[nitrogen]

Wow. Your thinking is downright scary.

"compromise [is] a logical fallacy"

That is a misunderstanding or misrepresentation of my intended meaning. Some reading for you:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_to_moderation

http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html#co...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambit_claim

If it's hard wired then maybe that's for a reason. And the reason is likely because it keeps you or your progeny alive longer.

Modern civilization hasn't existed long enough for evolution to catch up. Our hundreds of thousands of years trekking across and out of Africa didn't prepare our feeble minds for the complexities of modern politics.

What would have happened without that ability to sue for copyright infringement?

Most likely? World peace, universal equality, and unlocking the universe's infinite money cheat. Or at least, one less patent troll dragging on innovation.

[0wza]

Hey, I absolutely agree evolution is slow to catch up. But the thing is, we gotta live with what we've got. (Kinda like an election with two lame candidates.) That is the challenge. We're better to work with what evolution has equipped us than to ignore it. We have to be realistic. Dare I say it? We occasionally need to be _reasonable_. (Hello Apple.)

If I understand you correctly this time, you're saying we would have gotten a better deal if Microsoft had not been able sue competitors. Even the Gates Foundation, with all its billions, can't manage to achieve world peace or universal equality.

I read Maskin's paper from 1999. His basic premise was that software didn't need patents to reach a high level of success as an industry. And when the rampant software patenting started, he says it did not boost the industry. But he seems to think that this example of one industry sums up the entire role of the patent system, for any industry. Still not sure I buy that. If he has done his homework on other industries, e.g. pharmaceuticals, he is not showing it in that paper. Maybe I need to read more of his papers.

[nitrogen]

Hey, I absolutely agree evolution is slow to catch up. But the thing is, we gotta live with what we've got. (Kinda like an election with two lame candidates.) That is the challenge. We're better to work with what evolution has equipped us than to ignore it.

That's what I'm saying. Politicians will apply the fallacy of the false compromise, so in order to get what you want, you have to lobby the politicians in opposition to your opponents.

Suppose you could represent the politician's opinion as a number. Your goal is to get the politician to believe in 1.0. Your opponents are arguing for 2.0, so if you argue for 1.0, the politician will go for 1.5. You have to argue for 0.0 in order to get a reasonable compromise at 1.0.

If I understand you correctly this time, you're saying we would have gotten a better deal if Microsoft had not been able sue competitors. Even the Gates Foundation, with all its billions, can't manage to achieve world peace or universal equality.

I was making two points: 1. if Microsoft hadn't made billions, Nathan Myhrvold wouldn't have been able to fund Intellectual Ventures and start a lawsuit campaign via shell companies; 2. (less seriously) if software wasn't covered by copyright, there would still have been a Free Software ecosystem, because there is a sizable subset of the population whose primary driving instinct is the creation and distribution of useful human knowledge.