[Logseman]

Strabigotry is a personal belief, indeed. In essence, it's the effort to look at the world like a cross-eyed person does. Two eyes that move in different pattern, providing different points of view at the same time, cleaning the eyes from prejudice and preconceptions.

The problem here is that you are looking at this as merely thwarting someone else's prospects of income. In reality it is taking something that doesn't belong to you. You can artificially make distinctions about physical or non-physical property.

So where does it stop? Maybe it is alright to steal someone's car if it red instead of another car? Or you can take someone's home if they live on the left side of the street? I know that those two examples seem absurd, but so does the idea of stealing property because it is non-physical IMO.

I would say the distinction between physical and intellectual goods is quite clear. While taking someone's car implies depriving him of that car, hearing him singing a song and learning it doesn't mean he loses the ability of reproducing the song. There is nothing arbitrary about that, no deprivation, no theft. The only thing which becomes lost is, if at all, the possibility of milking off the song for money.

This part is just plain stupid and you should be embarassed for posting it. The entrance barriers for those fields of commerce have nothing to do with limiting competition or the revenues of others.

I guess you want to go see the doctor who has no medical training and is a high school drop out. Or maybe you want to buy insurance from a guy who has no reserves to pay you from?

I have expressed no preference for shameless shamans or broke insurance bankers (though people seemed to be very content in that little company called AIG). However, if it is my choice, and said choice doesn't harm anyone, I can't understand why I shouldn't be able to put my money (which, as stated before, is mine to please me) on such services.

Since the state gets it power from the society as a whole, your idea that it is an organization that is not legitimate to make rules is flawed IMO.

The state gets its power from their weapons, from the taxes it steals and from the legitimacy it is provided after centuries of being there, aside of the support of its pet organisations, such as large conglomerate companies.

What I pointed out that your stated belief in breaking any law that you can get away with is in common with a pyschopath. If you disagree with that, I suggest you look it up.

I suggest you revise your appreciations about psychopathy. Regulations, the same as any other factor, are subject to a cost-benefit analysis by individuals, companies and any organisation, in light of the game theory. They compare the benefit of breaking the law with the punishment they'll get if they get caught, and the risk itself of being caught.

I download what I want because it provides me the content I wish to see (which I appreciate a lot), the risk of punishment is low and I can build a good defense since the topic is quite shady legally.
However, I pay taxes (which I hate to do) because the risk of punishment, and the punishment itself, are huge and stern, and I have no way, with my to-day means, as to escape said punishment. Others do have them, and they use them. Perfectly sane fellows, by the way.

Now I will explain the famous graph and tell you why black markets actually improve welfare.


The area comprised between the X-axis and the functions of supply and demand (which finishes in the point P2) measures the welfare of producers and consumers. The point P2 is the market equilibrium, in which buyers won't find the good for a lower price and sellers won't charge more for it. The point of market equilibrium is the one that maximises the welfare of both consumers and producers.

However, when the state puts a price control, in this case a maximum price below the market equilibrium, producers are not incentived to give any more of the good to the market than the legal price makes them. But of course, there are both consumers who will pay more for the good. Thus, those consumers-psychopaths will gladly enter in illegal trades in order to acquire more of the good. If the black market is powerful enough (an example could be the post-WWII Germany) the prices will be restored to their normal equilibrium and the government eventually gives up. However, the normal outcome is that governments can enforce price controls and people must resort to psychopathy in order to get, for example, more milk than they actually could have.

However, the point of all this explanation is to simply make you understand that breaking the law is not psychopatic per se: harming other people intentionally is. People simply are ingenious enough to circumvent whichever random restriction they're given.

Consumers' choice do try to maximize their enjoyment and welfare, but in legal means. It does not include theft anymore than it includes armed robbery.

As I said, regulation is subject to a cost-benefit analysis.
Nevertheless, I agree with you that people who resort to armed robbery and killing other fellow human beings are really psychopatic. That's why they tend to work for the State or state-like organisations: they can't be productive for society so they try to justify their killings and robberies under the letter of law. And not always...

Well some do. I would bet that this is not as rampant as you think. I will admit I don't have proof of that and I could be wrong in that area.

You can safely bet your head that the majority of films of a certain age are watched by a different person other than the downloader.