piracty always a sin

[zippy2006]

Even if someone didn't understand exactly what I meant by "normal", the usage of the qualifier should have made it obvious that I wasn't referring to all piracy and therefore wasn't saying it was "inherently" non-violent. I'm very confused how someone would arrive at that interpretation.

Because without that interpretation your point becomes moot. In that case your argument is, "Well, according to my idiosyncratic definition of 'piracy' what you're describing is a bit of an abnormal form of piracy." Okay? Therefore...? The conclusion you were aiming at was the idea that what I was describing was not piracy.

You're falling into sophistries of various kinds in ways that I haven't seen you do before.

In regards to the rest of your post, at this point, I feel we're going around in circles in this sub-argument, which is not helped by how much of this seems based on misunderstandings like the above. I also worry that continuing on this makes it seem like I'm trying to argue in favor of piracy when I was just trying to say I think a specific (though common) talking point about piracy was wrong. I dtherefore on't think going through the rest--which would eat up a bunch of more time, of which I've already devoted a lot of which to this argument--would be of much use to anyone.

I will take this as a concession, including the concession that your property materialism has been shown to fail.

I do appreciate that you are trying to avoid giving further impression that piracy is legitimate or permissible.

 

[JSRG]

Because without that interpretation your point becomes moot. In that case your argument is, "Well, according to my idiosyncratic definition of 'piracy' what you're describing is a bit of an abnormal form of piracy." Okay? Therefore...? The conclusion you were aiming at was the idea that what I was describing was not piracy.

The conclusion I was aiming at was the idea that what you were describing was not the kind of piracy I (or I believe anyone else in the topic) was talking about, namely the way piracy is normally done.

You're falling into sophistries of various kinds in ways that I haven't seen you do before.

My supposed "sophistries" seem to be the result of you misunderstanding or misrepresenting my position. And it keeps happening. Even after I explicitly denied making the claim you said I did, you then in your very next message, while replying to the post where I denied it, claimed again I made it.

I will take this as a concession, including the concession that your property materialism has been shown to fail.

My statement essentially said "I don't think this is going anywhere and I'm tired of you constantly misrepresenting my views". That doesn't seem like a concession, but I suppose I can't prevent you from taking it as such if you want. But the fact is, I (and everyone else) has only so much free time, and time spent arguing on a forum is time that could be spent on other things. I'm sure you and everyone else has plenty of times you see someone post something you disagree with, but you don't take the time to respond because it would take time away from other things, just like you've done in this very topic. So when it comes to making a response to something, the question is, is what I am accomplishing with the argument worth the time spent? Possible goals for arguing something are:
1) Convince the other person.
2) Check to see if the other person can convince you of their viewpoint
3) Convince anyone watching the argument

There are other potential goals, but those (at least for me) are the main ones.

When making or continuing an argument, I or for that matter anyone else has to weigh various factors factors to determine if they think it is worth their time, including the amount of time that would be required, likelihood of accomplishing any of the above three points (or accomplishing any other motivation they might have for arguing), and the amount they want to argue or continue arguing the issue (which itself is the result of various different factors).

In regards to this specific argument, neither #1 or #2 seem likely to happen at this point. That leaves #3. No one else seems to be participating in our sub-argument at this point, so I am unsure if there is anyone to persuade. There usually are some silent onlookers in any forum thread that could perhaps be persuaded, but even if there are I also think it is unlikely after this amount of back-and-forth anyone who wasn't convinced (or moved towards being convinced) by me is going to be convinced by further arguing of me on the subject (however, should any "third party" observer want a response to a specific point they feel I left unanswered, I might be interested in doing so). As it would take a while to go through everything, seems unlikely to accomplish any of the goals I listed to an extent not already accomplished, and is an issue I'm having less interest in arguing about now (it's not something I'm extremely passionate about, and I also find the debate frustrating due to things like the misunderstandings), it doesn't seem to me that spending the additional time would be worth it.

Like I said, ordinarily I would have just not replied and left it at that. People leave online debates without further comment all the time, and I'll rarely begrudge someone for deciding their time would be spent on other things and quitting an online debate without further comment, or consider it some kind of automatic concession. I opted to respond because two of your misrepresentations of what I was saying were so flagrant and so baffling to me I felt I had to at least make a point to correct those, but at that point I felt I owed an explanation for why I responded to only those and didn't go further.

Of course, I'm sure someone could snark "well, for someone who said they didn't think the debate was worth spending more time on, you sure were willing to spend time explaining why you didn't think it was worth spending more time on." And it is a little funny that I ended up spending time arguing why I didn't want to spend time arguing something else. However, I believe this post probably took less time to do than a response on the original points would have, seems more likely to accomplish the standard goals I laid out, and I also put higher importance on defending myself on this than I do on trying to argue the original point.

One final point on that. If my reluctance to continue arguing the point counts as a "concession", then it seems I must conclude that you have conceded to partinobodycular that piracy is perfectly moral. Earlier in the topic, when responding to them, you said:

I don't see that you are much interested in telling the truth, and I am not much interested in speaking with those who are not interested in telling the truth.

So you said you weren't interested in speaking further with them, and you haven't given any response to any of their subsequent posts or arguments. By your standards, it seems like partinobodycular can consider you to have conceded to them that piracy is morally correct.

I do appreciate that you are trying to avoid giving further impression that piracy is legitimate or permissible.

I think it seems permissible--ethically, at least--in some circumstances. But I wouldn't go as far as partinobodycular seems to be doing.

