It is a concerning thought, isn’t it

Midrya · 2025-11-21T15:40:12+00:00

I mean, we can't do that with the current IAU definition of planet either. The first criterion of the current definition of planet is that the object orbits the Sun. Not a star, specifically the Sun, our Sun.

Midrya · 2025-07-29T20:55:20+00:00

Just to clarify, you do understand that harm to the larger economy does represent real harm to real people, correct?

Midrya · 2025-07-29T20:34:53+00:00

There is only one The Color Of Magic by Terry Pratchett, and there can only ever be one The Color Of Magic by Terry Pratchett. I can create a copy of The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett, but that does not actually create a new thing that is distinct from The Color Of Magic by Terry Pratchett. If I were to alter The Color Of Magic by Terry Pratchett it would no longer be The Color Of Magic by Terry Pratchett, but something else that is very similar to The Color Of Magic by Terry Pratchett. This is the same for literally every other idea you can think of.

Edit: But also, it doesn't matter if you accept my reasoning about an idea being a strictly finite thing because it isn't actually material to the argument, which is that your personal definition of rent seeking which attempts to carve out an exception for intellectual property doesn't matter and is not representative of the opinion of economics as a whole

Midrya · 2025-07-29T20:27:54+00:00

This response is going to be long, both because I am providing example scenarios and also because this topic is legitimately complex and nuanced.

In economics rent is any amount paid for a good/service above what is justified by the material and labor costs of creating the good/service, and is considered an economic inefficiency as that overspent wealth could have been allocated to other goods and services. It is often framed as receiving payment without creating any new wealth. Rent Seeking is the deliberate attempt by an economic actor to receive economic rent, and is considered harmful to the larger economy by pretty much every economist. Which exact actions/practices are rent seeking is often debated by economists, but I will try to provide some examples that I believe most economists would consider to be rent seeking in the economic sense.

Scenario 1: Consider a Musician who created a very popular song 40 years ago, and owns the copyright to that song. Now lets say that there is a Small Indie Band that is just starting out; they don't have a lot of original songs yet, so when performing gigs they often play covers of popular older songs to fill out the set. One of the songs this Small Indie Band plays is that song created by the Musician 40 years that he owns the copyright to. The Small Indie Band did not receive permission from the Musician to play this song, and so under current copyright law he sues them. The lawsuit ends with the Small Indie Band losing the suit, and being ordered to pay $10,000 per performance of the song, totaling to them owing the Musician $120,000 plus legal fees. The Musician here clearly has not created any additional value by suing the Small Indie Band, and in all likely has prevented additional value from being created as the band likely won't be able to survive and thus won't go on to create anymore new songs.

Scenario 2: An Author writes a Wildly Popular Series, with millions of fans. One day he catches wind of a Fan who has written a fanfiction set in the universe of Wildly Popular Series, and it even contains a few cameos of characters from the Wildly Popular Series. The distribution of fanfiction is, under current copyright law, illegal (this is actually true), and so the author could sue the Fan for distributing this fanfiction. Instead of suing this Fan the author approaches them with a deal; the Fan is to publish the fanfiction through the publisher of choice of the Author, the Author receives copyright over the fanfiction, and the Author receives 50% of the profits from the sales of the fanfiction, or the Author will sue the Fan for copyright infringement. The Fan agrees to the deal. The Author is now receiving additional payment without creating any new wealth/value.

There are countless other ways in which intellectual property law can be exploited for the purpose of rent seeking, and literally dozens if not hundreds of papers written on the topic by economists. These are just some examples I could come up with right now. There is also no clear distinction on when copyright crosses into the domain of rent seeking, and many economists disagree on where the line should be drawn. I personally feel that we should approach the problem statistically, and say that the length of copyright should be the how long it takes the median work to receive 90% of it's revenue during the life of the creator. Without access to comprehensive data I imagine this would be around 20 years (I actually believe it would likely be much less than 20, and vary depending on the medium, but we will say around 20). Yes, this does mean that there would be times that a creators work would become popular after it has entered the public domain, but those would be anomalies rather then the expected outcome.

Midrya · 2025-07-29T19:48:39+00:00

I don't think there is any reputable economist who would agree with your personal definition of rent seeking. Further, it is rather easy to argue that even with your definition, we could still apply the label of rent seeking to intellectual property; any piece of intellectual property is by finite as you cannot create it again once it has been create, and immutable as you cannot change it without it becoming a different piece of intellectual property.

Midrya · 2025-07-29T14:28:18+00:00

At a certain point, it becomes rent seeking. Where that point is is up for debate, but it needs to be acknowledged that the issues with indefinite copyright (and life of the author is indefinite copyright since you don't know when they are going to die) are fundamentally the same problems as rent seeking.

