I don’t see much analogy with software piracy and so on, since this would be more like sneaking onto a flight without buying a ticket.
Software piracy isn’t theft, so sneaking on without buying a ticket isn’t actually analagous. (And in any case, you’re thinking about the receiving end, not the giving end.)
When you redistribute something that’s sold under terms that say, “don’t copy and distribute this”, you are breaking the contract you entered into with the seller. And if you intended to do it when you bought the thing, then you entered into that contract fraudulently.
This is analagous to fraudulently entering into a ticket contract to go from point A to point B, when you actually intend to go to the intervening point C.
In both cases, the seller would never have consented to the purchase at the offered price if they knew what your intentions were, which is what makes your purchase fraudulent.
This is analagous to fraudulently entering into a ticket contract to go from point A to point B, when you actually intend to go to the intervening point C.
There is no contract to go anywhere. You are buying options to take rides on planes.
My relationship (as a buyer) with the seller is simple and short-term: we exchange things of value and we’re done. That, by itself, is a great engine of progress—all you need to buy things is money. You do not need to be of a particular religion or a social class, you do not need to show good moral character, you do not need a license from authorities...
If the seller wants a full-blown contract where I obligate myself to, for example, not to do certain things with his products, he is welcome to offer me such a contract (these obligations, of course, would impact the price I’m ready to pay).
If I am looking for a cucumber to use as a dildo, do I really need to fully disclose that fact to all the little old ladies at the farmer’s market? I am pretty sure they would not sell me cucumbers for that purpose X-D
If the seller wants a full-blown contract where I obligate myself [...]
But the seller does, and that is in fact what you are being offered, in both the cases we’re talking about[1]. When you buy a ticket for air travel there’s a big long list of terms&conditions that you have to say you’ve read and agree to before you can actually buy the ticket. When you “buy” a piece of software there’s again a big long licence that (among other things) clarifies that you do not in any useful sense own the software—you haven’t bought it, you’ve bought a licence to use it in particular ways—and again there are lots of conditions on it.
And yes, no doubt these obligations impact the price you’re ready to pay—just as they impact the price the seller is ready to accept.
In the intellectual property case that’s basically irrelevant—I can download a piece of software or, say, a movie without agreeing to any contract, but it still will be illegal for me to redistribute it.
With the air ticket you do agree to a contract, but here you need to dig a bit deeper.
Not all contracts are created equal. There are basically two kinds. The first kind is a contract you actually negotiate and fully understand, one where what lawyers call “the meeting of the minds” occurred. Let’s call it a negotiated contract. The other kind is known as an adhesion contract and let me quote:
A standard form contract drafted by one party (usually a business with stronger bargaining power) and signed by the weaker party (usually a consumer in need of goods or services), who must adhere to the contract and therefore does not have the power to negotiate or modify the terms of the contract.
These two kinds of contracts are different, both legally and morally. Courts, for example, are generally hesitant to rewrite the terms of negotiated contracts, but have much less scruples about changing or just throwing out parts of adhesion contracts.
Generally speaking, adhesion contracts are not so much about setting out rights and obligations of the parties to the contract, but rather about shifting the balance of power in the possible future disputes.
Most everyone breaks adhesion contracts all the time because they are essentially designed to be broken so that the consumer always ends up the guilty party and pressure can be applied to him. It’s just exercise of power, is all.
I can download a piece of software [...] without agreeing to any contract
Well, sure. And if someone wants to sell you a car but only if you sign a contract saying you’ll never drive it over 40mph or something, you can always steal it instead. (I am not suggesting that illegal software copying is the same as theft in any respect other than that both are illegal.) Why is this relevant?
adhesion contract
Yes, I agree, adhesion contracts are icky and often unreasonable and widely ignored. But it is still the case that with both software and airline tickets, the seller is offering you not a straightforward sale but a contract with all kinds of terms on it, and they are setting their price on the basis of offering you the one rather than the other.
Perhaps I’ve lost track of what your actual argument is here. I think what it boils down to is this: “Contracts of adhesion are nasty and unfair, and I therefore consider myself free to ignore them. The restrictions on how I can use an airline ticket or a piece of software are contained in contracts of adhesion. Therefore there’s no moral objection to my ignoring them.” Is that right?
