Note that none of these sources are by any means the complete works of Orwell. Much of his writing was done in newspaper columns that were never collected during his lifetime or, due to resistance from his widow, for many years after his death. The true complete works was published in 20 volumes in 1998, of which the latter 10 volumes were content previously not published in book format (afaik). Unfortunately, though understandably, this set was a small run and mainly ended up in the hands of collectors and academic libraries. Anyone who has access to it would do the world a great service by scanning and uploading it to libgen or similar.
Let people keep their works exclusive if they so wish.
We don't publish the formula for Coca Cola, but somehow an author (or his estate) has less entitlement to his own work, than an a flavour technician at Coca Cola.
Stop cheating the rules. It makes me not want to write, not want to work.
The strongest desire I have for an authoritarian leadership is to keep sticky hands and brazen heads off works, that took a lifetime to make.
People say we don't need the wrath of god, but we also don't need the double standard of "secrets for me, openness for thee".
We’re not talking about private correspondence or unpublished drafts here. Orwell clearly didn’t want these works to be secret, given he published them in the newspaper.
His widow wanted them forgotten because she wanted to control his image. He is a controversial figure whose ideas changed a lot over the course of his life. After her death, they were collected, presumably with permission from the family.
That they are not in wide circulation now is because they are voluminous and obscure, so there is no market to sell them. I certainly am not interested in reading all of his book reviews and political reporting. But many more people are interested in reading them than have the university connections required to do so.
There is nothing to be lost and everything to be gained by making the complete works available to anyone for free, or even for a normal amount of money. But no publisher is going to because it’s not profitable. That’s fine, they don’t have to, but that fact undermines any argument that a volunteer who does this archival work is somehow acting immorally.
Publishing in the newspaper is not proof of future intent. People want published works retracted all the time. Half of all youtube videos since 2015 have been deleted. Should I go undelete those videos on their behalf, just because they published them once?? Come on!
She should be allowed to control his works if she is the legal owner. If it's just to control his image, then yes that's a lame intent. But she should be allowed to do it.
Exclusivity is lost. Control is lost. Cover from global attention, is lost. The ability to recommend articles to the suitable audience, is lost.
Taking something that doesn't belong to you and posting it on the web (for free, no less) is 100% immoral.
Yes, we should allow Orwell to keep his works private (that is, printed in newspapers for the public as he did himself) and not public (that is, in the hands of the small number of private collectors who would be interested in preserving these works).
How much worse of a world would you be willing to accept if it being worse gave you the slim chance that you'd profit a small bit longer if you ever had success?
Would you close public libraries if you believed it gave you a 3% profit increase when you do so? (In fact having a library opened will generate more readers, so more customers will be buying you book even if some can rent it for essentially free).
These are not a trick questions, they are the actual ethical questions at play here — and the reason you are being downvoted.
As a European it is also crystal clear that this kind of thinking is the root of most major social problems the US is experiencing for decades now (in comparison to nearly all other similar wealthy nations). The US would be in a much more economically sustainable place now if it wasn't for the constant "privatize gains socialize losses"-game.
It doesn't matter what hypothetical profit I could make. I didn't dream of fat stacks of cash and then derived the desire to write.
I should (and do) have the right to prevent pilfering of my work. Or more accurately, forced inclusion into a system of pilfering, not just one thief taking to afford bread, but tens/thousands/hundreds of thousands doing the same, together.
I love the option to include my work on the web, in a library, ect. But to do so against my choice is beyond the pale.
I love the option to keep things exclusive and electively publish.
I write for my own reasons. I get it, the son makes abundant life for all, and the thief destroys all. I agree with the 'book' that states that truth.
Putting concepts and ideas on the web or in public access is not a clear cut win, and some ideas need decades of work to mature before they are both palatable to the public and also kept away from systematic rewrites and revisions, kept away from making a bad first impression on customers, ect , ect.
There are many many examples of works being repossesed and edited against their original intent on the web, we saw it happen to Roald Dahl recently, JK Rowling is probably next.
Why would I write harry potter if I was not motivated by money and also knew that a beaurcracy in a foriegn country was going to erase Hermoine from my books.
I'd keep my work completely out of reach, and profit less, and retain control.
Because guess what, at the end of the day, some people like Einstein, Newton, Dickens, Twain, ect would consider the work they created to be meaningful in-and-of itself. And someone who sacrifices for decades to make such a work, would rather protect it, than prostitute their beliefs for economic gain!
I mean come on, we all have notice the drop in quality of works produced and then we defend the perverse anti-incentives we have in place.
The best way to have your cake and eat it, is to actually have your cake and eat it.
Incentivize the best work to be created and then protect it once it exists. In that ideal world, who cares if people don't pay? As long as the freedom to create and deploy or retract is unimpeded, then quality works can exist.
