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[silverspawn]

But why don't you donate without illegally downloading all that stuff?

I'm with Awaclus on this. There is virtually no reason to do this. Consuming a piece of media doesn't hurt the developer at all.

And he's also right that it could help them. I'm watching through the Ghibli movies right now, and you've probably seen me express how much I adore Spirited Away at places. I've already gotten one other person to watch a bunch of them, and will probably make others do it too because I don't want them to miss out. At some point someone could pay for them.

But even in the worst case where that never happens and Ghibli doesn't in any way benefit from me, it is still only as bad as it'd be if I hadn't watched any of their movies in the first place. So yeah. Advertisement and stuff.

[silverspawn]

I was waiting for an answer so I could elaborate with basically what you have here. I don't think a system works if it breaks down upon everyone following it.

"It wouldn't work if everyone did it!" is a non-argument. You can say this about virtually every career choice. If everyone went for the same career choice you did, the world wouldn't work.

The question is would it be good if more people did it, and the answer is an unambiguous yes. If, at some point, this is no longer true, then I'd reassess the situation.

[Seprix]

I was waiting for an answer so I could elaborate with basically what you have here. I don't think a system works if it breaks down upon everyone following it.

"It wouldn't work if everyone did it!" is a non-argument. You can say this about virtually every career choice. If everyone went for the same career choice you did, the world wouldn't work.

I'm not sure you're refuting what he is saying. I don't think either of you are talking about the same thing.

[silverspawn]

I think it does. He said a system doesn't work if it wouldn't work if everyone did it. I said that it makes no difference what would happen if everyone followed it. The system is working. Artists are a bit worse off and much poorer people a bit better with what I'm doing, which is a net positive. That has to be what "work" means in this context.

[Seprix]

I think it does. He said a system doesn't work if it wouldn't work if everyone did it. I said that it makes no difference what would happen if everyone followed it. The system is working. Artists are a bit worse off and much poorer people a bit better with what I'm doing, which is a net positive.

What if everyone paid for things instead? How would the system break down then?

[silverspawn]

when have I said that that would be a bad thing?

[Awaclus]

If nobody pays for it, there will be no product.

That's how it would work if all creators did what I'm suggesting they should do (i.e. crowdfunding every project and not doing the project if they don't get paid enough money for it to be worth their time). The way most creators do it now, the creators create the product for free and then if nobody pays for the product (regardless of whether or not they acquired it through other means), they just spent a lot of time and got nothing in return but the product definitely exists.

if everyone is a utilitarian who thinks the way that you do, why does anybody have to pay for anything?

I don't think there exists a utilitarian who thins the way that I do. I'm not a utilitarian, I'm an ethical egoist (which is why I download stuff for free and then don't donate to charities outside of special occasions when I happen to feel like donating money either to a creator I like or a charity I like). People have to pay for certain stuff that has value (like services and physical items) because that stuff is limited and not freely available to everyone.

[Seprix]

when have I said that that would be a bad thing?

When you said that a system doesn't work when everyone follows it. See what I mean when I thought that you and eHalcyon were talking past each other? I may be making the same mistake, because that is an obvious refutation. It's way too easy, and cannot be what you are arguing.

If nobody pays for it, there will be no product.

That's how it would work if all creators did what I'm suggesting they should do (i.e. crowdfunding every project and not doing the project if they don't get paid enough money for it to be worth their time). The way most creators do it now, the creators create the product for free and then if nobody pays for the product (regardless of whether or not they acquired it through other means), they just spent a lot of time and got nothing in return but the product definitely exists.

It would be cool to have everything crowdfunded. I wouldn't disagree with that. It couldn't work with everything, but I don't hate crowdfunding as an idea.

[silverspawn]

when have I said that that would be a bad thing?

When you said that a system doesn't work when everyone follows it.

I think I was talking about my "system." If everyone refused to pay for media, that might be a problem.

Or it might be a good thing, because movies can still fund themselves through theaters and if art gets generally harder to make we'd have less of it and probably more of it would be passion projects. Awaclus' album would still have been made. For anime specifically it'd be worst, because anime makes most of its money through sales. But again, this is a theoretical discussion with no impact on the points I'm making.

[Awaclus]

It would be cool to have everything crowdfunded. I wouldn't disagree with that. It couldn't work with everything, but I don't hate crowdfunding as an idea.

Why couldn't it work with everything?

[pacovf]

You want to keep discussing this here.

[Kirian]

In the exact scenario described, he is right - if the only two options are illegal download or not acquire at all, it is obviously better for you to download it, and at worst it has no effect on the content creator. At best there is "exposure" which has nonzero value.

The reasonable response here is a reminder that people die of exposure.

And tell their friends about it. By the end of the day, you've gained a bunch of fans for free. That's super useful to a creator.

But unsurprisingly, not as useful as food.  Having a bunch of fans who will then also illegally download your stuff, and no one who pays even the smallest bit, means you starve.

[Seprix]

GOOD MORNING.

[McGarnacle]

GOOD MORNING.

Now lets act like that brief time the forum was down didn't drive us to the depths of insanity.

[Seprix]

GOOD MORNING.

Now lets act like that brief time the forum was down didn't drive us to the depths of insanity.

TELL ME MCGARNACLE, ARE YOU AFRAID?

[McGarnacle]

GOOD MORNING.

Now lets act like that brief time the forum was down didn't drive us to the depths of insanity.

TELL ME MCGARNACLE, ARE YOU AFRAID?

A little

[McGarnacle]

GOOD MORNING.

Now lets act like that brief time the forum was down didn't drive us to the depths of insanity.

TELL ME MCGARNACLE, ARE YOU AFRAID?

A little

Looks to me like someone had a rough night.

[Awaclus]

But unsurprisingly, not as useful as food.  Having a bunch of fans who will then also illegally download your stuff, and no one who pays even the smallest bit, means you starve.

Only if I work for free.

[heron]

Probably it's more moral to donate charity and not download the games illegally than it is to donate to charity and download the games illegally. So if you are trying to optimize your morality I guess you can't play games.

[Witherweaver]

It's probably also more moral to go join a charitable outreach program than to post on this board, so you should all probably go do that.

[Awaclus]

Probably it's more moral to donate charity and not download the games illegally than it is to donate to charity and download the games illegally. So if you are trying to optimize your morality I guess you can't play games.

How is it moral to not download games?

[Chris is me]

Probably it's more moral to donate charity and not download the games illegally than it is to donate to charity and download the games illegally. So if you are trying to optimize your morality I guess you can't play games.

How is it moral to not download games?

This isn't what he meant, but one argument would be that games are wasted labor that could be used to do good in other mediums.

[pingpongsam]

The spider weaves the web, the trick drains blood, the fly multiplies in defecation.

[Kirian]

Programming Fail of... well, the worst I've seen in a long time.

Program won't run on my computer.  Back and forth a bit with tech support, log files, etc.

Tech comes back with:  "Oh, I hadn't noticed the first time that your date format isn't normal.  Can you change it to mm/dd/yy?  That should fix the problem"

It seems to have fixed the problem.

What blithering idiot created a program that asks the client for the formatted date, rather than just using the system date?  Like... what the actual fuck??

(I use dd MMM yyyy for my dates, like most scientists do.  One could argue that yyyy-mm-dd is better though.  American date notation sucks giant baboon balls.)

[silverspawn]

I agree with the last part. my date notation in the forum is YYYY/MM/dd - hh:mm:ss. Also agree with the first part