Re: OT: Apple stealing "Lily"

[David Kastrup]

Tim McNamara <address@hidden> writes:

>> On May 6, 2017, at 3:47 AM, David Kastrup <address@hidden> wrote:
>> Robert Schmaus <address@hidden> writes:
>> 
>>>> Please cool down and stop overreacting.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Well your statement, which - very possibly without any bad intention
>>> - turned around the historical facts, so admirably matched that
>>> notion that occasionally pops up also on this list ... namely that
>>> notion that everything proprietary is an attack on one's
>>> freedom. And that *is* paranoid.
>
>> Uh, no.  That is the _definition_ of "proprietary": being not at
>> liberty for the taking.  That does not preclude putting the
>> respective consequences into proper relation to one's own personal
>> standards and aims.
>
> This is ultimately questioning whether ownership of anything is moral,
> when taken to the logical conclusion.

Uh, no?  Definitions of words are not a matter of morals.  Unless you
consider "liberty" to be a moral value in itself, regardless of whose
liberty to do what it entails.

> At the current prices, treating those patients alone would bankrupt
> the state; not treating them causes significant long-term health risks
> which are in turn expensive for the state and its taxpayers.  Whether
> doing this increases or decreases liberty is an interesting question.

Indeed, you seem to consider "liberty" something existing as an
independent measurable cumulative entity whereas everyone's personal
liberties are actually independent from and conflicting with those of
others.  The aim of morals is to balance liberties, not maximize them.

-- 
David Kastrup