Yeah I need to stop. The more I brood over what I just read the more unbearably frustrated it makes me. I want my time back. I am sorry if I'm being overly harsh. This one really hit a nerve.
I am going to assume you are one of those reductionist materialists I read about. /s
Just saying that I found the story interesting and well… lovely (in a way) but perhaps that’s different backgrounds at work (I dabble in art) so I wonder what makes this such an unbearable thing to read, perhaps a very practical person? Not necessarily directed at you dcow.
I actually did find parts of the essay quite reassuring and beautiful and the story in isolation rather interesting. As a copyleft non-believer in intellectual property (and rather that you must apply labor to ideas and can only own the outcome of such acts), I am also pleased with the outcome.
So the sour aftertaste, for me, is likely related to the juxtaposition of positive and negative elements and I think ultimately is a reflection of the balance he chose to give each. Suffice to say, I think there's a not-so-different delivery of this essay which would have left me with a much better aftertaste.
Sounds like his art had a bigger impact on you than you realized. :)
I share your beliefs about IP, and I hope one day the world breaks free of the concept. But maybe try to be a little less mean. It’s worth it if only not to be one of those people that just post dunks for internet points. (I’ve done it a few times and usually regretted how I sounded after the dust settled.)
Cheers for openly expressing “down with copyright” though.
One thing I learned about HN that I don't even think about anymore is that upvotes are only weakly correlated with the quality of the submission itself - they usually reflect the interest in the topic revealed by the headline, or signify there's good HN commentary, or both.
IIRC, back before the "favorite" feature was introduced, people would use - and some still use - upvotes to bookmark interesting threads.
Second thing I learned is to always at least skim the comments before opening the submission itself, to gauge whether the latter is even worth it. Quite often it isn't. Here I thought it is, but the text was so long and... off somehow, that I got back to comment thread and read it more carefully, and now I know why it's off and that it's not worth it (for me personally) to read it more carefully.
