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Comment by nonrandomstring | Hacker News Reader

> If anyone is free to copy and fully use my work I will not do some of the work.

Why?

Please read me carefully: I am not accusing you of resentment.

But I already excluded issues of finance and recognition in my conditions above.

So, other than spitefulness and resentment, what else might possess us to declare that if "anyone is free to copy and fully use" some work, then it's not worth doing?

Do you not feel the incredible plenitude and abundance of creativity that urges you toward generosity?

Is capitalism responsible for somehow poisoning us with the idea that scarcity is necessary for valuable endeavour?

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> But I already excluded issues of finance and recognition in my conditions above.

Finance is pretty important though, if you want to feed and shelter yourself and your family. Most other types of work cannot be made worthless by others seeing it and copying it.

But the work of researching and thinking and producing a solution can, so the government figured there should be a way to recoup costs and provide incentive.

It's not about resentment. It's about reward. Unless you're in a very privileged position you need to make money from your work or you won't be about to continue doing it. If you have done great work you hope to be rewarded for it and that includes financials.

I want to live in a world where people who do awesome work are awesomely rewarded for it.

I don't get what you're about with the scarcity argument. Everyone is free to write a novel or create software or whatever. I just want people who do the work to be in position to profit from it not someone who didn't do the work

But I'm telling you, for the third time now, that money is excluded from the argument I am making. Yet you keep dragging it back to the same spot again. Are you entrenched in that you are not able to see the world in any other way than through money?

Yes, money is important. Now, can you forget that? Put it aside and try to move on to a higher level of thought?

("No" is a perfectly acceptable answer that would satisfy my genuine curiosity)

The point he's making is that you can't just say "money is excluded from the argument I'm making" and still be anywhere relevant to reality.

People dislike copying because for most people it's an attack on their income, either by taking their recognition (eg copying "free" images from a photographer) or by actually taking their income (eg copying paid art).

If you exclude financial arguments you exclude the vast majority of people who share their work.

To bring this around to code, most popular licenses allow copying someone's code with proper attribution, so clearly copying is okay as long as you don't take recognition from a work that isn't profit motivated.

I think "No" would have saved you many words. Nonetheless I am disappointed that there appears not a single voice amongst you who can conceive matters of creation outside a framework of money, income, profit, reward, theft, entitlement, licenses, capitalism, communism.... they really have you where they want you.

Can't you just engage with their argument?

It seems pretty obvious to most people, that some artists would be unable to produce certain works of art, if they did not have the funding to pay their bills.

Why are you unable to understand this? Just engage with the argument.

> Can't you just engage with their argument?

No.

Because it is not an agument, it's a diversion, and an attempt to drag a much more complex and interesting debate into the long grass.

> It seems pretty obvious to most people, that some artists would be unable to produce certain works of art, if they did not have the funding to pay their bills.

You're correct. It is obvious. Indeed it's so boringly self-evident it precludes discussion. It's dull, maudlin, perennial and a pointless spiral down into lamentation of broken political and social systems that are utterly beneath the level at which I wish to engage.

Are you familiar with the expression "Never argue with an idiot because they'll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience"? That.

> Why are you unable to understand this?

I understand it perfectly. I'm just not interested in it.

> Just engage with the argument.

Your entitled indignation that I refuse to be dragged into the mud amuses me.

> You're correct. It is obvious.

So then yes, you agree with everyone else completely, that many artists would be unable to produce certain art, if they were unable to make a living from it.

Great, you agree with everyone else entirely. Not sure why you would be so upset with everyone if you simply agree with everyone's main point, 100%.

> that I refuse to be dragged

You don't have to be dragged anywhere if you simply agree with the point, that you called obvious, which is that many artists could not produce work if they could not live off of it.

This doesn't have to be an argument. You just agree with them, and you called it obvious.

Unfortunately this HN forum is not conducive to long exchanges. (I probably won't read further replies as they slip off the bottom of my workflow here). I appreciate your reply and willingness to have a good banter.

Our difference is that "artists" are driven by complex psychological and spiritual motives, way beyond money, which is a necessary but insufficient component of the artistic life. Some commenters don't like it when I say you're an accomplished craftsman but not a "real" artist if your preoccupation is with money. I can understand why that hurts, especially if one is besieged by brutal, empty capitalism and looming AI predating on your soul.

But I stand by this. And most of Art-history and the philosophy of art bears me out. And my point is that the artist who sacrifices (prostitutes) themselves on that altar of anomie and alienation is an accomplice in their misery - however strong the need to "put bread on the table". We are more than this.

Sorry, but you already said that you agree with the point, and called it "obvious".

So yes, you agree and think the point is obvious.

And now you are just moving the goal posts to something else, using a lot of words, in order to ignore the fact that you just agreed and said it was obvious.

This website used to be called Startup News. It probably still should be.

Or did the idea of what a "start-up" is mature to incorporate bigger ideas about value?

This is why we need some form of universal basic income..

I would like to make money out of my work if we have UBI as well, you know?

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