Creepy 2020

[Richmond Mathewson]

This is a problem that revolves around 2 highly abstract concepts:

'Rights' and 'Property'; both of which have no reality in the physical 
sense at all.

'Rights' are even more nebulous than 'Property' so I'll TRY to show what is
'odd' about the concept of property first.

For the sake of argument:

1. I own a house in Scotland.  How would I ultimately prove that?

Well . . . title deeds (which can be faked), the beliefs of my
neighbours (notoriously fickle), a rental agreement (on paper)
I have with somebody who pays me money to live in the house.

Difficult one.

2. I own the coat I am wearing.  Really? Begs the question.

3. I own my ideas, ways I behave ['data'], and so on.
    WHAT do you own? An abstract concept (ownership)
applied to a set of abstractions and behaviours resulting from
a congeries of abstractions.

'Rights'

Consider:

I have a right to own a fridge.

What on earth does that mean?

Either I own a fridge (maybe that constitutes having a fridge inside
my house), or I don't.

I suppose we could have a piece of paper drawn up by some chaps
that states "Every man has the right to ..... " but I really wonder if
the chaps who drew up that paper had really thought through what
that meant?

Lynn Fredricks wrote:
> snip
> For example - does Safeway really need to know that I, personally, bought
> Ben & Jerry's Imagine World Peace, or that my preferences for this ice cream
> occur on date X in location Y? If I do not disclose this information by
> using a "rewards card", that Ill be charged significantly more?
>
>   
snip

Now, knowledge is mine only as long as it is locked inside my head; as soon
as it is out, "running around wild, in the open" it is as free as a bird.

Anybody who sees me buying Haggis at Mogerley's in Dumfries doesn't,
surely, have to ask my permission to tell that piece of information to the
owner of the Instant Plastic Haggis Factory so he can flood my letter box
with multi-coloured pamphlets about how his Haggises are only made from
the meat of choicest stray dogs and cats?

"If I do not disclose this information by using a "rewards card", that 
Ill be charged significantly more?"

Tough cheese, you live in a market-driven economy - move to a "people's 
paradise" such as
Cuba (or, soon to be Venezuela and Nepal) if you can't hack it.