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I was reading an interview with Charlie Munger yesterday who was talking about why they gave Salmon Bros CEO the push in 1991 (he did not fire a trader who had been fraudulently trading). Munger said it was the same as when you find a little old lady with her hands in the till and she says it was the first time - you have to prosecute be aide if you don't it infects the whole system as corrupt

The USA has been amazingly lucky in eventually prosecuting its corruption (boss tweed, al Capone) but it feels that it is slipping.

Keep pushing

Actually, the USA has an abysmal and depressing culture of corruption and venality. The casual attitude to petty (and not-so-petty) corruption in the USA is endemic, and extremely damaging. The media have a role to play in combating this, as does the general public.

As a point of agreement, the US DOJ's current interaction with HSBC for laundering drug money, as documented by Rolling Stone: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/outrageo...

This post says it.

"Introduce and pass a bill to eliminate software patents, retroactively, and do it now." --- agreed, 100%

Even more frustrating than the current situation is the fact that it's likely to continue for the forseeable future unless we do something about patent trolls. As hinted at in the original article, the legislation in progress now is pretty much useless and not going to make much difference at all as far as trolling is concerned. Far more powerful stuff is needed.

Aside: it's mentioned in that article that if IV personally filed all its suits, the courts would likely consider it a vexatious litigant. If so, shouldn't the cheap gimmick of using shell companies to get around this be seen through and ruled ineffective by the courts?

> Organizations that follow the letter of the law but ignore the principles behind them should inspire our strongest contempt.

And who establishes these principles? To suggest that an organization must additionally follow some ambiguous set of principles putatively inspiring an established law is the pinnacle of arrogance. How can a country function if its members (citizens and organizations alike) cannot look to the letter of the law to decide whether their conduct conforms therewith?

If you don't like the fact that some companies are legally engaging in contemptuous behavior, then change the law. That's the whole point of Congress--to legislate. Suggesting that laws additionally be subject to motivating principles comports with judicial supremacy, which is to say it's the courts (rather than our elected officials) who decide what the law is. That's not how this country is supposed to work.

He's not saying they must conform with these ambiguous rules. But if they don't, it's fair to be contemptuous of them. There is nothing at all unusual about this, there are lots of actions that won't get you in jail but will get you punished in various social manners.

Social pressure can later be codified into a legal solution, but in some cases the rules are necessarily ambiguous and resist codification, in which case social pressure is the next best thing.

> He's not saying they must conform with these ambiguous rules. But if they don't, it's fair to be contemptuous of them. There is nothing at all unusual about this, there are lots of actions that won't get you in jail but will get you punished in various social manners.

I disagree, though. They're following the law as written, which the vast majority of people and organizations do daily. The distinction is that by doing so, they've found a "bug" in the system, and that's something that deserves admiration rather than contempt. Here's the analogy: someone spots a bug in a program, and they're exploiting that bug in a way that's harming other users. Who deserves those users contempt more: (1) the hacker who found & exploits the bug; or (2) or the quiescent software developer who fails to timely patch that bug? I think it's (2), which is why I'm reluctant to socially punish NPEs. They're publicizing flaws in patent legislation to the detriment to many innocents. Consider this akin to "crowdsourcing" Congress, subject to a cost function (namely, the magnitude of harm suffered by the innocents). It's Congress' continued inaction that deserves the magnitude of our contempt; socially vilifying the 'hacker' is just a band-aid solution.

Consider this: what happens when that same hacker then spends some of the money he stole from legit users to lobby the software company to ignore the bug in the system (or make it even easier for him to exploit). Do you still admire his ingenuity? Or do you (rightfully) despise his inability and unwillingness to play by the rules that everyone else follows, because he has been able to use his dirty money to keep the loopholes open?

To lobby a software company? That makes no sense. If anything, that hacker would be lobbying Congress...and frankly, that's his or her prerogative. I don't care what they do. It's not dirty money just because you say it is; it's legally-acquired money that a subset of the population feels was obtained illegitimately. I don't like what has happened with the patent system any more than you do, but I'm choosing my battles. I'm disdainful toward patent trolls; I'm thankful for them, because they effectively give me work (invalidating their patents)

"I don't care what they do."

Exactly the point of the OP. Thanks for not helping.

Both. If hacker who discovered bug in a system should have reported it, instead of exploiting it.

