Not so sure...

Story: Why I Want My Daughter to be a HackerTotal Replies: 15
Author Content
phsolide

Apr 18, 2010
5:52 PM EDT
I have 2 daughters myself, but I'm not so sure about the traditional hacker part.

I mean, I'm not one for subservience or anything, but very few people of any gender can do the lone wolf McGyver thing. I'm contemplating raising my kids to be "Intellectual Property" lawyers. If you can't become one of the hyperrich yourself, which I haven't managed, and I doubt my daughters will, you might as well suck as much money as possible from them.
gus3

Apr 18, 2010
8:01 PM EDT
Quoting:I'm contemplating raising my kids to be "Intellectual Property" lawyers.
How about reformers, instead of lawyers? Imaginary Property law needs a lot of reform, not more people whose greatest interest is maintaining a fraudulent status quo.
dinotrac

Apr 18, 2010
9:06 PM EDT
Reformers instead of lawyers?

And just who, exactly, is better qualified to be reformers than somebody who understands the law, it's history, how and why it came about, its strengths and its weaknesses?

It is not an either/or.
gus3

Apr 18, 2010
11:27 PM EDT
1. Because "it is hard to expect a man to see the truth when his livelihood depends on him not seeing it."

2. Because the very term "Intellectual Property" is a fraudulent attempt to conflate characteristics of tangible property with those of intangible assets.

1+2=3. What Bar Association would give passing marks to someone who believes, and argues, that an entire class of modern case law is based on fallacious sophistry?
jacog

Apr 19, 2010
6:35 AM EDT
Well as soon as she graduates* to being a reforming IP lawyer, she can start be reforming this one:

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/5443036.html





* Assuming there's some form of educational process involved.
jdixon

Apr 19, 2010
6:42 AM EDT
> What Bar Association would give passing marks to someone who believes, and argues, that an entire class of modern case law is based on fallacious sophistry?

An honest one. Does such still exist?

That's essentially what Heller did and what Bilski is attempting to do. The US has a history of such court decisions.
azerthoth

Apr 19, 2010
1:49 PM EDT
@dinotrac, since it was the lawyers themselves that have managed to get us into this convoluted mess to start with, I think that it's pretty safe to say that they have proven themselves either incapable, unwilling, or flat incompetent to be the ones to dig us out of the hole.

We can look historically at the supreme court and it's lessers. Only in rather recent history have these courts been comprised totally of lawyers. Upon further examination it is within that same times frame that the situation in which we find ourselves now started to develop. So upon reflection, lawyers are the last people who should be involved in creating law.
gus3

Apr 19, 2010
2:00 PM EDT
Quoting:> What Bar Association would give passing marks to someone who believes, and argues, that an entire class of modern case law is based on fallacious sophistry?

An honest one. Does such still exist?
Until the heads of the Bar Associations take and pass their exams every year, no. http://volokh.com/posts/1248671477.shtml
alc

Apr 19, 2010
2:04 PM EDT
"So upon reflection, lawyers are the last people who should be involved in creating law. "

Yet,almost half of congress are lawyers. http://www.chacha.com/question/what-percentage-of-congress-a... From the amount of corruption and really screwed up laws,I would have guessed more.
jdixon

Apr 19, 2010
2:12 PM EDT
> So upon reflection, lawyers are the last people who should be involved in creating law.

The inherent problem with lawyers creating law is that they tend to create laws it takes lawyers to understand.

The law was intended to be understandable by the common person (or at least the common person in whatever subject area the law dealt with). It no longer is. In fact, it's gotten so bad that there was a case in England recently where someone was prosecuted under a law which had been rescinded, and neither the prosecutor nor the judge knew it. If the supposed experts don't even know what the law is, what hope does the common person have?

Of course, what do you expect when the legislature is composed almost entirely of lawyers, and they don't even bother to read the legislation before they pass it? The health care reform bill is only the most recent example of this. It's been the default case for quite a while.

I'd love to see the various courts rule that any law which applies to the "common person", but can't reasonably be understood by them is invalid. But we both know what the odds of that happening are.
alc

Apr 19, 2010
2:17 PM EDT
"I'd love to see the various courts rule that any law which applies to the "common person", but can't reasonably be understood by them is invalid. But we both know what the odds of that happening are."

The odds would probably be somewhere around the same as getting the tax code changed so we could understand it.
phsolide

Apr 20, 2010
10:11 AM EDT
Here we go:

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=976478

"Do Judges Systematically Favor the Interests of the Legal Profession?"

Short answer: "Yes".

That's why I'm raising a crop of "IP" lawyers. Right now, 'IP" is so convoluted as to prevent rational analysis. We need professionals to smear the matter so thin that we can see through it.
gus3

Apr 20, 2010
10:32 AM EDT
Quoting:We need professionals to smear the matter so thin that we can see through it.
Already done. http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20091111151305785

And if there's any justice in this world, we'll see a Bilski ruling today that throws out patents in which the "device" is only a mathematical formula. This includes all calculation sequences run on these glorified calculators we call "computers".

[/snark]
tuxchick

Apr 20, 2010
10:34 AM EDT
phsolide, how do you raise a crop of lawyers? All kinds of interesting mental images in that...!
TxtEdMacs

Apr 20, 2010
12:02 PM EDT
phsolide,

Quoting:We need professionals to smear the matter so thin that we can see through it.
Now will you tell me exactly what substance have you seen thrown at this metaphysical wall? It's the implied cleanliness that results, which is the part that eludes me.

YBT
phsolide

Apr 20, 2010
2:11 PM EDT
As far as raising a crop of "IP" lawyers: I make the kids watch a steady flow of "Matlock" re-runs. Then, I point out the absurdity of the FBI "Anti-piracy" warnings that the DVD player forces on us. Then we discuss how bizarre the unstated assumptions in all Tee Vee advertisements are.

It took me quite a while to decide on using the word "matter" for the substance thrown on the metaphorical wall. I'm nost at all sure I can stay within terms-of-service and answer that particular question.

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