(For my part, I dislike contracts of adhesion as much as anyone, but am unconvinced that their unpleasantness is much justification for ignoring their terms.)
Whether I feel free to ignore certain terms of adhesion contracts depends. There is no bright line and I tend to deal with these issues on a case-by-case basis.
The seller has no business knowing my intentions or trying to discriminate on their basis.
I’ll take this to mean then, that you will happily lie to people to get them to have sex with you as well, since you don’t believe people should be allowed to condition their consent on accurate information about your intentions.
Yes I have no explicit knowledge of Lumifer’s sex life. If Lumifer is asexual then my statement is strictly incorrect.
If Lumifer, however, does have sex at all, they probably have to negotiate sex with a partner… which means that there is some exchange—most likely just the exchange of like-for-like (ie the other person gets sex too)… which is a purchase in kind… which was my point.
Also I should point out that my comment was intended as just as facile as the comment I was replying-to. That was why I used that form. Lumifer was’t engaging with the point of the previous comment and just throwing up a random thought-stopper. I intended to throw up a facile comment that was to make them think again about what they’d just said.
Asexual, unmarried and with traditional scruples about sex, simply not in a relationship at present and not inclined toward casual sex, in a strictly monogamous relationship with a partner who is currently travelling … there are really quite a lot of possibilities.
I agree it’s more likely that Lumifer does have sex sometimes, and no doubt there is some give and take involved. However, this need have nothing to do with what any normal person calls “buying sex”. (There is an argument to be made that, e.g., in some cases marriage can be viewed as buying sex, and no doubt there are other things in relationships that can usefully be thought of that way. But that’s far from what would have to be true to justify claiming, in the absence of any actual information, that Lumifer buys sex.
I don’t agree that Lumifer was failing to engage with the point of the previous comment. I think the previous comment was in fact where the rot set in. Lumifer expressed a particular opinion about how buying and selling should work. (As you might guess if you happen to read the whole discussion, I am not very sympathetic towards this opinion, but that’s irrelevant here.) pjeby then threw out a needlessly inflammatory and logically incorrect generalization, to which Lumifer replied with the contempt it deserved.
(Needlessly inflammatory and logically incorrect because: 1. the position Lumifer was espousing was specifically one about commerce, and there is no reason to assume that the same principles govern commerce as personal relationships; 2. Lumifer was not in fact defending lying, and one might reasonably think differently about lying versus letting someone believe something incorrect; 3. bringing sex into any discussion is liable to elevate the emotional temperature, doubly so when you start making accusations about the other party’s sex life.)
The particular remark Lumifer made was pointing at objection 1: the distinction between commercial and personal interactions. The fact (assuming it to be one; I haven’t checked that Lumifer wasn’t lying and it’s none of my business) that Lumifer’s sexual interactions with other people aren’t commercial is entirely to the point and not at all a “random thought-stopper”.
And no, the give-and-take in typical romantic/sexual relationships is not of such a character as to make them just like typical commercial buyer/seller relationships, which is why it was in no way appropriate in this context for you to claim that Lumifer does buy sex.
To be clear, I’m not in any way discussing your sex life, I’m discussing how little taryneast knows about your sex life. Your actual sex life, if any, is plainly no business of mine.
It is my understanding that pjeby’s comment was not specifically about sex, but about conditioning consent upon correct intentions… the sex example was simply an easy example to give where it is clear that deliberate concealment of bad-intention causes lots of nasty things.
My feeling was the fact that Lumifer then engaged with the sex-example, rather than what pjeby was actually trying to convey about informed consent, meant that he was evading the intent of the comment.
and the side-track we’ve gone down about whether I actually think that lumifer buys sex is likewise irrelevant to the original point.
personally—I think that the difference between personal and commercial transactions (from the point of view of whether intentions matter to them), is in practice fairly small.
You make a contract—whether physical or verbal, whether backed by the government, or backed by your future goodwill and status. There is an exchange—whether or fiat-currency or expectations of future return in kind, or just more goodwill. If somebody later finds out that the intentions were lies… people try to get recompense—whether by taking the person to court, or by shunning them in future, or telling all their friends that they lie for self-gain.
The fact that commercial vs personal exchanges are held to be separate magisteria is, I think, the point here—and while I agree there are differences… the idea of informed consent is important in both.
