"Intellectual Property" a Violation of Real Property

Hk, > So basically because Alice produces 'scarce' information (scarce because it didn't exist before) which cannon be labeled as property and therefore it's easy to copy she is screwed.

Screwed how?

She has something, it's unique and in demand. It's up to her to sell it for a price she is satisfied with.

If she's not satisfied, then don't sell it.

> If I put efforts into the creation of information,

The fallacy of the labor theory of value.

It doesn't matter how hard you work on something, it's value is only measurable by how much you can get for it.

> That's not a world in which I'm encouraged to create information. That's a world in which I'm encouraged to copy lots for free and claim the prize, while others paid for their 'genuine' lots and cannot claim their price.

You're reversing facts. Copy WHAT? What are you going to copy if no one is getting what they think their ideas are worth, and therefore not producing anything?

Do you really think that "stuff" magically appears? No. Creation is hard work, and a creator deserves whatever they can get for their creation.

I'm not going to "take" someone's mental production any more than I would "take" their wallet.

Dino, > You misrepresent both copyright and patent to suit your purposes.

They are indeed difficult to keep perfectly straight, but again you're making a statement about my motivations that is untrue. Please try to address the facts, and please also correct my errors if you see them.

Lawyering is a skill. That's one reason I'm not a lawyer. If you're interested in hearing a lawyer talk about this subject, I suggest:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZgLJkj6m0A

The problem being that telling people to go see this or read that is kind of distracting. You want your answer NOW.

> So long as you get to decide what property is and whether the individual has the practical power to stop you.

Again with the ad-homonim. Please, Dino, stop.

I am not deciding what is and is not property. Yes, another long list of books comes to mind. It still comes down to what I have already said many times. The idea of "property" comes from the need to deal with scarce resources. Information itself is not a scarce resource. The media is, thus Libervis' assertions on the subject.

It's been DEFINED as property, sometimes, in convoluted, arbitrary terms, some ways limited and some ways unlimited, subject to change without notice, by statute law.

So can you tell me how YOU define property?

Quoting:Since that's effectively the world we have today with copyright, I fail to see how that's a valid argument for copyright.

Yeah, that would be my conclusion. I don't like the term IP because I agree information cannot be property, a bit like Daniel states. And I don't like the current copyright and patent system. But what Daniel is saying in the article this thread is about - and his follow-up (not published on LXer because our TOS-issues) he tries to convince his reader the problems would be gone if there were no copyright. I don't agree, this solves some issues and make other worse.

So I'm all for limiting the copyright and patent system, but also I feel 'reward' has to match the 'effort'.

Quoting:It doesn't matter how hard you work on something, it's value is only measurable by how much you can get for it.

OK, your opinion explains a lot about your other statements (wish you'd have started with that!), though I don't share it.

Quoting:t's up to her to sell it for a price she is satisfied with.

The example deals with Alice unable to sell it for a price she is satisfied with because Bob and Eve just distributed it to the whole world for free. Which leads me to believe Alice cannot get any price for her information at all, and A is screwed.

Quoting:So can you tell me how YOU define property?

Been trying so on Daniels blog. I noticed you were in the comments too.

The basic disagreement was if information can exist without a medium (I say it can, because insipiration - the thing which leads to information - doesn't come from anything physical) and if consciousness is material or not (I say it isn't). That's a religious debate, and would probably derail our discussion. Suffice to say I feel property is a result of a social phenomenon while Daniel insists on a physical model of property, which I think is doomed to fail. My 'social' explanation of property has severe weaknesses too, so it's not a full answer either. So though I tried, I'm not there yet.

Quoting:The problem being that telling people to go see this or read that is kind of distracting. You want your answer NOW.

Believe it or not, but I've been reading on Mises because you were the one who pointed to it. Not all of it you linked too, that was just too many, and some of it was plain business-lobbying (thinktanks and the like - sorry, I don't buy their cr@p), but still interesting though.

Now I'm going to watch the lawyer on Youtube - provided the cron deamon does'n issue the shutdown command when it's time to sleep.

Bob, thanks for the discussion, I've the idea I finally start to see the fundamentals behind your opinions - so I'm pretty much done questioning your arguments now I'm satisfied with the answers. Took me some time, but hey, I'm learning!

TC, > Ok so disagreeing with Bob is a personal attack. So never mind.