Who cares what he did, once open, is not always open.
Youtube has deleted 50% of it's videos since 2015. Do I have the right to reach back into those profiles and undelete them, and republish their deleted videos?
Yes trade secret laws and copyright laws are different things, true fact established.
If we're living under the rule of law and not an authoritarian society, you have to justify pilfering copyrighted works, which you conveniently, didn't.
I agree with you that rule of law is good. I think the copyright length should be reduced. But you're right, that just because I believe copyright length should be reduced doesn't give me or anyone else the right to infringe copyright.
However, you seem to be trying to use copyright to enforce secrecy on a non-digital item, which doesn't work. Someone who owns that rare book can put in a library for anyone to come by and read.
Using copyright to enforce secrecy on digital items (Youtube videos) partially works. The reason it doesn't fully work is because there are exceptions for fair use.
You want me to prove a negative? How many times do scientists have to point that is impossible?
also known as; they can't prove God does not exist (flying spaghetti monster, ect, ect). You can't ask me to prove that no writing makes the world worse.
The problem is of incentives. Freedom to pilfer other people's works, is destroying the heart and soul in the desire to write.
> every group of humans is further divisible into smaller groups
Indeed, the Ryukyuans were divided into a whole kingdom with its own head of state and foreign policy, which didn’t become “part of Japan” until the late 19th century. Hokkaido was “acquired” in the 1860s, along with its indigenous people. The dates and situations closely parallel Hawaii and Alaska. To say that they are Japanese because the Japanese government decided so is to ignore historical facts in favor of ideology.
It’s worth remembering that there is often a conflict of interest between the system and the individual.
An example where I’m from is train station escalators. There is an unwritten social rule that you stand on the left, and let anyone who is in a hurry walk down on the right. This benefits the individuals because if you’re in a hurry you can get through faster, and if you’re not you don’t care. But the rail company has constant announcements telling people not to do this, and to stand on both sides of the escalator, because a full escalator clears the platform much faster.
These announcements are largely ignored. No individual cares about clearing the platform, even though it is the best thing for the rail network as a whole (crowded platforms cause delays). I would also argue that the needs of the few people running to get to work are more important than improving network efficiency. But the job of the very intelligent, well informed boffins who make the announcements is to make the trains run on time, so the announcements continue.
In this case too, I think the FAA have a different set of priorities to the passengers, and they really don’t care about your medicine. Probably if there is an emergency they will send an employee back into the plane to grab your bag, as a one-off exception. If they’re too slow and you die, too bad—-should have had extra medicine in your shoe.
Policy is created to achieve institutional goals; individual needs are an afterthought at best.
"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."
I... kind of hate this. I can understand it, but I hate it nonetheless. I don't think it can ever be a universal truth, though.
Of course, it does require discipline to know the difference between "the needs of the many" and "the needs of the corporate entity you're working for".
> These announcements are largely ignored. No individual cares about clearing the platform, even though it is the best thing for the rail network as a whole (crowded platforms cause delays).
It could be that people ignore it because the rail network is asking you to break the social contract at no benefit to you whatsoever, only an increased risk of a negative encounter (at best getting cursed out and at worst how long until someone gets shoved for blocking the walking half?)
The real win here would be for everyone who is able, to walk down the damn escalator.
>It could be that people ignore it because the rail network is asking you to break the social contract at no benefit to you whatsoever, only an increased risk of a negative encounter (at best getting cursed out and at worst how long until someone gets shoved for blocking the walking half?)
That won't happen. The OP clearly lives in Japan, probably Tokyo. That kind of thing never happens here; it's an American phenomenon, and probably various other not-so-civilized nations. Here, breaking the social contract in this way just makes people annoyed and gets you mean stares at the very worst.
Also, he's mainly talking about people walking up the escalator, not down. Many stations only have one escalator to the platform, and it's usually going up, since it's easy to walk down stairs.
Finally, it's only certain rail companies that have this policy; there's a bunch of different train operators.
I thought it would be too ironic for people to misunderstand this based on a machine translated version, so here is a genuine, human translation of the transcript, with boring bits redacted.
Kii: Next question, again regarding generative AI. I would like to ask from the two perspectives of copyright protection and educational use. [...]
First, can we understand that Japanese law permits the use of works for information analysis, both for non-commercial and commercial purposes, and acts other than copying, and using content that was uploaded illegally?
Nagaoka: Use for non-commercial information analysis is permitted under Article 30-4 of the copyright act, provided that the purpose is not the enjoyment of the ideas and emotions expressed in the copyrighted work.
Kii: Minister, I asked about four aspects of use for information analysis: non-commercial use, commercial use, acts other than copying, and illegally uploaded content. Please address the other three.