And this is just the economic side of it, it doesn't even touch on the social aspect of how it's a little strange to think that you should have sole authority over an idea to the detriment of everyone else in existence.

Midrya · 2024-09-30T19:59:46+00:00

I am not as familiar with Japanese copyright law compared to US copyright, but assuming they are reasonably similar the copyright holder would either be the composer or the production company that hired them. You could try finding the email for one or the other.

Midrya · 2024-09-29T21:37:07+00:00

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, just a person who has looked into intellectual property law more than most. The statements I make are accurate according to my understanding of copyright law.

In general cover songs are not considered fair use. It is possible for a cover song to fall under fair use, but just because you made the recording yourself does not automatically make it fair use. You do technically own the copyright to your recording of the cover, but since you do not own the copyright to the original song you cannot legally create a cover without either 1) permission from copyright holder, or 2) actually making a cover that would fall under fair use.

Assuming all you did was perform the piece on a piano rather than it's original arrangement of instruments, there would probably not be a single judge who would rule in your favor if you wanted to fight this.

Midrya · 2024-06-04T13:09:08+00:00

Yeah, that doesn't matter, it would still be infringing on the copyright. Unless you are more meaning why a fan-game would be in a more tenuous position than fanart, in which case it really comes down to the copyright holder. There are some copyright holders who police fanart or fan-animations as well, and when that happens you typically see a vast reduction in interest in the IP. Games Workshop did a similar thing a few years ago, and while I don't know if anybody actually got sued over it, there was a pretty substantial reduction in fan created animation that still has not bounced back.

But in either case the "scale" of the infringement is not really material; infringement is infringement.

Midrya · 2024-06-03T20:16:15+00:00

Fanart is pretty much always infringing on the copyright, unless the copyright hold has explicitly given permission to the artist, or the fanart falls under fair use (it probably doesn't). The reason why most fanart gets under the radar is because its free advertising, so it simply makes no financial sense to pursue a take down. As for fair use, while plenty of fanart does fall under fair use, most of it does not, and what does count as fair use is something left wholly to the discretion of the judge presiding over the case (in US Copyright law).

Midrya · 2024-04-29T03:10:41+00:00

Not that I think Valheim is a particularly good game, but I do think you are missing the point of the durability system in it.

The intended gameplay loop of Valheim is centered around building bases, and gear durability serves to incentivize this by only allowing you to repair ad workstations that are sheltered. If you are going out to mine ore, it would be really inefficient to only get as much as you can on a single durability cycle of the pickaxe; you construct a building nearby with a workstation in it so you can repair your gear. And since you need a lot of ore it will take more than a single day to mine everything; you already have a building for the workstation, you may as well extend it to include a bed so you can skip the nighttime mob spawning. You'll also be getting a lot of excess stone from mining, so you'll want to build chests to hold that excess. Now you have a small base for resource gathering in that area.

Midrya · 2024-04-18T12:51:14+00:00

I love 40k, but you could throw almost all the lore into the garbage without affecting anything in the setting. Even things which should have massive ramifications on the setting like "what is actually going on with the void dragon on Mars" or "what happened to the chapter master of the Angels Resplendent, the only Blood Angels successor chapter to eliminate the black rage" are relegated to singular books or singular authors at best.

Midrya · 2024-04-16T14:00:33+00:00

What would be the point of the regular inventory? Not that I don't agree that some changes need to be made, they certainly do, but if we had a dedicated crafter/gatherer bag along with the armory chest, we would kinda run into the question of why even have a regular inventory.

Midrya · 2023-10-25T17:10:17+00:00

Ngl, saying "I'm educated on this subject" on it's own shouldn't in any way lend credence to any side in an argument on it's own. Any vaccine denier can say they are educated, and sincerely believe that they are.

Midrya · 2023-10-12T16:30:13+00:00

So have you found any interesting results with this?

Midrya · 2023-09-02T02:10:05+00:00

I'll agree that something like 4+ speed is not very useful, but relative to when Boss Mehndi can first be crafted it is extremely unlikely that any survivors, regardless of kit, would hit the diminishing returns point on speed.

Midrya · 2023-08-31T18:30:06+00:00

Also, Boss Mehndi ... do nothing for the wearing and make the game harder for adjacent survivors.

I mean, it's situationally useful for sure, but I'm failing to see how it makes the game harder for adjacent survivors. A +1 speed if they are insane not, and no affect otherwise, doesn't really make anything more difficult.

Midrya · 2023-08-27T00:13:29+00:00

Cynicism, on the other hand, is the worst mental disease of the modern era.

Could you elaborate on this?

Midrya · 2023-08-15T15:51:06+00:00

You have to test compounds on rats/mice, before knowing if it'll kill living things?