However, the analogy is flawed because if you find a loophole in the law and it is discovered you are usually not liable. If, however, you find a "bug" in an inadequately secured system you are still likely to be liable for exploiting it. Similarly, if you find physical security exploit in a building (a broken window, unlocked) you can still liable for taking advantage of it (trespassing, etc).

However, you point was about "admiration" vs. "contempt." This is obviously a matter of opinion, but I don't share admiration for hackers who take advantage "exploits" without at least attempting to report or taking some other "good faith" action. Neither writing software nor governing a society is easy. Finding and reporting "bugs" is a helpful and productive activity, exploiting "bugs" is not.

It's the difference between someone who has a lot of exposure to software bugs deciding 1. this is something we need to work to fix versus 2. this is a potential way to make money as long as it stays broken if we take a role as middlemen in the problem.

I'll detail the analogy more in another comment below.

Except patent trolls are not even close to the first groups of people to notice this "bug." Many "white hat hackers" came first; there are many law review articles published concerning the flaws in the patent system. It's not like Congress didn't know about it. They, like always, decided to punt. This is their wake-up call.

>If you don't like the fact that some companies are legally engaging in contemptuous behavior, then change the law.

That was the main thrust of what I wrote! So what's with all the other angry stuff? I am honestly confused by the rest of your post.

Because socially punishing the NPEs takes the focus away from the real problem: punishing Congress for its failure to reform the laws causing a hemorrhage of lawsuits. The NPEs are effectively doing Congress' job by finding these loopholes; they're analogous to black-hat hackers who exploit a flaw in software that the developer fails to fix in a timely manner. In that example, this community historically hasn't vilified that hacker to the extent they vilify patent trolls. That's why I reacted strongly to your post.

If black hats are not doing it for social good, they deserve to be vilified as well. Here, the NPE's are only doing it for massive monetary gain to the detriment of innocents.

If the banks found a loophole in mortgage regulations that allowed them to take the houses of people who were paying, should we admire them for finding a bug, or vilify them for taking people's houses?

You seem (in this post and another) to think we should be doing the former. I believe it is the latter, or at worst, both.

The idea that we should admire NPE's in some fashion because they are doing Congress's job (which they aren't, btw), rather than vilify them, is, well, crazy.

> If the banks found a loophole in mortgage regulations that allowed them to take the houses of people who were paying, should we admire them for finding a bug, or vilify them for taking people's houses?

You're ignoring the probability that banks would find such a a loophole. The U.S. subprime mortgage crisis was an indirect example, but allocating the majority of blame to the banks is not appropriate. They acted rationally assuming perfect information (an assumption that's usually necessary in the economic models they used in evaluating creditworthiness), so if anything, they deserve criticism for failing to appreciate the significance of, and potential for, imperfect information. But that issue isn't really relevant here.

It might be a fundamental difference in our opinions, but I'm inclined to believe that the purpose of the law is to avoid situations requiring "social justice." These companies are playing by the rules, but it's the rules that are flawed. So I prefer to spend my time focused on the root cause of our outrage.

The "rules" are decided by the status qou, those who are already have power and intend to maintain it. The purpose of the law is to enforce the interests of the dominant political power. Judging the banks by the laws they lobbied to enact is farcical. The flawed rules are a part of the root cause, we allow those who have the most power to decide the law of the land, and we absolutely should judge them on a moral and ethical basis as opposed to the legal basis they control.

There were plenty of people who chose not to own slaves even when slavery was legal in this country. Those who chose to own slaves, in my view, were acting legally but contemptibly. Your view seems to be that even those who believed slave-owning was wrong had no right to show contempt to those who followed the law.

    |  They acted rationally assuming perfect information.

patently false.

> You're ignoring the probability that banks would find such a a loophole. The U.S. subprime mortgage crisis was an indirect example, but allocating the majority of blame to the banks is not appropriate.

You're ignoring the fact that banks lobbied to have Glass-Steagall repealed in the first place :) In computer term, you could say they used privilege escalation to create this loophole. And considering the amount of cash NPEs make, they're probably doing whatever they can to ensure the statu quo remains.

Now, you may very well argue that they are acting rationally, and they certainly are. But they do not exist in a vacuum. They are also acting outside of a moral framework, and harming the interests of the majority. There is little difference between the mob asking asking a small business for protection money, or a patent troll getting a settlement out of a small business for an overly broad patent: in both cases, it's extortion. Why shouldn't they be vilified, just like SCO was vilified back when it had the same business model? These people add nothing of value to the world, they actually try to subtract value.

