[kwlug-disc] AI and social justice

[Chris Frey]

On Thu, May 28, 2026 at 12:00:10PM -0400, John Van Ostrand wrote:
> Are you really using the term "communist" properly? Because your idea of
> making IP public is kind of communist.

Ha!  Hadn't thought of it that way.  There are many subtleties with
these terms! :-)

I guess I don't view it as communist, because public IP encourages
competition, but does not limit ownership within that competitive
market.


> I don't think governments are as broken as people think. At least not any
> more broken than any large organization.  However I do think one issue
> today is lack of competitiveness. We have too many oligoplies and
> monoploies. Anything that large needs more regulation to ensure that the
> small guy can compete better. I have very few ideas on what that entails.

I think we are agreeing here.  When I see oligopolies and monopolies
and government politicians arranging the world for the growth of
their own portfolios, I see broken government.

In this case a "wealth tax" is not what I want, but more of a "power tax".
People in government authority should be using it for the benefit
of the little guy, not self-enrichment.  And large businesses that
benefit from government contracts and incentives need to have a
little-guy balance in the formula, enforced by the government.


> > I ask: do we really believe that siphoning
> > more money into government coffers, in order to dole it out to the
> > poor through various stingy methods, will cause prices to go down?
> 
> I don't think that's the idea. "Dole it out" sounds like subsidizing. I'm
> not sure that's a solution. The solution is things like right-to-repair and
> restricting proprietary advantages. Maybe refactoring patent and copyright
> laws and base its term partly on ROI.

I love right-to-repair and open IP.

So I think I care much less about whether some rich guy has billions
sitting around doing nothing, and much more about how that rich guy
is able to influence laws and regulations that make it harder for
the little guy to compete.

Economists in the Gary camp seem to focus only the money and
how unbalanced the outcomes are.  That just stokes envy, and I'd
rather stoke competition.

Taxing idle wealth may put more cash in the hands of government,
but what then?  That's why I said "dole it out" because I wasn't
sure what else that Gary and his friends would recommend.  Even in
that video, they seemed much more excited at just getting the tax
implemented.

I want to get away from the idea of "he's filthy rich, and therefore
bad, so let's take his money away via tax" and instead toward
"he actually bad (because of actions X and Y), so let's stop the
harm he's doing whether he's filthy rich or not."

- Chris