Only when it's a personal attack. Hk seems to be able to do it without personal attacks or invective.

> intellectual works are not physical works so they have no value...It's a bogus premise

Indeed it is utterly bogus, since creation is a very valuable commodity and maybe the most scarce resource of all.

Hk, > but which 10 minutes are most interesting?

Sadly, all of them, so I guess it's moot.

> I've the idea I finally start to see the fundamentals behind your opinions - so I'm pretty much done questioning your arguments now I'm satisfied with the answers.

I appreciate that. It does come down to the definition of "property", which can differ greatly without disagreeing on what is or is not worthy goals.

Dino has decided that his definition is whatever the law says it is, TC also seems to run in this direction, so because the definition I'm using undermines the justifications for those same laws, then the definition is wrong. Looking at it from the other direction, it's the law that's wrong.

> The example deals with Alice unable to sell it for a price she is satisfied with because Bob and Eve just distributed it to the whole world for free. Which leads me to believe Alice cannot get any price for her information at all, and A is screwed.

But your logic doesn't follow. How did Bob get it if Alice never sold it?

The copying cannot happen if Alice didn't get the price she wanted for it, because then it would not exist.

> > It doesn't matter how hard you work on something, it's value is only measurable by how much you can get for it. > > OK, your opinion explains a lot about your other statements (wish you'd have started with that!), though I don't share it.

To take it to "argumentum ad absurdum", imagine I spend several years piling my fingernail trimmings into a huge pile. I have worked exceptionally hard doing this, eating well for the highest quality nail trimmings, using only the best trimmers, spending huge effort to keep it all in a clean pile, etc.

Is it worth anything? Is it valuable to anyone else just because I worked so very hard producing it? This is the error of the labor theory of value.

Or "house mix" music. Pointless repetition, not valuable at all to me. Worthless, in fact, since I don't want it.

Is it possible for you to explain how you disagree with that?

> are an example where the market fails

Sadly, because power rests with those who wish to regulate, the fact that every so-called "market failure" has been the result of regulation tends not to be taught in government schools. I could give you a list of articles and books, but I doubt you have time for all that. Nor would you appreciate the URLs.

You could give me your source materials, please.

> Neither, in isolation, has ever been successful.

While I agree that complete socialism, when tried, has always bombed utterly and quickly, the same cannot be said of liberty. Those places and times and industries where it has existed have been quite successful indeed. The greater the freedom from regulation, the greater the success. The computer you are reading this on, and the network you use to reach this server are wonderful cases in point.

I don't disagree that regulation exists, that the "blend", often referred to as the "third way", is very much the rule. Only that everyone being sick does not make being sick the best way to be.

> Law is an evolutionary process.

Indeed. It is my fervent hope that, like serfdom, chattel slavery and debter's prison, time eventually leaves grants of Letters Patent behind as well.

> A true libertarian knows that the true measure of value is what somebody is willing to pay.

Yes? Where have I ever said differently?

> However, if self-righteous "revolutionaries" decide that they don't have to honor any property that doesn't meet their personal definition, value has no meaning beyond the very low bar of "Is it worth stealing?"

Fascinating. So by pointing out the problems with, and opposition to, copyright, I'm now to be associated with "self-righteous "revolutionaries""?

You could use the advice of Caitlyn above and stop putting words in other people's mouths. Not once have I advocated the violation of copyright.

Not once.

Merely its repeal, as the violation of reason and property rights that it is, based upon the abuses that those who profit from it have foisted upon everyone else, and its effects to destroy the very principles upon which it was justified.

Like all "market failures", it is the regulation that has failed.

OK Bob, I'll try about the labour / reward correlation:

It's some real life story, stuff that actually happens / happened the last decade.

We work at company A. Company A made stuff in our own country, but that became too 'expensive'. Some nice way of saying the whole bunch of work will be done outside the company by some other company B. Abroad off course.

Our R&D department, the one of company A made some designs (some implementations of them patented, most of it not). Then some company B (there's a whole pool of companies belonging to B actually) delivered the prototypes, and we tested them. Some of them multiple thousand times. When there were problems, R&D fixed it - our tried too. Leading the changed drawings to be sent to company Y, and the cycle starts over. Maybe five times or so. Important here is that company X decides on the requirements / dims for the products, and it's company X doing the efforts to reach the final design, tolerances and material specifications - the products which in practice are of a 'high quality', or at least considered so by our customers.