Nagaoka: Use for commercial purposes is permitted under Article 30-4 of the copyright act, provided that the purpose is not the enjoyment of the ideas and emotions expressed in the copyrighted work, because that Article does not distinguish between information analysis for commercial or non-commercial purposes.
Regarding copying, Article 30-4 of the Copyright Act does not distinguish based on the method of use, so use by means other than copying is permitted provided that the criteria are met.
[...] Regarding content obtained from piracy sites and the like, [...] illegal uploading itself is infringement of copyright, and is subject to a damage claim, petition for injunction, or criminal punishment. However, it is not practically feasible to identify whether any particular work in a large collection obtained from the internet is copyrighted or not, so making this a criterion for information analysis would make it difficult to use information analysis for Big Data.
In addition, as the use of a work for information analysis is not use for the purpose of enjoyment of the ideas or emotions expressed in the work, and even if [it were used in that manner] it would not overlap with the original market for the use of the work, so it is not considered to harm the interests of the copyright holder that are protected by the Copyright Act.
As such, Article 30-4 of the Copyright Act does not have the legality of the work as a criterion.
Kii: Minister, based on your answer, I think the greatest issue is that there is no protection against use that goes against the intentions of the creator or the copyright holder. I believe that new regulations will be necessary to address this point; will you consider such new regulations?
Nagaoka: Article 30-4 of the Copyright Act provides for use that is not for the purpose of enjoying the ideas or emotions expressed in the work, and applies to acts that are considered not to affect the opportunities to collect revenues from the work, and not to harm the interests of the copyright holder protected by the Copyright Act.
That Article also provides that the use is limited to the extent considered necessary, and it does not apply to cases where the interests of the copyright holder are unduly harmed. [...]
There was considerable appetite for socialism immediately after the war, and the US officials of the early occupation were notably progressive (New Dealers, basically). As US-Soviet relations soured over the next 5 years, a lot of reforms were walked back or discarded, but some were obviously irreversible.
Thr is anthr wy, whch ws dscvred ntrlly by early intrnt usrs: txt spk essntlly rduces englsh spllng to an abjad lk Arbc. Lk Arbc, Englsh is vry cnsnant hvy, and dialctl dffrnces are almst entrly vriashns n vwl qualty, so an abjad is the prfct wrtng systm fr us.
The perfect English abjad would use diacritics to mark vowels and some clever way to identify syllable boundaries (so you can distinguish ideal from idyll). But alas, we’re probably stuck with an alphabetic script forever.
Vowels were a later addition to many semitic languages as one example. Not sure that it would work so well in tonal or vowel-heavy languages but information is denser in consonants (no real surprise, I guess, given that they outnumber vowels).
As someone who has learned several languages but who has never been able to draw, I don’t think it’s that simple.
Even among children, where the difference in experience is negligible, some people are able to analyze the input they receive from their eyes or ears in a way that others can’t. My friends who are artists amaze me by reducing a 3D object to a series of deformed polygons, or drawing a perfectly straight line with a pencil, and I amaze them by mimicking accents or memorizing song lyrics on one listen. For both of us, these are things that we’ve always been able to do.
I don’t propose that this barrier is insuperable, but there’s only so many hours in the day. There is also likely to be a hard limit on how good I can get compared to someone with natural ability. Spending 10 years going from 0/10 to 7/10 is a particular kind of commitment to make.
Flip every mention you made about language with drawing and you'll see it's the same thing. Likewise if someone said they've "never been able to speak a foreign language", you'd quite rightly say that's absurd, of course you can't speak a foreign language naturally. Same with drawing, sure some people are perhaps more gifted but everyone is able to do it
I actually like seeing "folks" come back in regular use. Folks is the indigenous Anglo-Saxon word (cognate German "volk") vs the Romance language "people" and "person". It sounds less snooty or intellectual. It's simple and clean.
Oh... And I can't for the life of me imagine how it could be interpreted as more "woke". In fact here in Canada it's kind of a phrase used more by the "right" than the "left"; (it's actually a source of much humour how much this word is overused by Ontario's right wing hockey enforcer barely high school educated 'populist' premier)
This makes sense when you understand that "the woke" use language to separate the in-group from the out-group. "Folks" is not a new word, but an old one that has been reclaimed by social justice, queer and academic communities. Many other words that have been redefined or repurposed now form a sub-language of English used to distinguish "the woke" from "the non-woke".
This distinction is often unconscious and absorbed through immersion in social justice circles, similar to how luxury beliefs (such as "defund the police," "trans women are women," etc https://nypost.com/2019/08/17/luxury-beliefs-are-the-latest-...) are absorbed.
You have to use that kind of language to signal your belonging to the "elites", and the HR departments that usually write job ads or staff Twitter accounts are full of those type of people. From that it's just propagated everywhere else.
Edit: Congratulation HN on your brilliant policy that prevents me from responding to any of the comments under my post (looks like I got throttled, so editing the post is the only thing I can now do).
