Quote from: FredericBastiat on August 29, 2011, 07:24:16 PM

Of course, society describes its members. So what. Just because a group of people does something doesn't inherently make it right or wrong.

We could bring back slavery. I could make a law that all geriatric men and women be killed because they are a "drain" on society. I could make any substance illicit with the stroke of a pen. I could give privileges to anybody in any industry so as to reduce competition. I could put a star of david on your arm and send you to the gulag. I could do lots of things...

I think you don't understand the cultural context in which slavery existed. Back then, Africans were ruthlessly imported to the Americas as slaves to the colonists. Before that, the native Americans were ruthlessly massacred. The reason isn't purely because the colonists were sadistic murderers - it was partly because *they believed that "negroes" and "redskins" weren't actually people but savages*. Read Huckleberry Finn if you need convincing. It wasn't considered murder or enslaving any more than whipping a mule to carry a load, or shooting a gorilla that threatened you, would be today. The people weren't wrong - the whole damn society was wrong.

Of course, we're more refined now, and it's clear that Africans, Caucasians, Hispanics, Orientals, Arabs, are all the same species (Homo Sapiens, right?), so, no, you couldn't bring back slavery. You'd have to convince the society of which I am a member to do it first, and you'd have to show why the gene for eye colour is enslaveable when it expresses blue eyes, and not when it expresses brown. Notably, euthanasia *is* legal in some places, and the eugenics of Nazism weren't all that long ago. Some substances *are* made illegal with the stroke of a pen, but, ideally, such decisions should be based on a rational and public discussion of the merits of such substances. In other words, *you* shouldn't decide, *your society* should, and it should have expert advice to draw upon.

More or less as expected, you didn't answer my questions on Libya.

Let me ask you another question then. Suppose scientists were to discover complete DNA of, and successfully recreate, Neantherdal man. Or Homo Erectus, or Homo Abilis. Similar to us, but which different genetic codes, therefore, NOT human. They'd probably be much stronger and less intelligent than present-day Homo Sapiens. Would it be acceptable to enslave them?

Intellectual Property, in the case of patents, might damage society now because (e.g.) medicine is expensive or unavailable. But it will certainly have a long-term benefit as that same medicine eventually becomes cheap and widely available. In the case of copyrighted music or suchlike, the benefit of 100+ year long copyright is a little harder to swallow, unless you think music, as art, is a very important contribution to human happiness. Software, I think, probably stands somewhere between these two - having a word-processor certainly benefits the company using it but, after some time has passed and the developer has recouped the research investment, it's hard to see how piracy could be harmful (though perhaps I can imagine investors in "softdev.com" not being happy with its soft attitude to piracy, withdrawing their investments, and "softdev.com" ceasing to trade and ceasing to develop wonderful new, presently unknown, software).