Women in Technology

I understand the way your thoughts flow. Yes, there is nothing inherent in
something that makes it property - it becomes property by decision. That is
true. But it is trivially true, because every concept that people have is by
decision. Acoustic waves become music only because we perceive it as music i.e.
by decision. Some musical subcultures perceive as music what others perceive as
irritating noise - it is all by decision. We can spread this way of thinking to
absolutely anything we have in our human universe. This absoluteness is what
actually "makes" this way trivial - trivial things are absolute. But, there is
good common words for this - "simplicity is worse than a theft" (you may know
it worded differently).

The non-trivial thing is WHAT we decide. And also, who those "we" who
decide. Let me explain. Following your argument, we can say that there is
nothing inherent in, say, ... human beings ... that makes them property -
humans become someone's property by decision. We actually had cultures in the
past, that treated humans as property (slaves) of other humans. The only reason
a human being become property is that we decide it's property. Say, in our
culture we've decided rightly or wrongly that having privately owned human
beings yields economic benefits for the many that outweigh the disadvantages to
some (guess who)... But is it the RIGHT decision to have humans as privately
owned property, even if it would yield economic benefits? Has United States
abolished slavery just because slavery stopped yielding economic benefits? Was
there civil war to abolish slavery just because North though there is no more
economic benefits out of it, even if South definitely though there is yet some
to extract. (This, actually, a very good analogy to understand current
out-of-control situation - someone still want to extract huge economic benefits
for themselves at the expense of society out turning ideas into property, and
nothing but "civil war" can stop them.) And would you, personally, agree to
become someone's property, even not inherently - just by decision, just because
it yields economic benefits... I hope not.

This leads us to conclusion that there is something, yes, inherent in WHAT
we decide, that precludes us from making human beings a commercial property.
Put differently, there is something inherent in human beings that precludes us
from making them private property. Absolutely same way, there is something
inherent in ideas, that precludes us from making them private property (with
patents). Same way we strive to protect our freedom, freedom of speech and a
like - there is something inherent in all this...

This is it, ideas cannot be property, they are not patentable. But specific
implementation of ideas can perfectly be made property with copyright. (In the
context of above argument, it is same to that humans cannot be slaves, but can
perfectly be employees.) For example, specific Mozart symphony is the
implementation of musical ideas, say, passion (may be it is not well "timed"
example, but it doesn't matter). That implementation is copyrighted and Mozart
holds copyright on it. It is perfectly OK, cause it makes private property only
very specific implementation of music idea, and humans are perfectly free to
implement music idea of passion their own way, again and again, as they like.
But issuing patent on music idea of passion would prevent people from writing
another symphony that "implements" music idea of passion, and only someone in
possession of patent has "right" to write passionate music - definitely it
automatically creates badly smelling monopoly and monopolistic profit
opportunities that create covert efforts for such patentability at the first
place. Patent on music idea of passion is actually a crime against humanity -
same way like turning humans into slaves, depriving of freedom, even if it is
"mere" freedom of speech, are also a crimes against humanity. But patents on
music ideas are exactly what patents on algorithms, software and business
methods all about. They attempt to turn entire idea, not specific
implementation of it, into someone's property. And, like slavery, it is
INHERENTLY and fundamentally bad thing.

In addition to being inherently and fundamentally bad thing, turning ideas
into private property (with patents) is also very harmful to society at large,
cause it kills innovation. But it is very beneficial to the few, at the expense
of society, and this is the only reason why it exists and even resists its
removal - those few make all they can (and they are mighty few) to preserve
their patented monopolies to earn abnormal profits at the expense of society.
Same way there was large resistance to abolishment of slavery - such a large
resistance that only war can overcame it.