Software piracy isn’t theft, so sneaking on without buying a ticket isn’t actually analagous. (And in any case, you’re thinking about the receiving end, not the giving end.)
When you redistribute something that’s sold under terms that say, “don’t copy and distribute this”, you are breaking the contract you entered into with the seller. And if you intended to do it when you bought the thing, then you entered into that contract fraudulently.
This is analagous to fraudulently entering into a ticket contract to go from point A to point B, when you actually intend to go to the intervening point C.
In both cases, the seller would never have consented to the purchase at the offered price if they knew what your intentions were, which is what makes your purchase fraudulent.
There is no contract to go anywhere. You are buying options to take rides on planes.
That is not true. You’re breaking the law which is very different from breaking the contract.
The seller has no business knowing my intentions or trying to discriminate on their basis.
Why not?
You seem to be otherwise taking a free market as a given. Everyone is trying to get the best deal. I expect companies to do it as well.
My relationship (as a buyer) with the seller is simple and short-term: we exchange things of value and we’re done. That, by itself, is a great engine of progress—all you need to buy things is money. You do not need to be of a particular religion or a social class, you do not need to show good moral character, you do not need a license from authorities...
If the seller wants a full-blown contract where I obligate myself to, for example, not to do certain things with his products, he is welcome to offer me such a contract (these obligations, of course, would impact the price I’m ready to pay).
If I am looking for a cucumber to use as a dildo, do I really need to fully disclose that fact to all the little old ladies at the farmer’s market? I am pretty sure they would not sell me cucumbers for that purpose X-D
But the seller does, and that is in fact what you are being offered, in both the cases we’re talking about[1]. When you buy a ticket for air travel there’s a big long list of terms&conditions that you have to say you’ve read and agree to before you can actually buy the ticket. When you “buy” a piece of software there’s again a big long licence that (among other things) clarifies that you do not in any useful sense own the software—you haven’t bought it, you’ve bought a licence to use it in particular ways—and again there are lots of conditions on it.
And yes, no doubt these obligations impact the price you’re ready to pay—just as they impact the price the seller is ready to accept.
[1] Though probably not with the cucumber.
In the intellectual property case that’s basically irrelevant—I can download a piece of software or, say, a movie without agreeing to any contract, but it still will be illegal for me to redistribute it.
With the air ticket you do agree to a contract, but here you need to dig a bit deeper.
Not all contracts are created equal. There are basically two kinds. The first kind is a contract you actually negotiate and fully understand, one where what lawyers call “the meeting of the minds” occurred. Let’s call it a negotiated contract. The other kind is known as an adhesion contract and let me quote:
These two kinds of contracts are different, both legally and morally. Courts, for example, are generally hesitant to rewrite the terms of negotiated contracts, but have much less scruples about changing or just throwing out parts of adhesion contracts.
Generally speaking, adhesion contracts are not so much about setting out rights and obligations of the parties to the contract, but rather about shifting the balance of power in the possible future disputes.
Most everyone breaks adhesion contracts all the time because they are essentially designed to be broken so that the consumer always ends up the guilty party and pressure can be applied to him. It’s just exercise of power, is all.
Well, sure. And if someone wants to sell you a car but only if you sign a contract saying you’ll never drive it over 40mph or something, you can always steal it instead. (I am not suggesting that illegal software copying is the same as theft in any respect other than that both are illegal.) Why is this relevant?
Yes, I agree, adhesion contracts are icky and often unreasonable and widely ignored. But it is still the case that with both software and airline tickets, the seller is offering you not a straightforward sale but a contract with all kinds of terms on it, and they are setting their price on the basis of offering you the one rather than the other.
Perhaps I’ve lost track of what your actual argument is here. I think what it boils down to is this: “Contracts of adhesion are nasty and unfair, and I therefore consider myself free to ignore them. The restrictions on how I can use an airline ticket or a piece of software are contained in contracts of adhesion. Therefore there’s no moral objection to my ignoring them.” Is that right?
(For my part, I dislike contracts of adhesion as much as anyone, but am unconvinced that their unpleasantness is much justification for ignoring their terms.)
My actual argument is here :-)
Whether I feel free to ignore certain terms of adhesion contracts depends. There is no bright line and I tend to deal with these issues on a case-by-case basis.
