[planetguy]

>The majority of the HNers believe that there should be no intellectual property at all.

Most also make their living off producing intellectual property, which is... interesting at the very least.

Also most will totally get onboard the intellectual property train as soon as it's the IP of a sympathetic target (e.g. The Oatmeal) that's being threatened.

Basically the average HNer believes that copyright law should be "I can have whatever I want for free", hasn't thought it through too carefully beyond that.

[MartinCron]

Basically the average HNer believes that copyright law should be "I can have whatever I want for free"

That's not the average HNer, that's the average human. HNers are willing to go to great lengths to justify and rationalize their self-serving positions.

[J3L2404]

Indeed, as they snipe from the safety of their SaaS towers.

[J3L2404]

Well I would think pg has thought it through, but there are a lot of newbies on HN as evidenced by the sudden use of OMG and LOL that was absolutely not on HN before his "Kill Hollywood" essay.

[planetguy]

Quite possibly. Certainly in the old days one could express an opinion that "Hey, maybe there's certain advantages to copyright law" without getting modded down to numbers so low that the HN system refuses to express them.

Y'know that book "Fifty Shades Of Grey"? Well that's what your comment's gonna go through in the next hour if you disagree with (I can't believe I'm saying this) the hivemind.

edit: Also, what's with this new "You're submitting too fast. Please slow down" message you get if people start downvoting your posts? I've had it swallow a bunch of (intelligent) posts this morning due to the fact that I expressed an unpopular opinion on a copyright thread.

That fucking does it.