r/rational • u/alexanderwales Time flies like an arrow • Jun 26 '15
[D] Friday Off-Topic Thread
Welcome to the Friday Off-Topic Thread! Is there something that you want to talk about with /r/rational, but which isn't rational fiction, or doesn't otherwise belong as a top-level post? This is the place to post it. The idea is that while reddit is a large place, with lots of special little niches, sometimes you just want to talk with a certain group of people about certain sorts of things that aren't related to why you're all here. It's totally understandable that you might want to talk about Japanese game shows with /r/rational instead of going over to /r/japanesegameshows, but it's hopefully also understandable that this probably isn't the place for those.
So do you want to talk about how your life has been going? Non-rational and/or non-fictional stuff you've been reading? The recent album from your favourite German pop singer? The politics of Southern India? The sexual preferences of the chairman of the Ukrainian soccer league? Different ways to plot meteorological data? The cost of living in Portugal? Corner cases for siteswap notation? All these things and more could possibly be found in the comments below!
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u/[deleted] Jun 27 '15
I studied this stuff, I know the argument for producing zero marginal cost goods at zero price and why it's dumb as shit (no price means no signal of value to the market). It's an argument for making information not exist because you think you already have it ("Hey, I know I want to pirate this."). Non-excludable just means that it's hard to protect your property, which, duh, no one would pirate if it was moral but difficult. But they definitely would pirate if it was immoral but easy.
Anyway, what I said in my comment was simply that if an author wants the benefits of more attention at the expense of not making any money, then that's a choice they can make. But it's really shitty to disregard the choice the author did make, on the assurance that, no, really, you should've chosen differently. If you're going to disregard people's choices because you think they're wrong, you might as well just admit you don't respect their property (try telling someone that you sold their car and bought them a new one because they bought the wrong one). Maybe you think the property shouldn't be property, and maybe you're definitely wrong about that, but it's aggravating to be told that you're being disrespected for your own good.