Why can't we all just get along? (copyright edition)

I just watched this lecture by Lawrence Lessig.* It inspires me to do good out in the world. Maybe I should have gone to law school? I like to write and I'm killer at logic puzzles; being a lawyer might really agree with me. And I care about all the enormously, outrageously bad things that are happening in the way that we -- a society, a species -- treat ideas.

Why can't we all just get along? Why do court cases take so long? (And how dramatically different would the entire world be if the US had a time-limit on court cases?) Why is it so hard to get people to do the right thing?**

I have trouble believing that there is some Recording Industry Executive sitting up in his mountain retreat, stroking a cat in his lap, and ordering his minions to go forth, and shower the fuel of money upon their army of lawyers. Why is this the way things work? Perhaps it's a gradual accumulation of small negative decisions which leads to this massively evil, broken system. The RIE needs to make a payment on his yacht, so he has an underling sign a new artist, so... and the lawyer can charge $100 more per hour if he works for the RIE's company, and... so on and so forth.

How can I help? Perhaps I can help devise a more realistic model of this profit-corporation-courts-makers model, and then a game-theoretic strategy where it is in the interests of all parties to be nice. Then the next step is to change the entire political/social system to conform to the rules of my game.***

So I can't really help, or at least I feel that I can't really help, and this feeling will cause me to fail to help. sigh

*Via *Emergent Chaos*, who has some interesting thoughts on the term "non-commercial." More on Creative Commons' research project into "non-commercial" via Boingboing.
** I know that it is more complicated than just "do the right thing," because people have different opinions of what "the right thing" is. That just makes me more frustrated.
***Oh, algorithmic mechanism design, how I love you.


This post's theme word: quodlibet, "a subtle argument, especially on a theological or philosophical issue" or "a musical medley: a whimsical combination of popular tunes." As in, "we had a quodlibet about whether the quodlibet was legal."

Itchy

Some combination of the weather, an uptick in mosquito population, chlorine, and soap/lotion is making my skin itch all over. It feels like ants are crawling across my body. This is the worst my "biggest organ of the body" has ever been. I can't figure out how to make it stop -- my usual fallbacks of udder cream* and lotion aren't working. In fact, all variations of the Lila-controllable factors make no difference.

I think I am allergic to summer.

I scratch myself in my sleep until my skin is raw. I've trimmed my nails down to nothing and sleep in full-coverage pajamas to prevent this, but still. It's not pleasant. I spend my waking time either freezing in my overly air-conditioned office, or focusing on not itching the itches.

G. joked that this is a common symptom of withdrawal. Hah hah. I'm suddenly very sympathetic with addicts. And also extra-convinced not to become one.

Please, may I have winter now?

*As used on real cows! Very soothing.


This post's theme word: formication, "the sensation of insects crawling on the skin."