Open Thread, 2/9/2014
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Looking forward to reading Greg Clark’s new book, assuming I can spare the time….
I mentioned on Twitter an idea I had in regards to intellectual property. One of the reasons that intellectual property exists is to foster creativity. But with the proliferation of derivative music through the power of capitalism’s economies of scale, is there really any benefit? (see One Direction today and Backstreet then) Perhaps we should just live off the huge library of music which has been produced and saved across the many decades since storage formats came into existence? Someone pointed out that there really isn’t a need to produce any more porn; everything has probably done, and it is just a matter of familiarity.
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“… is there really any benefit [to creating new music, etc.]?” I can see at least two reasons why new works continue to be created, even in areas like boy bands and pornography where superficially it seems that “everything has probably done, and it is just a matter of familiarity”.
First, fashions change even if nothing else does, and changes in fashion make works of the past foreign to us. There may be no essential difference between One Direction and Backstreet Boys, but the young girl of today can identify with the former in a way that she can’t with the latter, whose clothing, hairstyles, etc., mark them as being of a different generation. For more examples look at Tiger Beat covers through the years: Donnie Osmond (April 1974 and November 1975 covers) may have been functionally equivalent to Justin Bieber and vice versa, but I doubt any current tween would find him attractive. Since pretty much the whole point of both boy bands and pornography is the thrill of imagining oneself a romantic or sexual partner of the musicians or actors/actresses, the psychic distancing due to changes in fashion significantly reduces the appeal of past works and thus motivates the creation of new ones.
Second, over and above the relatively superficial changes in fashion there are deeper social and technological changes that impact the form and content of artistic works, even in stereotypical genres. For example, think of the impact on both pornography and teen-focused music of increased ease of travel (songs about teenagers driving cars, “stewardess porn”), access to effective contraceptives, self-expression via social media (sending selfies to the Bieb, using webcams), and so on. This makes works of the past even more foreign to us: not only do the people in them not look like we do, they don’t have the same experiences and share the same concerns.
So I’m afraid that of the making of boy bands there will be no end, ditto pornography.
but isn’t it there to protect the few really good new things that are truly original? things like Greg Clark’s new book? i’m not worried about One Direction but if Walmart took Terrance Malik’s “Tree of Life,” edited for their audience, and started selling it at their pleasure then that might discourage him from making more films, no? I had to laugh at a libertarian guy I know who writes his own admix code. Would he be ok with 23andme taking his code and using it to make millions of dollars? I’d doubt it. And patent protection isn’t *supposed* to protect things deemed too derivative anyway. If we extended that rule to Copyright, I think a judge could legitimately rule the new One Direction album as being such and, therefore, wouldn’t be protected. People could steal it as much as they wanted and then that would discourage *them* from making more music – we’d get exactly what we wanted. it’s all theoretical but i’m just sayin’. plus, who doesn’t like new porn? the older vids get boring. interestingly, most porn is “stolen” anyway.
http://www.nsfwyoutube.com/watch?v=FYnxbjyxFtY&feature=youtu.be
fantastic footage from Syria if anyone cares to see it. amazing shots of Assad’s “barrel bombs.” (some parts are quite graphic) this movie had excellent production quality for a Syria vid – they should Copyright it!
I’ve been wondering, why really do blacks have more agressiveness and less intelligence? I learned through reading Rushton’s book “Race, Intelligence & Behavior”
Was this idea inspired by Robin Hanson’s discussion of the costs of variety?
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2014/02/what-cost-variety.html#disqus_thread
I think he’s pretty clearly wrong about the benefits of reducing production of varieties of physical products (not to mention the hit to future innovation/improvements if we’re just mass producing single “standards” in most categories), but there does seem more merit to the idea with regard to intellectual property.
no idea about hanson.
most academics don’t want their ideas sold/restricted btw. you can pretty much get clark’s work through preprints. book is just a convenience.
