not.
“Do we want an arbitrary command-controlled economy or one that is open to innovation?”
Natural law allows for the freedom of individuals to own things and use them as they wish. Intellectual property is a type of artificially created negative right. The laws basically say that if someone invents something and registers that invention with the government, then no one under that government’s jurisdiction or the jurisdiction of foreign governments that agree by treaty, can use this invention without compensating the inventor during a period of time which is typically about 20 years.
So our governments have taken something from us in exchange for the hope that innovation will benefit everyone in the long run. This is perfectly Constitutional and under the purview of Congress.
However, today, inventions disproportionately benefit wealthy investors rather than inventors and the general public. And people like Bill Gates have learned how to manipulate the legal system to turn limited-term patents into perpetual monopolies. This was NEVER the intent of the founders.
The protection afforded by the limited monopolies of IP ought to generate a hefty amount of revenue to supplement and offset or entirely replace other sources of revenue the government receives (i.e. taxes). After all, a government of the people and by the people should represent the interests of those people first. Instead, taxes on labor and property are collected to subsidize the further enrichment of the wealthy who make their fortunes from intellectual property protections that borrow and/or steal natural rights of the citizens.
If the citizens cannot get fair compensation for their voluntary surrender of these natural rights, then we might as well do away with IP laws and make everything open source. Personally, I think IP laws CAN encourage innovation that we all benefit from, but we need for people to become more educated about how it should work to benefit us all.
The important thing to consider in the area of IP law is that taxing patented inventions is entirely different than taxing labor or other forms of property such as real property. I think taxes on real estate should be very low or non-existent, especially for homesteads that are merely places to live and raise families rather than conduct commercial business. Otherwise you really do not fully own such property. Taxing income that derives from work, discourages work. As a conservative, I am for lower but not non-existent taxes. It makes sense to place the lions share of the tax burden on those who profit from the IP laws that take natural rights away from free citizens.
Alternatively, cancel the IP laws. If someone invents robots that can replace humans for various jobs, then as a free citizen I will reverse engineer one and duplicate it many times. Then I will have an army of robot slaves to do as much of my work for me as I wish. And so will every other free citizen.
And if you (or I) don’t know how to do this, we will pay the free market (i.e. lowest) price for someone who can do this for us. People like Bill Gates do not need to own the rights to all of the robot technology.
Set up a stock provision such that workers displaced by robotics have a stake in the companies success from use of robotics. A share based on the robotics increase in productivity for the company, an increase in profits.
this is just gates desperately trying to keep competition from challenging Microsoft.
I think I understand your argument and I’m not dismissing it. I really think it merits consideration. As I said before, I’m just worried about the government’s demonstrated tendency to spend beyond any revenue level, even if we assume greatly expanded revenue front taxing IP rights.
Was it xerox or ibm that was robbed of the operating system...
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