csnjr@its63b.ed.ac.uk (Nick Rothwell) (05/06/88)
From article <11334@mimsy.UUCP>, by chris@mimsy.UUCP (Chris Torek): > I have just invented a matter duplicator. A friend drove his new BMW > over here this weekend, and we put it in the `original' side; I > shoveled an equal mass of dirt into the hopper, and produced an exact > copy. > > Was that immoral? > > (Alas, the duplicate and the duplicator were both unstable, and both > just dissolved back into piles of virtual particles.) That's a rather nice little example which, I think, highlights the emotive issues in this whole copying/morality thing. "I make a living out of building cars by hand. It will take me a year to build a car, and it occupies all of my time. If nobody buys my cars, I starve." Then you come along with your duplicator and start copying one of my cars, and giving copies to people. If that "feels" immoral to you, then why is it different to copying BMW's? I think it depends on your (implicit) feelings about the producer of the product. Duplicating a BMW, or an IBM PC, or a copy of Apple's MPW compilers, may be moral by your standards - they ain't going to suffer. Copying something made by an "individual" (that term chosen for its emotive content) may not. > In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7163) -- Nick Rothwell, Laboratory for Foundations of Computer Science, Edinburgh. nick%lfcs.ed.ac.uk@nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk <Atlantic Ocean>!mcvax!ukc!lfcs!nick ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ...while the builders of the cages sleep with bullets, bars and stone, they do not see your road to freedom that you build with flesh and bone.