> "Folks" is not a new word, but an old one that has been reclaimed by social justice, queer and academic communities.
I'm from the south, in the US. Folks is just another way to say people. End of story. The people I've heard use the term "folks" are kind older people with a thick southern drawl. I also hear corporate managers use the term to refer to a group of people. I also hear young adults use it to refer to a group of people...
On second thought, I don't think someone using the term "folks" has ever been used to signal anything more than them referring to a group of people. (Also, I feel like I should mention I'm conservative, and it has never crossed my mind to think somebody using the word folks is "woke" or "antiwoke")
It is absolutely correct that the word is still alive and well in the south of the US. But the issue we are discussing is about it being re-appropriated by the HR departments and the social justice "folks" and that is a process that absolutely happens.
I think you need to really begin to critically question your sources. Every single link on that source you posted links to other articles on the same website. Talk about circular logic. At the end of the article, they finally show the actual quotes using the term "folks", and there's absolutely nothing nefarious or any sort of hidden meaning in the usage. This whole argument is grasping at non-existent straws.
Once again, that website has nothing of substance. It pulled a couple random quotes from "woke" literature that used the word folks and then made a grand conspiracy about how there's some sort of secret meaning behind the term. The term "folks" is still alive and well everywhere and has no double meaning associated with it whatsoever. What you're doing here is equivalent to what the "woke" did by trying to convince people the OK symbol really means you're a white supremacist[0]. Both of these are delusions, in every sense of the word.
One last thing, if anyone ever tries to convince you there's a grand conspiracy at the top echelons of society, where the elites are actively doing this one thing to control the masses, they're probably deluded. Hanlon's razor typically applies in these cases: never apply to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
That's what I associate the word with too, as well as the phrase "howdy folks" --- it's very typical of southern US English and has basically no political connotation.
You've been abusively posting copy-pasted offtopic stuff. If you keep doing that, we're going to have to ban you. I don't want to ban you, so please stop. (Edit: please see the note at the bottom of this comment, because you're clearly over the bannable line right now.)
Your account is rate limited because you get involved in flamewars and use HN for ideological battle. That's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. We've asked you to stop more than once:
Do you really think we should not moderate this place? That would burn it to a crisp and leave it unrecognizable. It's our job not to let that happen. Rate limits are one of the few software ways I know of that help with that.
Edit: It looks like you've not only been breaking the guidelines; you've been using HN primarily for ideological battle. That's one line at which we ban accounts. See https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme... for past explanation about this, and (if you don't want to be banned), please stop.
(No, this has nothing to do with which ideology you're for or against. We don't care. What we care about is not letting ideological passions destroy this community.)
I think a more likely explanation is that President Obama used to frequently say “folks” in his speeches, probably in an effort to sound more colloquial/friendly. My guess is that many more people would be influenced by this than the smaller group of online people who get weirdly fixated on woke discourse.
This belief, when realized upon women's prisons, which house mostly working-class women, ends up with males being incarcerated in such prisons, with predictable results: sexual assault, rape, impregnation - and a pervasive fear of all these being inflicted. A terrible cost for imprisoned women to bear, in the name of inclusivity.
> This belief, when realized upon women's prisons, which house mostly working-class women, ends up with males being incarcerated in such prisons, with predictable results: sexual assault, rape, impregnation - and a pervasive fear of all these being inflicted. A terrible cost for imprisoned women to bear, in the name of inclusivity.
> ends up with males being incarcerated in such prisons
Well, no, those are women. The myth that men use inclusivity to get access to women is just that, a myth, unless you can provide evidence that this is really a common occurence. Obviously violence in prisons needs to be avoided but that's a different topic.
There have been numerous cases where female inmates have been raped or impregnated by males incarcerated alongside them in women's prisons. This alone should make it obvious that these men are not women.
I am sorry, I am not a native English speaker, do you have a hard time understanding any particular part of what I wrote? I am happy to expand.
Edit: Congratulation HN on your brilliant policy that prevents me from responding to any of the comments under my post (looks like I got throttled, so editing the post is the only thing I can now do).
"So what often happens in political discussions on HN is 1) a person, such as yourself, posts dissenting views in response to several messages, 2) those messages are heavily downvoted by a brigade of users, 3) the person's account is rate-limited or shadowbanned, 4) the brigade freely posts comments against the dissenter because, being many users, each only posting one or two messages, and being of the censorious brigade (the dissenters usually oppose censorship and don't downvote for disagreement--see how even one GitHub user couldn't resist drive-by down-thumbing your comment), their comments don't get downvoted, so they don't get rate-limited.
Same deal in Japan, every time my kid has a cold her mum takes her to the doctor and comes home with antibiotics. When I get a cold the first thing anyone asks is whether I went to the doctor yet. For what? “Medicine.”