You can argue there is a problem with Congress if it allows lobbies to write laws. But it would be exactly like blaming an official for accepting an unsolicited bribe, but not the person doing the bribing (which in real life would receive the harshest punishment).

You lose credibility when you compare president Bush to rapists and murderers. A lot of people don't like him, I get that... but you sound like an ideologue.

Then ignore that part. But I stand by it: in my opinion George W. Bush, and the total lack of response to his gross misdeeds, did more damage to America and the American spirit than any single event in US history. We are still paying for our unwillingness to censure or impeach a President who abused his power like Bush did. He misled us into a bloody, expensive, unnecessary war (Iraq), legalized torture, legalized indefinite imprisonment without trial (Gitmo), outed a CIA operative to punish a political enemy, got an old pal to take the heat for it, then commuted the pal's sentence when he was convicted (Scooter Libby), implemented a warrantless wiretapping program at the NSA, he praised the grossly incompetent head of FEMA (who's inaction cost lives) during Katrina. That's just off the top of my head. These aren't accusations, or 'fanciful theories' (the defining characteristic of an ideologue - I looked it up), they are just things that Bush did, which he did openly and which are a matter of public record. Bush set the example that many leaders both public and private are still following to this day.

I credit Bush with one thing though: I never identified strongly as an American before his presidency. Before Bush I never really stopped to think what being American meant, I just took it for granted, and it only made sense to me when, one by one, the tenets that had been so strongly ingrained in me, beliefs that I didn't even know were there, were taken away. Americans don't torture people. We don't initiate wars (well, we do, but not on my watch). We don't imprison people indefinitely without trial. We don't invade people's privacy without a warrant. We don't degrade and demean our citizens for security theater.

And we don't let people who produce nothing but paperwork extort money from those who create real wealth.

Careful. Righteousness has a way of turning on itself.

You should ask yourself what exactly you want to accomplish here, because nothing will be accomplished here. So if that's true, then ask yourself, "Why am I spending time making these posts?"

If you examine your reasoning, you'll be forced to conclude that you spend your time on this because it makes you feel good, and for no other tangible reason.

So, if that's true, then a better question to focus on is "Why do we choose to be ineffective?"

Yes, I wondered about whether to reply to the GP at all. I posted for two reasons: first, I've never articulated precisely how I felt about Bush before, and second, I realized that it has a real explanatory connection to the patent problem. Ever since Bush started openly flaunting basic standards of decency it seems that many, many others have followed suit, and to devastating cultural effect. Myhrvold is just one particularly potent, obvious example.

Does stating that do any good, or help anyone other than me? Our sick culture of power makes modern venality feel like a scary, dark, unknowable trend that came out of nowhere and has no source and no solution. Connecting Bush makes it feel more like a normal (if unwanted) social trend that has ordinary, identifiable roots and solutions. I think we consistently underestimate the presidential influence on other leaders--perhaps because in our sophistication such influence feels cliche. But I believe that his effect was real, it is lasting, and it will take a long time and a great deal of effort to heal those wounds. Sharing that hypothesis is fundamentally hopeful - if we know what happened, we can fix it.

And I like fixing things.

I noticed that Gitmo is still open. Seems like such a simple thing to accomplish. Wasn't a promise made over 4 years ago to close it? How do you reconcile that on your watch?

Bush is a war criminal, plain and simple. That actually makes him a lot worse than rapists and murderers.

Oh hi, you must have HN confused with reddit.

I am not quite sure if things are really that bad for the US as you describe. You are absolutely right on most points, but I think that the US is in general more tolerant towards people operating in gray areas or gaming the system.

I also would argue that this is the basis for many disruptive innovations and startups like Uber or Airbnb would have had a hard time growing up in stronger regulated environments. Of cause this doesn't change the fact that patent trolls are a menace to innovation.

A difference: IV works because there is a disfunctional regulation in place, while the others work despite the regulations.

That's not going to happen until all the largest software companies have shored up their infrastructure to the point that they can start ripping off inventors easily by having served them the resources needed to get off the ground and control the internet portals required to do business (by law, because you know fraud and terrorism). That's when software patents will be eliminated and not a minute sooner.