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Comment by jordigh | Hacker News Reader

> Stallman's focus on copyright law and intellectual property law

Channeling Stallman here, there's no such thing as "intellectual property law". There are a bunch of laws that work in very different ways, evolved under different circumstances, and have different purposes. Copyrights are for ensuring authors retain economic and/or moral rights on their work, patents are so that inventors will disclose their inventions instead of keeping them as trade secrets, and trademarks are so that consumers don't get duped into buying the wrong product. There are other sets of laws that have other purposes and histories, such as regional designation or shipwright designs.

Lumping them all together as "intellectual property" promotes oversimplication and confusion.

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Stallman himself is very well aware of this issue and has written about it: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html

That's why he said "channeling Stallman"

He?

Sigh, I'm all for calling people "she" if they desire, but this feels like a pointless comment. Do you know that the person being referred to (user "jordigh") would prefer to be called something other than "he"? Do you know whether or not the person you're replying to has done the research on which word to use?

If you don't know, you're wasting our time with snarky but baseless "PC" attitude. At least put in a few more keystrokes to actually tell us what you'd like to happen here; if other people agree, maybe it will happen. If you do know something, then tell us what it is, don't expect mind-reading.

Apologies if I've misread your meaning. I expect one-word posts are especially susceptible to that...

As the person whose gender was in question, I appreciate the doubt. I don't think you had any reason to believe that I was male, and male should not be the default gender.

Your name is right in your profile, so pdx could have easily got your gender from it. Maybe pdx even opened your site, where you have a photo clearly showing your gender.

It's also possible that English is not pdx mother tongue, maybe pdx tongue is one of those where the male pronoun is used to refer to people when the sex is unknown. Also, while it's usage as this has been fading, "he" is defined as "Used to refer to a person or animal of unspecified sex" in many dictionaries, and someone could have been tough that in school (I have been).

> and male should not be the default gender

Jordi, you're being a dumbass dude. Jordi is usually a mans name. Of course I assume male. Take the stupid PC bullshit down, OK?

https://www.google.com/search?q=pictures+of+jordi&tbm=isch

Just got this email from Jordi.

    So, now that we're inulting each other and no longer civil, you're
    being a flaming asshole and the reason women don't want to be in tech.
    Fuck off and die.

    - Jordi G. H.

@Jordi, I think you need to re-read my response.

You WERE being a dumbass. You DO need to take the stupid PC bullshit down.

Neither of these statements is actually that insulting. I did not call you a dumbass, I said you were being a dumbass in this instance. I did not call you stupid. l told you to take the stupid PC bullshit down (which you do need to do).

Now, telling somebody to Fuck off and die, that is insulting. I think your latin temper is showing itself, my friend. It's abolutely not OK to tell me to fuck off and die. It doesn't reflect well on you, or your organization. You need to wind it down.

Actually, as another poster said, I saw your name and a few personal details in your profile and did enough research, including seeing a photo that is probably you, to be 95% sure you are male. I suppose it is extra-annoying because the person was wrong in this case, but I would still find that post lacking if you do prefer to be called "she."

I don't have a problem with your response in general, or ideas like "male should not be the default gender". I often try to avoid using gendered pronouns, for reasons like this. If the original person had said something like that, I probably wouldn't have replied. I do have a problem with someone casually questioning the use of a word, without demonstrating any consideration of whether it is actually correct, whether an effort was made to make sure it was correct, etc. For all we knew, the person who used "he" personally knows you, and mindfully chose to use a male pronoun. That uninformed, knee-jerk reply ("He?") is as useless and obnoxious as having a bot post "PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: REMEMBER THAT NOT ALL HACKERS ARE MALE. WE WELCOME WOMEN!" every time someone uses the word "he."

Really, to go full-on PC for the benefit of trans people, etc., I guess we can't use gendered pronouns even if we do know someone, unless we have been explicitly (and recently) told which pronoun they prefer.

The poster in question is male.

And arguing endlessly about the language to use when it's not germane to the discussion is an ages-old rhetorical technique to attempt to frame the debate. Stallman might love freedom, but I suspect he loves winning arguments by being "clever" even more.

Actually, Stallman here is pointing out that the term "intellectual property" is an example of this "age-old rhetorical technique". Ditto for calling piracy "theft". It is very important what language we use because it determines the thoughts and emotions we have.

I don't mind the discussion of language semantics. I used the blanket term "intellectual property law" as a short hand, because I didn't want to address the several different ideas and laws that it covers individually, due to time constraints basically.

However, its absolutely correct that it is really a crude blanket term that lacks precision and deals with several different things that are thematically linked, but quite separate in reality. its not bad for someone to expand on a point I've made with those additional details. it adds to the discussion, I think.

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