Then some months later, company B offers all products company A designed for only half of the price to every company E who wants to buy it.

We - the people at company A - didn't want to be in the Guiness Book of Records, otherwise we would have tried to have nails longer than 1m. We want to eat.

But given a company E who can buy some product for a price X from company A, or for a price X / 2 from company B, our products will be deemed too expensive. People will be fired at company A, the same people who devised the products from which company B is benefiting.

Given company B, if A is bankrupt it will search another A. That means B doesn't have to do any R&D, A does it for them.

In the current situation BTW, law doesn't usually solve this, and that's why some parties are calling for ACTA (considered IP abuse squared by lots of people, but maybe 'fixing' the issue above - referred to as 'piracy' by IP-lobbyists).

Now if I wasn't dependent on company A for my income, I may have cared less about this whole patent / copyright story. I like to leach a movie from time to time, given my belief most people in Hollywood have less need for the money then I do. But since I'm employed at company A, and because company A insists on 'restructuring' because of the crisis, but also because of leaching companies like B, I don't have a job because other companies B benefit from the labour I did. And then, life and opinions are all of the suddenly differently, basically because you are involved 'at first hand' in this whole IP saga.

So let's assume I created some 'abstract information'. Sure, we make some reports in MS Word (sigh...), those are on a harddisk, so there is some 'physical stuff'. But let me assure you, the physical stuff is worth nothing without the abstract data. The abstract data on the other hand, does have a value beyond the media, because I could transfer it through wires or the ether, or on paper and sent it by ship to company B to send them the information they need to make better products (note they will transform / transfer that information to configuration of production machines, after which the original medium with the information I produced being worthless again, so the value here is not in something physical!) - finally leading to more income of company A, needed so they can pay me in return for my efforts.

This leads me to the conclusion that R&D departments, musicians, writers, inventors, programmers - and maybe mathematicians - create abstract information which has a value beyond the medium. Even if it's not property, there is value - and even more, that value is independent of the actual physical medium. Contemplate two canvasses made by Picasso: One empty coming with Picasso's filled paint bottles he never used, and the other canvas with a painting on it: both have the same physical 'value', but due to the 'information' one of them has more value.

Now let's say I'm the mathematician and work at a University which pays me to produce the information, then I don't care about IP because the University pays me and I can eat. Or I win a prize, receive government funding, or I am paid to write an article, I still can eat. That's why all 'scientific information' is open source: Because scientists at universities can eat. Whether there are IP-laws or not, and whether there's demand for their information or not. And that's a good thing: saying something is only as worth as someone wants to pay for it clearly shows to be untrue here. People didn't want to pay anything for van Goghs paintings, and also not for relativity theory when it was just devised. Luckily there were things beyond companies to pay Einstein and van Gogh (van Gogh wasn't payed half of the times, he directly received food BTW).

Or lets say company Q asks me to devise some product and I receive money in return, than I'm not bothered by IP, I can still eat. Even if Q goes bankrupt, I don't care.

Or lets say I work at company R and in the meantime I write a book about about my hobby, then I don't have to care about IP, because even if I don't sell my book company R still pays me and I can eat.

Or lets say I'm some 'locally' famous musician, then I don't care if some other less famous musician covers my work, because the cafes nearby will still pay me to perform. I still can eat.

So there are lots of situations where 'content creators' are not dependent on copyright or patents to earn from their work. However, when you spend some effort for maybe one year to write a book, and you hope in return for 'creating that content' you will rewarded and as a result you can eat, then there's a problem if there's no protection of your information / content.

True, it may be the case that you wrote utterly BS in one whole year, than indeed the lack of demand leads to lack of value. But if not, the publisher decides there is demand, then how to proceed? I can let the publisher B read my manuscript, but if they like it they can distribute it to E without rewarding me. Or I can ask them to pay before reading it, but because they have not read it they don't know if it's worth it, so they'll refuse.

So apart from the situations where content creators are lucky and they can eat even without protection from the law, there are certain cases where they spent efforts, and others copy and sell the information and the 'content creator' does get nothing in return. Because in practice companies - or persons - E are happy to buy it from B, while B got the content from A and A receives nothing, this shows there's actual value in what A produced because there's a demand from E. But because A can't forbid B to distribute it without A's permission, A is screwed and someone else (B) profits from the efforts done by A.

