[ExI] Transhumanism and Politics

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

On Jan 22, 2008 3:59 PM, Stefano Vaj <stefano.vaj at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> But you may have also noticed that there have always been people
> violently, albeit futilely, resisting lawful execution, or stealing
> food to avoid death by starvation.

### Yeah....so what?

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> And I am pretty sure that many would consider "violent" whatever
> attempt at enforcing "property" of longevity technologies might took
> place.

### Would you count yourself among those "many"?

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Because, you know, to do that you would require guns,
> policemen, electrified fences and so on, more or less as to enforce an
> attempt to assert property on breathing air.

### Not really. Intellectual property is in the mind of the creator,
and in some other material resources used to impact the world. It is a
form of personal property stemming from first possession, since a new
idea always appears in the human mind which is legitimately owned by
itself only. Air (at least outside of space and undersea habitats) is
subject to a number of property conventions, for the most part placing
it in the public domain. An individual assertion of rights over
intellectual property is therefore automatic, while unilateral
assertion of rights of exclusion to air would infringe on established
property claims of others.

Whether an action is to be seen as violent cannot depend on
superficial appearances, and association with weapons, but rather must
be based on the analysis of the underlying principles.

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>
> Now, my point is not taking side about that. I simply encourage
> realism in this respect

### I do not understand. The word "to encourage" has a weak normative
connotation, so there is a certain state of affairs you wish to come
about. You are taking sides. What then is this "realism" in practical
terms? Cessation of attempts to enforce intellectual property? Refusal
to protect pharmacies from thieves? Allowing patients to hold
physicians at gunpoint until cured?

Rafal