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Not a word I like to hear when it comes to government. The more power you give it, the more likely some idiot will come along and abuse it. Look at Trump, the only reason he can absolutely wreck the economy w/ tariffs is because Congress gave him that power and refuses to curtail it.
So you’d rather give power to corporations. Who definitely abuse their power. Rather than a government, which at least is potentially elected.
I think governmental structures are probably outside the scope of this conversation, but I’ll at least state that the reason Trump is bad is not only that he has power. Its the lack of power that his opposition has because they utterly fail to seize it when opportunity presents itself. Again, it is all about leverage.
Sure, but they’re getting a lot less of it than they could if it was a more competitive market.
They pay obscene amounts to get decent results. I think they could get the same (or better!) results with a lot less spending if the system wasn’t rigged to be anti-competitive.
I think that this is pure conjecture. Going “full competitive” would be at best a double edged sword. A lot of money and risk is involved in highly advanced military tech. Realistically you’d see businesses crumble and merge. Naturally converging into a monopoly.
I think that only works in countries w/o a large medical devices/pharmaceutical industry, otherwise you end up with ton of lobbying and whatnot. I don’t think the total cost of healthcare would go down, it would just shift to net tax payers and healthy people. Look at the ACA, it didn’t reduce healthcare spending at all, it just shifted who pays for it, and it seems healthy people ended up spending more (to subsidize less healthy people).
To actually reduce costs, you need to make pricing as transparent as possible, and I don’t think single payer achieves that. It can be a good option in certain countries, but I don’t think it’s universally a good option.
To actually reduce costs, you increase the leverage the buyer has. Transparency in pricing would do that to a tiny degree, what would do so far better is a monopsony/single-payer system where all the buyers effectively are unionized.
Again, it always boils down to leverage.
Only have access to this account during work, so late reply.
We’re talking about IP protections, not general monopolies
It doesn’t matter, monopolization at any level has the effect I described.
Yeah, that’s not going to be abused
You’d need to elaborate I’m not clear what you mean by this.
scare away companies
There are ways to force this into not being an issue. We don’t have to suck a corporation’s dick to keep their productivity.
It’s also why the US pays an obscene amount for its military. Defense contractors absolutely fleece the government because they are generally not allowed to contract with other governments, so they expect a higher profit from their one contracted buyer.
It sounds like the military is still getting what they paid for and its worked out for them. They pay obscene amounts to get obscene results.
Single payer also applies to healthcare proposals and is generally seen as a fantastic solution to keeping healthcare prices down.
With a monopoly, you may very well be making everyone pay for the increased price gouge that comes with monopolies. Not just the customer of that particular product. It depends on the nature of the product.
If it is a component of a more common device or product, basically everyone ends up paying more (HDMI comes to mind). If its an innovation relating to a basic need and gets integrated with the majority of services, basically everyone ends up paying more. If its something that has external implications on the market or wider world that creates inefficiencies, then people functionally make less money because effect people pay more and thus long term this harms spending on a variety of products. If people can’t afford the price gouge and continue using less effective products (assuming they are even available) they likely long term spend more money to make up for the inefficiencies from that.
Monopolies damage things beyond the product that gets monopolized and merely concentrates wealth.
Regardless a subsidy is not the only alternative. That’s still thinking in terms of carrot, and you are forgetting the stick. You can also legislate mandatory R&D in budgets for large corporations based on revenue/profits just as much as you with the punishment of potentially being fined/taxed more.
But outside of that, there is also government contracts. That is, a single payer, (monopsony) generally can get fantastic results out of competing firms. Its largely a major reason why the American Military has historically benefited from such significant technological advancements for nearly a century now.
that doesn’t mean the idea doesn’t have merit.
As an incentive structure for corporations and “people” purely motivated by avarice, sure.
Most people naturally want to create and contribute as long as their needs and most basic wants are met. A monopoly as an incentive is not necessary.
Without that protection, companies would be less likely to invest in R&D.
There are many ways to motivate corporations to do R&D outside of offering them a monopoly on a silver platter. Incentives are only one half of the equation. Its really all about leverage.
No. They buy Apple & Nintendo because of brand loyalty and their social significance.
Have you not seen how deranged they get about those companies products? Nintendo fans lose their minds if someone dare criticize a Mario, Metroid, and especially Zelda games.
Apple fanatics think every new product is a revolution even though some other company or organization has usually already beat them to the punch.
Further, Windows, PS5, & Xbox are are not their only competition. And even then, they are enshitiffied now but that doesn’t explain Nintendo and Apple fans behavior before those competitors became this way.
I’ve not gotten around to trying it yet, I’ve already got like 6-7 games on my plate ATM on various devices. I actually suspect I wont hate it but I hear its pretty meh.
