Should this worry Australia and New Zealand?

[Gondwanaland]

I can understand Americans fearmongering among themselves over the gradual failure of American empire. But for those of us in countries that already trade more with China than we do with America, it's hard to see why we would care about America slipping into #2 in the world economy rankings.

Our experience here of trying to do trade agreements with the US, is that big US companies corruptly get the US politicians to write things into the agreements that are helpful for them and unhelpful to our country, so people here quite reasonably object to that. China for all their many faults doesn't seem to have the same interest in trying to actively force their corruption onto us as the US does. Maybe de-corrupt your country's politics and you would find other countries more interested in doing business with you?

Yeah China doesn't care about that, they just care about taking your intellectual property, copying it, making it cheaper, and undercutting you with the same product.

[Terraceth]

Xi wants Taiwan (very badly), and Tibet (why, I don't know) and a couple other minor enclaves. And it wants control over the Pacific trade routes, by making artificial islands and such, and becoming the world's foremost economy.

It seems obvious to me why he wants Tibet: It's already a part of China. Basically all countries are interested in hanging onto their territories, and that applies doubly so for dictatorships because they have no interest in looking weak. If Tibet wasn't a formal part of China already he'd probably care about it about as much as he cares about Mongolia.

[Starlight]

Yeah China doesn't care about that, they just care about taking your intellectual property, copying it, making it cheaper, and undercutting you with the same product.

I'm not a big believer in governments artificially protecting intellectual property. It seems a way of mega rich corporations corruptly maintaining monopolies to keep their profits high and screw over consumers.

I sure don't own any intellectual property, do you? So they're not stealing my intellectual property.

I would have thought as a sometimes-libertarian you would share my skepticism of intellectual property. It's a very artificial, authoritarian big-government, construct.

As a consumer, I like cheaper prices on the goods I buy. If China can make them cheaper for me, then yay. Again, I would have thought you liked the free market and lower prices. Am I more pro-free-market than you are?

[Starlight]

Like Putin invading Ukraine?

Unlike Tucker Carlson and Trump, I'm no fan of Putin. As I said above, I support people's right to independence. Hence I support Ukraine.

Nor does Ukrainian seem to be the same language as Russian, nor do Ukrainians and Russians appear to consider themselves of the same ethnicity. But I will definitely grant that at some points in history they were united in the same country.

Does that mean I'm not as supportive of other nations getting involved in the war as I would have been if it was an unrelated country being invaded? Yes. Because I have principles and follow them.

[Gondwanaland]

I'm not a big believer in governments artificially protecting intellectual property. It seems a way of mega rich corporations corruptly maintaining monopolies to keep their profits high and screw over consumers.

I sure don't own any intellectual property, do you? So they're not stealing my intellectual property.

I would have thought as a sometimes-libertarian you would share my skepticism of intellectual property. It's a very artificial, authoritarian big-government, construct.

As a consumer, I like cheaper prices on the goods I buy. If China can make them cheaper for me, then yay. Again, I would have thought you liked the free market and lower prices. Am I more pro-free-market than you are?

I'm not surprised in the least that you oppos3 intellectual property.

It sounds like yet again you don't have the slightest clue about libertarianism. Not surprised, given your incredible ignorance of it in the past and your general stupidity on most every topic.

https://www.libertarianism.org/colum...20prerogatives.

[Starlight]

I'm not surprised in the least that you oppos3 intellectual property.

It sounds like yet again you don't have the slightest clue about libertarianism. Not surprised, given your incredible ignorance of it in the past and your general stupidity on most every topic.

https://www.libertarianism.org/colum...20prerogatives.

Well I regard libertarianism as fundamentally incoherent on private property, so it's not surprising they don't agree amongst themselves on what to do with intellectual property as it's just an extension of some of the same incoherencies. Like intellectual property, private property doesn't exist in nature, it's a government construct. Obviously the superrich want big authoritarian government to keep the masses away from their megayachts and 10 mansions, and thus like the idea of governments creating and enforcing property rights, but the don't like the idea of any government putting any limits on themselves or what they can do. Thus arises the paradoxical idea of libertarianism, a 'philosophy' in which the rich want a government to govern others but no government to govern themselves.

[CivilDiscourse]

I'm not surprised in the least that you oppos3 intellectual property.

