Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!tektronix!decvax!watmath!rwwetmore
From: rwwetmore@watmath.waterloo.edu (Ross Wetmore)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: lotus chairman makes 26 million
Message-ID: <18662@watmath.waterloo.edu>
Date: 5 May 88 13:01:52 GMT
References: <380@motbos.UUCP> <9160@cisunx.UUCP> <11334@mimsy.UUCP> <1606@looking.UUCP>
Reply-To: rwwetmore@watmath.waterloo.edu (Ross Wetmore)
Organization: U. of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 40

In article <1606@looking.UUCP> brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes:
>You bet it was immoral for you to duplicated that BMW, and also illegal.
>
>In using your matter duplicator, you became a car manufacturer.  The
>duplicator is not important.  You could make an exact duplicate of a BMW
>with conventional methods (BMW does it all the time).
> [ ... ]
>It is immoral to misappropriate somebody else's creative efforts against
>their will.
>
>Why is that hard to understand?
>-- 
>Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473

The devil's advocate would probably come up with something like ...

Throughout history spies and informants have long understood that the
value of information was inversely proportional to the number of people
that had that information, and for all intents and purposes a delta
function for any individual transaction.

The costs of passing on information are almost independent and usually much
much less than the value of the information (before the transaction).

Darwinian evolution and its corresponding commercial counterpart imply that
that survival depends on taking advantage of any competitive edge.

This implies the converse that those with a competitive edge use it and
try to monopolize it in an effort to stifle the competitor.

The only time this is a concern is when there is money or prestige involved
(ie some definite survival advantage).

There is no morality in nature or a capitalist economy ... except survival
ie it is immoral not to survive (it is also dangerous to your health :-).

Ross W. Wetmore                 | rwwetmore@water.NetNorth
University of Waterloo          | rwwetmore@math.waterloo.edu
Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G1       | {clyde, ihnp4, ubc-vision, utcsri}
(519) 885-1211 ext 3491         |   !watmath!rwwetmore