Hopefully Bethesda can turn it around with DLC/updates though. I hear modding is still in its infancy too so maybe we’ll get something in that area down the road too.
Also I figure if I wait hopefully Starfield will get a VR edition (or maybe a mod) and that might be when I really want to jump in.
Its mostly just that I want a Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim with a sci-fi setting. A solid story, lots of side-quests, and a dynamic world that reacts to the player. I’d probably enjoy a modern metropolitan criminal setting as well for an RPG like GTA’s settings but Elder-Scrolls/3D-Fallout gameplay but you never see that at all.
Space is cool though.
First, thanks for elaborating. I welcome the challenge to my views, but now I need to counter.
they shouldn’t be advocating for copyright, i.e. don’t base your whole business model hypocrisy. “Copyright for ther but not for me”.
I never suggested that they are advocating for copyright. Utilizing the rules of a system to get ahead doesn’t mean you actively advocate for it. That said, I somewhat agree, if a small indie dev was using gen AI and then however gets litigious over people pirating their game that indicates a ruthlessness that is significantly unpalatable and I certainly would not support them. I’d view them as extremely petty and stupid to the point that the potential hypocrisy almost comes second to me though.
I do believe generative AI to be copying rather than learning, unlike humans.
I don’t see a difference. There is nothing intrinsically special about a human’s learning methods that can’t be replicated by computer systems. Even if the current generative AI methodologies wasn’t exactly the same process, that is immaterial. If I created a humanoid robot that learned to physically paint based on paintings I showed it, would that be merely “copying” instead of learning?
What if they came out with neurological enhancement implants to human brains that sped up the process of humans learning how to do art to the point that they also could trivially replicate other artist’s styles?
The difference is purely in economic consequences. In both of my questioning examples producing art becomes economically trivial, that’s the problem. The meta-physical question of whether its “art” or whether only humans are truly creative is all cope and gibberish.
The third paragraph tries to put a class barrier on good morals. Let’s assume that is true. I’d argue that anyone that has the time and money to start their own venture into game development also is quite “comfortable” and should therefore be measured by the same stick.
This is all relative/subjective and I largely just disagree. I think this is an easy position to hold if you’ve already “made it” so to speak. It comes off as someone rich tut tuting someone poorer than them for “taking shortcuts” and saying “Look, you have a computer, smart phone, a microwave! You should be happy with what you have and just work harder if you want more.”
“Good morals” is also extremely subjective. When it comes to meta-ethics, I only care about consequences, not about the virtue of individuals. Virtue only matters in my personal relationships.
Most open source is created by people in their spare time. They mostly have full time jobs to do as well, the collaboration is done for fun or as a calling to do good for the world.
Having spare time and energy to contribute to open source is a privilege in today’s society regardless of how it is achieved. You can argue that in our time of abundance this should not be the case but unfortunately it is.
Again though, I don’t view this as a negative on the part of people who contribute to open source. I strongly support such people and hope at some point I’ve reached a point in my life that I can do the same.
I don’t agree with the scolds who claim that every GenAI use is immoral by default, but I do think that the tech itself when applied within capitalist practices is immoral as it’s meant to deskill and disenfranchise workers.
All capitalist practices are immoral in functionally the same way. Capitalism works to use worker exploitation but also use of the commons for private gain. Generative AI is now part of the commons that capitalists will inevitably use for profit. The fight over worker disenfranchisement in this case was functionally instantly lost the moment generative AI became usable at all.
Anyway, any defense you can make for your “little indie game” can be made by mega-corporations using GenAI just as well.
They already do and are going to regardless. In fact, using Generative AI will likely become functionally mandatory given a capitalist market system. If you take on labor costs that other firms don’t, then you will not be able to compete. This applies to big corporations and small indie devs already. A company wont abstain from Gen AI if their competition wont and all it takes is one company to start using Gen AI.
A person working to make profit might not actually believe in copyrights. Nor hold any ideological kinship with the system they exist in.
Further, virtually all resources to do anything originated in “the commons” and the sort of person who’s trying to produce a game as their means of making money probably are just trying to get away from a miserable 9 to 5 (or not live under a bridge).
People who work and give away their shit for free are good people, but they are also usually people who are financially comfortable already. Its not right to dictate what resources some individual game dev is trying to use to make a living off their work.
Competition naturally degrades over time as companies go out of business and consolidate. And capital interests fight tooth and nail against large monopolies being split back up. Its more or less a miracle that it’s ever happened at all and it would be naive to think it’ll ever happen again.
Do you think a more direct “medical patient union” would work? Skipping a government intermediary?
I mean, I’d prefer socialized healthcare over single payer. Single payer for me is merely an acceptable middle ground. As would having a proper public option next to private care (though admittedly that would slowly erode from lobbying).