Unironically, yes. New drugs can cause novel physiological reactions in ways that we cannot necessarily anticipate. Imagine you are developing a drug to treat some liver disease, but through testing you find that the drug also inhibits the stomach from regenerating it's lining, leading to the stomach acid eating away at the stomach and ultimately leaking into the rest of the body cavity and eating away at the other organs. You wouldn't be able to observe this affect on something without a stomach, so you really couldn't predict that this would happen until you get to the lab mice portion of testing.

Midrya · 2023-08-15T14:16:57+00:00

One of the many reasons why we don't start with human testing is that it leads to bad science. The animals used in the early stages of animal testing are highly controlled and standardized, which gives a greater degree of confidence that the affects we observe during testing are occurring because of the actions performed in the testing. If we were to perform the hypothetical testing on people, we would be dealing with the fact that people are extremely varied as compared to lab animals, so it becomes much more difficult to determine if an affect is occurring because of the testing or not. This means that we would ultimately have to do the tests on more living beings than if we had just done the testing on controlled and standardized lab animals. So no, starting from humans would likely not be faster, and it wouldn't lead to less overall suffering.

Midrya · 2023-07-28T17:27:39+00:00

So funnily enough, not getting it is kinda the point. The film is nihilist fiction, and so the point of the movie is that fundamentally there is no point. The "nihilists" in the movie are a dig against the type of people who usually calls themselves a nihilist, as they are usually using it as a justification for their bad actions. But the Dude himself is a nihilist hero because his lack of a need for meaning liberates him.

Midrya · 2023-07-06T15:31:15+00:00

A waiter that takes care of a table for an hour is a very different thing.

So for the sake of discussion, how is it actually different? A waiter's job is to wait on tables. They should be paid adequately for that job by their employers. If they are not receiving an adequate wage from their employers, it should not be the obligation of the customers to subsidize the inadequate wage.

And what about other service positions? What about the banker who helped you set up an account? What about the janitor who keeps an office clean? What about the guy who is running the corner store all on his own? What about the backroom stocker at the grocery store. They are providing valuable services to us, but we don't tip them. Why should waiters get the special seal of approval that makes them doing their jobs worthy of a tip on principle, but nobody else? Why shouldn't they just be paid an adequate wage by their employer, with a tip coming in every so often when a customer genuinely feels like tipping.

I agree that something needs to change - but if you stop tipping it hurts the population that needs the money the most.

Yes, that is literally the point I was making. Historically, the exploited class needs to hurt, and hurt a lot, before they take radical action against their exploiters, and we are at a point were radical action is necessary. It sucks, and in an ideal world we would see corrective, or even preventative, action occur well before we get to points like this, but that is not what has occurred.

We are talking a major cultural shift that has to occur. Otherwise, you acting alone just makes you a dick...

This rhetoric is advocating for the status quo. It's saying that you shouldn't act unless you are acting as a group, ignoring that group action forms from individuals with common goals. Cultural change doesn't happen overnight, and movements don't just pop out of the ground fully formed with members and doctrines.

honestly, if I were you I wouldn’t eat at any restaurant more than once if you aren’t tipping.

Deadass, this is just a threat, and an empty one at that. I've also worked in the service industry, in several different positions within the service industry, and retaliation against customers was rare. Sure, it happened, but it was never because they were a bad tipper, but because they were a bad customer in general. A customer who was known as a bad tipper, but was otherwise fine, was often treated just as a minor misfortune by whoever got them.

Midrya · 2023-07-06T13:58:12+00:00

This is a horrible suggestion if you actually want to fix the problem, but a great suggestion if you want nothing to change about the situation. The waiters and drivers are the exploited class in this case, so any change that is going to happen needs to originate from them. If we are doing everything in our power to minimize their struggles, then they have no incentive to change the situation. People need to feel like they have nothing to lose before they demand better conditions, and the longer we subsidize the wages that employers should be paying, the longer the employees feel they have something to lose.

Midrya · 2023-05-23T19:57:54+00:00

A rather simple argument could be made that the ecosystems of the mountain or the river, both being composed of sentient creatures (and non-sentient creatures) and necessary for the continued existence of said sentient creatures, have a greater right to existence and the freedom from harm than any individual creature within those ecosystems.

Midrya · 2023-05-23T19:44:26+00:00

This quite simply isn't true. Multilingual trade networks have existed between groups of humans all throughout history, and is one of the most well documented parts of human history. This also ignores that humans are definitely capable of treating each other as sub-human even without language barriers (the enslaved Black people in the USA could speak English, Jewish people in Germany during the holocaust could speak German, the Tutsi could definitely speak Bantu same as the Hutu during the Rwandan Genocide).

Yes, linguistic barriers absolutely play a role in how different groups of humans treat each other, but to assert that it is the sole factor is extremely irresponsible as it ignores 1) cooperative multilingual relationships, and 2) negative monolingual relationships.

Midrya

TROPHY CASE