RE: persuasive speechesHello, for what it's worth, you may plagiarize from here: IMHO, computer-related issues that involve an ethical dilemma are worthy of discussion among laymen and computer specialists alike. Particularly such discussions among computer-related specialists should be pursued because computer applications are almost ubiquitous in our urban lives (and will continue to pervade our environment, even as part of our clothes, and our very bodies.) So yeah ethics should be important for computer specialists, students and teachers. Another field that has dropped its interest in the ethical questions arising from its practice, ie, the mass media, has reached untold lows in its complete disregard for any responsible behavior towards its end users. We don't want to see this happen in the field of computer science and its applications. At worst, these ethical discussions can't hurt. Now regarding the question of downloads, I've missed the thread, but I wish to express that the intellectual property issue is mostly a hoax, and a falacious concept that serves only to maximize the profits of the entertainment industries. Many aesthetes and philosophers (Popper, Foucault, Barthes, Jung, Althussere &c.) have pointed out that ideas (which translate into popular culture) arise from clichés, archetypes and memes that are shared throughout our culture, and have been circulating and roaming around our collective cultural consciousness for centuries. These ideas are simply the recycled riffs, proverbs, motifs, themes, folk tales and poetry, melodies, hopes and fear, and indeed the entirety of human experience since the beginning of history. Moreover, I also would like to note that once you issue a song or a poem, it is no longer yours. It is released into popular consciousness. The notion of royalties is laughable really. As to the ethics of intellectual property, well it is again my personal opinion that popular artists are overrated, their wages are overrated (especially now that art and culture have been on the decline in quality for over two decades,) and the videos, books, dvds, and cds are overpriced by the entertainment industry. I believe that true artists do wish that their art be shared by all, and for free. A musician's living would be more rightfully earned from live gigs, session work wages, contracts with distributors etc. But this concept of royalties is a cheat at best. Having said all this, I encourage others to use Napster (while it is still free,) and to use Gnutella when Napster caves in to corporate lustre. ----- Original Message ----- From: Carskadden, Rush To: cypherpunks@toad.com Sent: Monday, December 04, 2000 6:44 PM Subject: RE: persuasive speeches How about a business case for relaxing intellectual property regulations? If you could put together a good persuasive speech on that one, I would like to see it. Or you could do a persuasive speech on the economic advantages of more lenient cryptographic export restrictions. Or you could do what I did when I had that project in school (and this is my personal recommendation) - blow off class to go hang out in the gallery of the House, get there and remember it's tourist season and they are rotating people through in five minute intervals, and decide to go downtown and get drunk. I then had to deliver a persuasive speech the next day on why it was more important to skip class and get drunk than to do assignments, which didn't impress anyone and earned me a failure on the assignment. Or you could subscribe to the speech writing mailing list (I'm sure there is one) and ask them. -----Original Message----- From: Lockinator21@aol.com [mailto:Lockinator21@aol.com] Sent: Monday, December 04, 2000 4:51 PM To: cypherpunks@toad.com Cc: pitbull32@excite.com Subject: persuasive speeches I can't think of a persuasive speech topic; can you think of one?