It sounds like yet again you don't have the slightest clue about libertarianism. Not surprised, given your incredible ignorance of it in the past and your general stupidity on most every topic.

https://www.libertarianism.org/colum...20prerogatives.

Honestly. Star sounds like he's gone full "I'm die on this hil" mode right now. Frame it the right way and he'll defend the genocide going on, just to be able to not agree with you and still attack the us.

[Starlight]

Honestly. Star sounds like he's gone full "I'm die on this hil" mode right now. Frame it the right way and he'll defend the genocide going on, just to be able to not agree with you and still attack the us.

You're trying to troll me extra hard lately, did I hurt your feelings?

[CivilDiscourse]

You're trying to troll me extra hard lately, did I hurt your feelings?

Troll you? No.pointing out facts. The only reason NZ comes up is because of your being here. The reality is that, despite your nationalist leaning, your country is unimportant to the world stage. The thought that China has any interest in your country was laughable.

[rogue06]

I can understand Americans fearmongering among themselves over the gradual failure of American empire. But for those of us in countries that already trade more with China than we do with America, it's hard to see why we would care about America slipping into #2 in the world economy rankings.

Our experience here of trying to do trade agreements with the US, is that big US companies corruptly get the US politicians to write things into the agreements that are helpful for them and unhelpful to our country, so people here quite reasonably object to that. China for all their many faults doesn't seem to have the same interest in trying to actively force their corruption onto us as the US does. Maybe de-corrupt your country's politics and you would find other countries more interested in doing business with you?

So is anyone at all surprised that star lauds the Chicoms business practices as the model to emulate.

[CivilDiscourse]

So is anyone at all surprised that star lauds the Chicoms business practices as the model to emulate.

You are assuming he's honestly taking that stance, as opposed to merely taking it because Gond brought up their buisness practices WRT to intellectual property as a negative.

[Terraceth]

I'm not a big believer in governments artificially protecting intellectual property. It seems a way of mega rich corporations corruptly maintaining monopolies to keep their profits high and screw over consumers.

I would say it is the opposite. Okay, I'll be fair, it can be used by "mega rich corporations" to maintain monopolies. But it also is a critical way of protecting individuals or smaller companies from those same "mega rich corporations" just ripping them off and marketing the product themselves.

If I, as an independent inventor, come up with a great new invention, patent law protects a much bigger company from just saying "that's a good idea! Let's ignore the guy who made it, create our own version, and sell it for cheaper than that person can afford to do so (as we have more money and can produce it for cheaper) and use our advertising to make sure people only know about our product." In such a case, I have no chance of doing anything with my invention, because a big company can just swoop in and copy it and take all the money for themselves, crushing competition and allowing themselves to maintain monopolies.

This isn't as big of an issue for copyrighted material (as with copyrighted material it is easier to determine who the original creator was and due to modern ease of copying most copyrighted works, an attempt to undercut someone in pricing is harder to do because someone else can just make it available for free), but it's still an issue there as well.

Without intellectual property law, there's little preventing "mega rich corporations" from scooping up anything a smaller entity creates and selling it themselves, screwing over that smaller entity entirely.

[Ronson]

Well I regard libertarianism as fundamentally incoherent on private property, so it's not surprising they don't agree amongst themselves on what to do with intellectual property as it's just an extension of some of the same incoherencies. Like intellectual property, private property doesn't exist in nature, it's a government construct. Obviously the superrich want big authoritarian government to keep the masses away from their megayachts and 10 mansions, and thus like the idea of governments creating and enforcing property rights, but the don't like the idea of any government putting any limits on themselves or what they can do. Thus arises the paradoxical idea of libertarianism, a 'philosophy' in which the rich want a government to govern others but no government to govern themselves.

It's not a "government construct." It is a legal one, a reward for creating something. Without protections for intellectual property, companies and people are less inclined to invest years in developing something that can be stolen in a matter of minutes.

[rogue06]

It's not a "government construct." It is a legal one, a reward for creating something. Without protections for intellectual property, companies and people are less inclined to invest years in developing something that can be stolen in a matter of minutes.

It's called an incentive.

[Sparko]

Considering Star claims to be a scientist, I would think he would be all for intellectual property rights, like patents and copyrights. It's the only way scientists can protect their work product.