Hk, > The abstract data on the other hand, does have a value beyond the media...

You're not arguing with me on that point. That was Lib's idea.

> However, when you spend some effort for maybe one year to write a book, and you hope in return for 'creating that content' you will rewarded and as a result you can eat, then there's a problem if there's no protection of your information / content. Now THAT is the core of the disagreement.

First, it makes no difference what so ever if you worked on it for a year, spending vast quantities of your life and soul into it. It may very well be worthless to anyone but you.

And the reverse is true, too. You might come up with something in the blink of an eye and sell the idea for $millions.

Ever read J.R.R.Tolkien's _Leaf By Niggle_? Don't bother. An item, sales of which were entirely reputation-driven.

Seriously, all your examples are created to prove your point. I could bring up, again, the plastics company that didn't bother with patent. They made their profits by being first to market. In the year it took for the competition to do the same thing for less, they made very happy "monopoly" profits. Then at the end of that year, they dropped the product and moved on to the next product that someone was willing to pay for RIGHT NOW.

And that's really where every one of your examples falls through, because they depend upon people doing the same failed things again and again, and expecting a different result. As Caitlyn pointed out, "Law is an evolutionary process" (except in Alabama and Oklahoma where it's a Creation process, but that's not important right now). So is production. If what you're doing isn't working, then do something else.

Do the R&D in-house so it can't be copied before being first to market. Give away the product and sell service contracts like RedHat.

It's easy to see the "benefits" to those on the receiving end of focusing benefits while distributing costs through copyright and other IP regulations.

But even though they're harder to see, those costs EXIST. The problems of monopoly: decreased innovation; crushed competition; shoddy products and higher prices, all exist through the "monopoly" that is copyright just as it exists in any other artificially created monopoly.

No one before the breakup imagined (ok, no one that anyone but me in this thread listens to, citations on request) what communications might have been like without the monopoly grant that AT&T had. And there was some confusion after that monopoly was partially repealed. But look around now and see the vastly decreased costs, increased product offerings and innovation that has occurred since. It only happened because that monopoly was partially rolled back.

In the 20 years after the invention of the "Internet" that it was the monopoly of the Fed.Gov, again very little progress occurred. But it took only 2 years once the NSF dropped their control of who may connect (and their prohibition of commercial content) for anyone with a phone to be able to get connected if they wanted to. (in the US anyway)

If I had known just how fast innovation was going to be, I would have kept one of those Netcom disks as a keepsake for posterity.

I disagree with literally EVERYTHING you've written here Libervis. I canot even find one word to agree with.

Quoting:That wasn't my argument. You're straw manning.

That was precisely your argument and you even reiterate it here.

Quoting:My argument has to do with the fact that software doesn't exist without the medium, that it is always tied to it. In fact the medium and the software are a single thing physically.

Once again, a specious argument and one that is demonstratively false. The software can be tied to any of a number of physical media. I can often get the same software in digital format, on CD, or directly downloaded and installed across the net without purchasing a distinct piece of physical media to hold the software exclusively. I can use existing, shared media. The ONLY thing being purchased is the software in that case, not the media at all.

Quoting:If software cannot exist without the media that means that any claim of ownership in reality must come down to a claim over the physical media.

Same specious and, IMHO, ridiculous argument repeated. I just pointed out that I can purchase the software without purchasing distinct media. The claim is strictly based on the software, not the media. That is, essentially, a definition of IP.

Quoting:Where exactly is this "intellectual property" of yours? Can you point to it without pointing to the media? Can you take it back from me if I supposedly "stole" it without taking my CD? Can you separate the two? Can you in any way get only the software distinct from the media?

IP can be in any of a number of places at once. It is not tied to a specific copy. If I write music which is copyrighted then the IP exists anyplace the music exists.

The answer to all your other questions is "yes". If I can compel you to erase the one given piece of music in my example from your hard drive I have taken back the stolen property without taking your media. I don't deny the media is yours. Let's put it another way. Let's say you rent an apartment from me. I own the physical building including the closets. If you store shoes in a closet I don't own the shoes; you do. I do still own the closet. Similarly I may own the song which you stole without owning the storage media which is essentially the same as the closet. As such the two can be most certainly separated from one another.

Quoting:If not, and I can guarantee you that you cannot since it's utterly impossible, then this ownership is ownership of nothing.

