> > An unfortunate consequence of a free market is the unequal > distribution of wealth. That is why we tax the rich and give to the > poor. Either way, you benefit.
If more businesses were cooperatives, this wouldn't be the case. The free market alone is not the cause of unequal wealth distribution. It's the combination of the free market and our cultural habit of accepting the role of employee versus part owner for those workers who are not central to the effort. If we as a culture were more in the habit of sharing a small portion of ownership of a company to motivate people to work in addition to giving them a paycheck, then when jobs get automated away, everyone would win instead of just a few. On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 2:37 PM, Matt Mahoney <[email protected]>wrote: > On Tue, Mar 26, 2013 at 2:37 PM, Steve Richfield > <[email protected]> wrote: > >> The patent was on a proprietary program to compress seismic data. It > >> was one of many customer-specific compressors that I wrote. All of my > >> open source programs like PAQ and ZPAQ remain free of patents, and I > >> plan to keep it that way. > > > > You have no choice - as they are firmly in the public domain. > > I mean I won't patent any improvements. And publishing does guarantee > that I can't patent the existing algorithms. That's the point. > > >> If my employer didn't let me publish my work > >> open source and unencumbered, I could just retire now (since I can > >> afford to) and nothing would change. > > > > ... until the economy pancakes and your savings become worthless. > > I am not so pessimistic. I think the economy will continue to grow > thanks to automation. > > >> The process will be very expensive. > > > > So the big corporations will own it, now us. > > An unfortunate consequence of a free market is the unequal > distribution of wealth. That is why we tax the rich and give to the > poor. Either way, you benefit. > > But if you can understand why the economy is growing even as machines > do our jobs, then I think you will see new opportunities. > > My suggestion would be to open source Dr. Eliza and build a web > interface where people can interact with it and add to its knowledge > base. Maybe it won't be very good at first, but it will improve over > time. Don't worry for now how it is going to make money. You are > selling your skills. Maybe some opportunity will come of it. > > -- > -- Matt Mahoney, [email protected] > > > ------------------------------------------- > AGI > Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now > RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/23050605-2da819ff > Modify Your Subscription: > https://www.listbox.com/member/?&; > Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com > ------------------------------------------- AGI Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/21088071-f452e424 Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=21088071&id_secret=21088071-58d57657 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com
