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Comment by TheMagicHorsey | Hacker News Reader

Software patents are utter garbage. We all know that. Most software patent attorneys know that. The system has evolved to keep lawyers employed. It is a way of taxing engineers to support lawyers. The plaintiffs need lawyers. The defendants need lawyers. There must be judges. The entire system gets weighted down with this huge load of unproductive individuals. Think of how many engineers become patent attorneys because law is so lucrative. Entry level patent attorneys in firms make $160K a year. Think of how little an engineer makes even four or five years out of college. Its more lucrative to patent and sue, than to build. These are the little things that are going to erode America's competitiveness.

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I agree, I even know a friend who was studying computer science but moved over to law, his reasoning was how manipulating the law gives you a advantage over other people. The same is in Australia, our society values lawyers and they ruin almost everything.

Make no mistake, many lawyers would see the world burn just to make a bigger buck. Many of them truly don't care.

My experience is that law is like programming. The people who are making the "bigger buck" genuinely love their profession and take it seriously. The ones who only turned up for the bigger bucks quit because it bores and frustrates them.

Not to mention, lawyers are held to the standard of fiduciary duty. That's fairly heavy duty.

That's a courageous and bold statement to make. Apart from the weasel words that entirely undermine it.

If you want to say that all lawyers are evil, without any evidence, at least have the conviction to say that.

If you want to imply that some undefined minority, or possible majority, of lawyers may, or may not, potentially be paid arsonists, but might also not be arsonists, paid or otherwise, then... I dunno, maybe say something worthwhile instead.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair

One shouldn't draw the conclusion that lawyers are evil. Instead, it's a generalized principle: humans find ways to rationalize their participation in any system which awards them wealth and status, whether it's a little or a lot. Some patent attorneys know that patents are bullshit and profit from them anyway (whether on behalf of the trolls or the little guy), many internalize the belief that they are defending genuinely deserved intellectual property rights. There is a tendency for people to look at whether a system does well by themselves and their loved ones, and then work backwards to decide what is just.

(See also: the Banality of Evil.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banality_of_evil

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