It's not impossible at all as I have already demonstrated.

Quoting:Individual agreements still matter. What changes is that you can't criminalize people who had nothing to do with *you*.

Actually no individual has the power to criminalize anyone regardless of the law involved. That can only be done by lawmakers and enforced by courts. Another specious argument.

Quoting:I disagree with literally EVERYTHING you've written here Libervis. I canot even find one word to agree with.

Now that's just being emotional and extremely hyperbolic.

Quoting:Once again, a specious argument and one that is demonstratively false. The software can be tied to any of a number of physical media.

But not to no media at all. Since media is physical it is inevitably somebody's property that is being used.

Quoting: I can often get the same software in digital format, on CD, or directly downloaded and installed across the net without purchasing a distinct piece of physical media to hold the software exclusively.

But all of these other forms of media are physical too. You said it yourself after all; "the software can be tied to any number of physical media". My argument doesn't depend on there being a single program on a single CD, only that software cannot be without any physical media at all.

Direct download uses somebody's own server and your own computer in the process. Thus the agreement must be between you and the server owner (or the one to whom server space was rented) regarding this particular use of your properties.

Quoting:Same specious and, IMHO, ridiculous argument repeated. I just pointed out that I can purchase the software without purchasing distinct media. The claim is strictly based on the software, not the media. That is, essentially, a definition of IP.

Yeah you did, and still agreed with me that it requires physical media, just different kinds of physical media. You did nothing to my argument since it still stands that a claim of ownership of software comes down to a claim of ownership or exclusive rights over a medium on which it resides, regardless of what it is.

I know IP claims are strictly based on software. That's the problem. You badly want to see software as distinct, as if it could exist on its own, but it doesn't compute in reality.

Quoting: IP can be in any of a number of places at once. It is not tied to a specific copy. If I write music which is copyrighted then the IP exists anyplace the music exists.

You mean any physical media whose properties (like dents on a CD) cause the reproductor to produce the same sounds? Right.

Quoting:The answer to all your other questions is "yes". If I can compel you to erase the one given piece of music in my example from your hard drive I have taken back the stolen property without taking your media.

Doesn't matter. By compelling me you've already violated my property. If I own the hard drive then I get to decide what I will or will not do with it, not you. You apparently have to violate my property in order to exercise your own supposed "intellectual property". It's not like I had something that is yours in my house and you came and took it back. It's like you saw a house painted by a specific pattern of colors which you claim as your "intellectual property" and then forced me to repaint my own house because of it.

There's no fundamental difference except instead of forcing me to repaint my house you're forcing me to change the arrangements of dents or electromagnetic charges (or whatever is the method HD's use to store data) on my own HD. It's my house and my HD and my having it repainted that way or having this program on HD has nothing to do with you whatsoever except if, as I already explained, I actually got the coloring idea or a program from you and agreed to certain terms before you used your own brain or your own computer or server to convey it to me.

Quoting:I don't deny the media is yours.

Obviously you do given that you give yourself the right to dictate what I may or may not do with it even if the two of us didn't have an agreement.

Quoting:Let's put it another way. Let's say you rent an apartment from me. I own the physical building including the closets. If you store shoes in a closet I don't own the shoes; you do. I do still own the closet. Similarly I may own the song which you stole without owning the storage media which is essentially the same as the closet. As such the two can be most certainly separated from one another.

Like I pointed out with a house example this is not at all what "intellectual property" represents. Shoes are separate from the closet and the building. Your song isn't separate from the CD. It is reproducible only because the CD is in a specific physical state with a specific arrangements of dents. You can't take those dents back.

If your example were to be a true representation of "intellectual property" you would have to be able to indeed separate those dents, "the song", from the CD and take it home just as you're separating the shoes from the closet. That of course is impossible.

Quoting:It's not impossible at all as I have already demonstrated.

Your "demonstration" only helps strengthen my argument since it illustrates just how disconnected your concept of intellectual property is from reality.

Quoting:Actually no individual has the power to criminalize anyone regardless of the law involved. That can only be done by lawmakers and enforced by courts. Another specious argument.

Would you be happy if I restated it by saying that without "intellectual property" laws, "the law" wouldn't criminalize people who had nothing to do with you?

Btw, you're repeating that word "specious" as if it's a magical word and an argument onto itself rather than a useless sound bite thrown out as a knee jerk reaction to the "he *must* be so wrong even if he sounds right" feeling.

