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SELF_IDENTIFICATION

                                             June 18, 2007

  Many questions become matters
  of "self-identification".

  Which ever player in the story you
  imagine to be most like yourself
  is the one you sympathize with.



A conversation with a
young woman, who was
complaining she had
just lost another
$60 pair of sunglasses.

Someone commented:
"Oh I don't even buy
those anymore.  I just
go to the flea market
and buy the knock-off
brands for five bucks".

The young woman responded:
"Oh, I just think that's               Notably, these "designers"
*wrong*.  I think about how            have no similar respect for
I would feel if I were the             the livelihood of other
designer."                             designers... one of their
                                       favorite tricks is to cruise
                                       trade shows looking for ideas
                                       to steal from small
                                       independent operators.

                                       And most of the money you
                                       spend on a big-brand item
                                       does not go to the
                                       "designer", it pays for
                                       the advertising necessary
                                       to make the brand a big
                                       brand.

                                       I suppose you might look at
                                       it as paying your television
                                       tax, if you're someone who
                                       really likes television.





   In the mid-90s, a lot of the
   ravers I knew thought it was
   a dirty trick to rip off a
   DJs mix tape without kicking
   any money to the DJ.

     But were the DJs paying
     anything to the musicians      The ravers *see* the DJs
     who created the tracks         in action, they become
     they were using?               local heroes of the scene.

                                    The musicians, in
                                    most cases, were
                                    shadowy, unknown    On the ethics of
                                    techies messing     sampling: the
                                    with computers.     raver's felt it
                                                        was important that
                                                        the person working
                                                        with the samples
                                                        *add* something
                                                        to the work...

                                                        The actual legal
                                                        question though
                                                        is more like:
                                                        have you *taken
                                                        something away*
                                                        from the original
                                                        artist by
                                                        sampling them?

                                                          Did you reduce
                                                          the economic
                                                          value of material
                                                          they hold rights
                                                          to?

   Similarly:

   You occasionally hear
   complaints from lefties that
   working folks keep voting
   against their interests,
   because they like to
   fantasize about being rich
   themselves some day.




And the connection to racism,
or more generally, xenophobia,
is pretty obvious.

  The thousands of American soldiers
  dead loom larger in our minds than
  the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi       "But I just think how I
  civilians.                                would feel if I were a
                                            citizen of Iraq..."

                                                 That never happens.



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