I’ll take this to mean then, that you will happily lie to people to get them to have sex with you as well, since you don’t believe people should be allowed to condition their consent on accurate information about your intentions.
I don’t buy sex.
Yes you do… just not with money
I bet you have no knowledge at all of whether Lumifer has sex with anyone at all, never mind what motivations his partner(s) may have.
I think Less Wrong is better without this sort of facile cynicism.
[EDITED to clarify wording a little.]
Yes I have no explicit knowledge of Lumifer’s sex life. If Lumifer is asexual then my statement is strictly incorrect.
If Lumifer, however, does have sex at all, they probably have to negotiate sex with a partner… which means that there is some exchange—most likely just the exchange of like-for-like (ie the other person gets sex too)… which is a purchase in kind… which was my point.
Also I should point out that my comment was intended as just as facile as the comment I was replying-to. That was why I used that form. Lumifer was’t engaging with the point of the previous comment and just throwing up a random thought-stopper. I intended to throw up a facile comment that was to make them think again about what they’d just said.
Asexual, unmarried and with traditional scruples about sex, simply not in a relationship at present and not inclined toward casual sex, in a strictly monogamous relationship with a partner who is currently travelling … there are really quite a lot of possibilities.
I agree it’s more likely that Lumifer does have sex sometimes, and no doubt there is some give and take involved. However, this need have nothing to do with what any normal person calls “buying sex”. (There is an argument to be made that, e.g., in some cases marriage can be viewed as buying sex, and no doubt there are other things in relationships that can usefully be thought of that way. But that’s far from what would have to be true to justify claiming, in the absence of any actual information, that Lumifer buys sex.
I don’t agree that Lumifer was failing to engage with the point of the previous comment. I think the previous comment was in fact where the rot set in. Lumifer expressed a particular opinion about how buying and selling should work. (As you might guess if you happen to read the whole discussion, I am not very sympathetic towards this opinion, but that’s irrelevant here.) pjeby then threw out a needlessly inflammatory and logically incorrect generalization, to which Lumifer replied with the contempt it deserved.
(Needlessly inflammatory and logically incorrect because: 1. the position Lumifer was espousing was specifically one about commerce, and there is no reason to assume that the same principles govern commerce as personal relationships; 2. Lumifer was not in fact defending lying, and one might reasonably think differently about lying versus letting someone believe something incorrect; 3. bringing sex into any discussion is liable to elevate the emotional temperature, doubly so when you start making accusations about the other party’s sex life.)
The particular remark Lumifer made was pointing at objection 1: the distinction between commercial and personal interactions. The fact (assuming it to be one; I haven’t checked that Lumifer wasn’t lying and it’s none of my business) that Lumifer’s sexual interactions with other people aren’t commercial is entirely to the point and not at all a “random thought-stopper”.
And no, the give-and-take in typical romantic/sexual relationships is not of such a character as to make them just like typical commercial buyer/seller relationships, which is why it was in no way appropriate in this context for you to claim that Lumifer does buy sex.
I find the fact that LW decided to discuss its perceptions of what could theoretically be my sex life to be highly amusing.
Do carry on.
To be clear, I’m not in any way discussing your sex life, I’m discussing how little taryneast knows about your sex life. Your actual sex life, if any, is plainly no business of mine.
To be clear—neither was I
It is my understanding that pjeby’s comment was not specifically about sex, but about conditioning consent upon correct intentions… the sex example was simply an easy example to give where it is clear that deliberate concealment of bad-intention causes lots of nasty things.
My feeling was the fact that Lumifer then engaged with the sex-example, rather than what pjeby was actually trying to convey about informed consent, meant that he was evading the intent of the comment.
and the side-track we’ve gone down about whether I actually think that lumifer buys sex is likewise irrelevant to the original point.
personally—I think that the difference between personal and commercial transactions (from the point of view of whether intentions matter to them), is in practice fairly small.
You make a contract—whether physical or verbal, whether backed by the government, or backed by your future goodwill and status. There is an exchange—whether or fiat-currency or expectations of future return in kind, or just more goodwill. If somebody later finds out that the intentions were lies… people try to get recompense—whether by taking the person to court, or by shunning them in future, or telling all their friends that they lie for self-gain.
The fact that commercial vs personal exchanges are held to be separate magisteria is, I think, the point here—and while I agree there are differences… the idea of informed consent is important in both.