Cheers

I wasn't being hyperbolic or emotional. I was describing how I see your ridiculous response to me and pretty much your ridiculous article as well.

Quoting:But not to no media at all. Since media is physical it is inevitably somebody's property that is being used.

Irrelevant. The point you are ignoring is that no specific media is required. You are only purchasing the software and you do not need to buy media to purchase the software. It is your choice what to put on media you already own and purchased separately.

Quoting:By compelling me you've already violated my property. If I own the hard drive then I get to decide what I will or will not do with it, not you.

Nonsense. Going back to the closet analogy (which is valid, IMNSHO), if you use that closet to store stolen property you can be arrested and the property confiscated. Using your hard drive to store stolen software/music/movies/etc... is precisely the same thing.

Indeed, your entire article is a thinly veiled justification of theft.

My main point, which you conveniently ignored, is that blank media has little or no intrinsic value. The real value is the software, the intellectual property, so that is where the law, quite rightly, places the greatest need for protection from theft.

Quoting:Your "demonstration" only helps strengthen my argument since it illustrates just how disconnected your concept of intellectual property is from reality.

I'm the one disconnected from reality? I think not. This is why it's impossible to argue with an idealog. Facts that contradict your libertarian ideology are summarilly ignored or dismissed. You can say "black is really white" all day long, say it in different ways, and repeat yourself ad infinitum. That won't ever make it so.

Attacking my language and dismissing it as sound bites helps you avoid actually understanding or arguing against the points I've made. When you can't successfully argue against the message you attack the messenger. Nice.

> Nobody has "prior claim to your money."

But you just said that if I give Bill $1 for that disk, I've stolen from Jim. I haven't taken anything from Jim, he's not involved.

If I don't give Bill $1 for the disk, somehow I have not stolen from Jim.

How can Jim have a prior claim to my $1?

> The potential for you to harm or kill someone by driving at 100MPH is quite great.

I live on a dead-end in a very residential neighborhood. Driving at 30mph through here, which BTW is 5mph below the "legal" speed limit, has far, far more potential to harm or kill someone than there ever was where I've driven 100mph+.

That's the problem with all this statute law. It absolves people from being responsible for their own actions. They act surprised when people get hurt no matter how many laws they obey.

> The Constitutional role in the US is "to promote the general welfare", which is in the preamble.

If the writings of the people who wrote that preamble mean anything, they wrote the preamble in order to set the attitude by which the rest of the document was written.

So "to promote the general welfare" is why these specific and limited powers are granted, and no more. It's the same phrasing structure as the 2nd Amendment.

Going back and using "promote the general welfare" in order to justify greater powers is a reversal of the logical flow, the same as saying that only people who are in the military have a "right" to keep and bear arms.

No matter how much of a turd Hamilton turned out to be, his Federalist Papers make great reading. Too bad he turned around and used them as a blueprint of exactly the abuses he would end up fostering!

So yeah, being governments of "general" powers, the States themselves could impose speed limits, as restrained (or un-) by their own constitutions. But the Feds, being a government of "enumerated" powers, can't. Not that that has ever stopped them...

Caitlyn, you're showing time and time again that you cannot be reasonably argued with. You brought no new points in your last reply to me, just repetition, and yet again brought "libertarianism" to it which was completely and utterly uncalled for. Apparently anything I say to you is ridiculous because you see a huge "libertarian" label on me even when I never even mention it.

And then, of course what else can I expect, you speak of TOS violations, after bringing politics into it yourself. Unfortunately this is far from the first time you do that cr@p.

To those who say copyright, patents and trademarks cannot be separate from politics, you might as well then just stop talking about licenses completely. No more talk about GPL. No more talk about Richard Stallman's crusades. No more talk about FSF's latest legal initiatives. No more talk about EU antitrust activities. If arguing against intellectual property is now banned on this site... well this is just utter and complete insanity.

I was talking about philosophy, both here and in the article, not politics. I never suggested what my political position was. Caitlyn brought it up first and now we're back to the derailing business.

You know, just great. Just effing great. Why the h*ll do I even bother EVER posting on these forums when I know that there are people just waiting to troll every discussion in which disagreeable points are brought in down, and nobody even flinches.

Frak this cr@p. Seriously. The stench of intellectual dishonesty here is just utterly unbearable and offensive.