An interesting article casting doubt on the DNA analysis of the Paracas skulls: http://doubtfulnews.com/2014/02/foerster-pye-and-ketchum-collaborate-paracas-elongated-skull-exposed-its/
Of course, it could be: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGu2OQoSvUk
23andMe has added refined profiles for anyone interested. as in, it used to simply say 100% northern euro now it will give you % German, English, etc. My lineage is German (I thought) but it said I’m primarily English – I have no idea how accurate this is. maybe Razib knows
“Was this idea inspired by Robin Hanson’s discussion of the costs of variety?” No disrespect to Hanson, but I found his discussion of product variety pretty much what you’d expect of a male economist: an emphasis on economic efficiency to the exclusion of other factors, and the conclusion that the only reason people want variety is because they’re in status competitions with others.
I think there are human motivations behind a love of variety that don’t involve status competition, including a basic love of novelty and boredom with the familiar. I won’t mention band names (lest I myself be accused of status competition), but in the case of music I like the fact that I’m able to find new bands X, Y, and Z that are reminiscent of the bands A, B, and C that I love but at the same time bring something new to the table. If you’re looking for people (and libertarians in particular) who have interesting and insightful things to say about the human love of product variety I’d go with Virginia Postrel (of “The Power of Glamour“) over Robin Hanson.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/05/us/chinese-implicated-in-agricultural-espionage-efforts.html?ref=us
then there’s all the software theft as well. not a fan of open borders – would a Chinese company come here and “farm” our IProperty if we relaxed the laws? i don’t think the WTO would work too well if this happened. idk tho maybe it wouldn’t be that bad – just doesn’t seem like a good idea to me.
Since it’s South Asian and a flamebait-of-the-week in the hereditary cancer community, and since you wrote on this subject before, enjoy:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3889063/?report=classic
(The author appears to be a proponent of treating cancer with holistic diet and naturopathy, but her piece appeared in a medical journal (WTF?) which, judging by its table of contents, isn’t anything like spoof)
take 23andMe’s results with some caution. not without foundation, but be careful of false precision (or really, accuracy).
This chart caught my attention:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/markadomanis/2014/02/09/why-pussy-riot-failed-in-one-chart/
It shows steady increase in Orthodox identification, at the expense of Non-believing identification in Russia since 1989 (which would make it, if I’m not mistaken, contrary to trends in the West, i.e. the USA).
Does anybody have good explanations for this trend? I’m guessing that Russians who were weakly attached to Communism (and with it, ‘official’ atheism) became attracted to Russian nationalism, and with that switched to a (nominal) profession of Orthodox faith to which Russian nationalism is attached to. But I don’t know.
orthodoxy and russian nationalism have been pretty well connected over the last 20 years. so yes, that’s what happened. most people conform to the dominant ethos, that’s all.
If I wanted to familiarize myself with what is known about the lifestyles of hunter-gatherers, does anybody have any book recommendations for me to start with?
” Would he be ok with 23andme taking his code and using it to make millions of dollars? I’d doubt it.”
That would depend on the type of license he specified. Significant number of software developers are ok with that.
Example,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freebsd
“Mac OS X Server includes the latest technological advances from the open source BSD community. Originally developed at the University of California, Berkeley, the BSD distribution is the foundation of most UNIX implementations today. Mac OS X Server is based largely on the FreeBSD distribution and includes the latest advances from this development community.
—”Apple Mac OS X Server Snow Leopard—UNIX: Open source foundation”, [59]”
BSD type of license allows commercialization without financial royalty and proprietory modifications be kept secret.
GPL type license also allows commercialization without financial royalty but the modification sources must be made public.
All this does not stop software creativity.
yes, open source is a *personal* choice. leave it to the individual to choose – give them the *freedom* to control their own destiny;)
If you can get to it, I (and I’m sure many other readers) would be interested in your discussing this latest New Scientist article arguing for a single Native American migration out of Asia and how it fits in with the Reich et al. paper from 2012. Is the “Anzick boy” simply an ancestor of the “First American” stream posited by Reich?
Here’s the New Scientist paper: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22129562.100-native-childs-genes-rewrite-the-history-of-america.html?cmpid=RSS|NSNS|2012-GLOBAL|human-evolution#.UvviPP0azHN
Thanks!
Is the “Anzick boy” simply an ancestor of the “First American” stream posited by Reich?
yes. or at least of that population.