 

[zippy2006]

worth their time

If you enter into an extended dialogue with someone then you should be willing to defend your basic claims. If you are not, and you run away midway through, then it would seem that you have conceded, and have no answer to the arguments at hand. Your basic claim throughout has been that the victim of piracy loses nothing, only potential gains. That claim has been addressed multiple times and you have never even attempted to respond to those arguments.

And if this were really a time issue for you then you wouldn't have just spent an enormous amount of time with more quibbling, this time (ironically) over the meta-question of time use. My time is best used in addressing and giving key arguments, not giving and receiving quibbles and evasive posts.

 

[JSRG]

If you enter into an extended dialogue with someone then you should be willing to defend your basic claims.

Which I believe I did do.

If you are not, and you run away midway through, then it would seem that you have conceded, and have no answer to the arguments at hand.

By your logic, since you ran away from partinobodycular midway through, it would seem you have conceded, and have no answer to the arguments at hand (or rather, you have no argument to their arguments, which I'm not completely in agreement with--but nevertheless, by your logic it seems you're conceding).

Your basic claim throughout has been that the victim of piracy loses nothing, only potential gains. That claim has been addressed multiple times and you have never even attempted to respond to those arguments.

The fact you are not satisfied with my responses does not mean I have not given them.

And if this were really a time issue for you then you wouldn't have just spent an enormous amount of time with more quibbling, this time (ironically) over the meta-question of time use.

I explicitly responded to this in the post you quoted from.

However, rest assured that less time was spent on this post than the previous one.

My time is best used in addressing and giving key arguments, not giving and receiving quibbles and evasive posts.

It again seems by your logic that you are running away midway through and have conceded the point.

I'm sorry if this message seems a bit aggressive, but my attempt at brevity (spending less time on it) somewhat forced that.

 

[zippy2006]

By your logic, since you ran away from partinobodycular...

I did not enter into an extended dialogue with him, and therefore you are wrong.

I explicitly responded to this in the post you quoted from.

And yet the point stands.

It again seems by your logic that you are running away midway through and have conceded the point.

Here is the central argument you most recently evaded:

Let's take your example of a publishing house that illegally prints a copyrighted material, which is of course piracy. By printing the publishing house has appropriated to itself the right to the material. It is this right which an author either has or does not have, and this is precisely what the court will adjudicate. The fact that the right can be used to make money is posterior to the existence of the right itself. The question of potential income has no relevance until the question of the right has first been settled. To gain a right does not mean "...you didn't gain anything. But neither did you lose anything, other than potential gain. It's all about potentials, not anything actual." A right is not merely a potentiality. It is a real, existing (moral and legal) possession which alters reality.

 

[JSRG]

I did not enter into an extended dialogue with him, and therefore you are wrong.

You responded to them multiple times. That seems "extended". But maybe you have a different idea of extended, like maybe someone has to make more replies than you did, or has to write enough words or respond in enough depth. Whatever the meaning of extended, it strikes me as rather odd to apparently claim that if someone gets into an "extended" enough discussion, it somehow locks them into the discussion and that if they dare decide the argument isn't going anywhere and it would make the most sense to spend their time on other things, they concede the argument.

And yet the point stands.

Well, if someone completely ignores my explanation, maybe.

Here is the central argument you most recently evaded:

I don't feel it threatens my prior points, nor would spending a bunch of time responding further to it (which would definitely take much more time than this post, and then possibly require me to spend even more time responding to any response) sufficiently accomplish any of the goals of having an argument I outlined for all the time spent to be worth it.

I have an issue with getting overly absorbed into Internet arguments and devoting unreasonable amounts of time to responding to them. The argument had already eaten up a lot of my time. As with any argument, at a certain point, I have to take a step back, ask myself if I think I'm accomplishing anything with them worth the amount of time being spent, and in this case I concluded no. Ordinarily this would be accomplished by simply not responding, but again I thought some of your misrepresentations were so big I had to at least respond to those before doing so, and then felt that perhaps I should give an explanation for my actions. Unfortunately, it does seem like I may have gotten myself entangled in a new argument, but this one is much faster to write up posts regarding it. We'll see if it ends up taking up so much time I lose interest in it also.

 

[zippy2006]

You responded to them multiple times. That seems "extended". But maybe you have a different idea of extended, like maybe someone has to make more replies than you did, or has to write enough words or respond in enough depth. Whatever the meaning of extended, it strikes me as rather odd to apparently claim that if someone gets into an "extended" enough discussion, it somehow locks them into the discussion and that if they dare decide the argument isn't going anywhere and it would make the most sense to spend their time on other things, they concede the argument.

It really makes no difference to me whether or not you think I conceded the issue to partino. I couldn't care less.

Regarding your concession, consider a scenario where you exchange a few words with someone in passing, and then walk away. Now consider a scenario where you enter into an extended discussion on some topic with someone for a few hours, and then walk away mid-discussion. Now consider how these are different.

I have noticed that, in long discussions, when you have something hanging over your head, you are wont to skip town. It's simply a repeat episode here, and since you're intent on skipping town I think we're done, no? I'm certainly bored of the quibbling and evasion. If you want to meet the central argument, do so. If you fail to do so again I will simply cease responding (and at this point I assume you will continue to evade it).

(I think you are right to be cautious about spending too much time online, but on the other hand one should not enter into a longer exchange if they are not willing to see it through.)