Escaped gaming meme

[mithriltabby]

obsessivewoman had me buy her a seedless watermelon; our friend Katrina remarked on it, leading me to a recollection of a conversation with weregamer.

weregamer speculated that an alien species, upon learning that we had created such things as seedless watermelons and seedless oranges, might decide to exterminate humanity because we were so obviously flouting the laws of nature in creating such abominations.

I countered with the suggestion that the reason that galactic civilization has not yet made contact with us is that while such creations are promising, we have not fully embraced proper standards of ownership rights management and licensing. And they’re never going to share their advanced technology with beings who might fail to pay royalties. Their observers are following very closely our development of digital rights management technology; humanity may soon prove itself worthy to join the rest of the civilized galaxy.

Of course, that leads to the prospect that Richard M Stallman is an agent of the galactic rebels, having assumed human form to guide humanity’s development. The Free Software Foundation is just the beginning; as soon as we get decent automated construction tools, the Free Hardware Foundation will follow with designs for everything from sofas to shoes. (I must credit Charlie Stross for the FHF meme.)

Comments

[roseembolism.livejournal.com]

Ownership rights management is obviously the key, especially in the memetic zone. I mean consider- there are MILLIONS of people out there who are thinking thoughts for which no proper royalty or licensing arrangement has been made. The presence of warez memes is a strong impediment to galactic contact- right now anyone can, by reading a book or listening to an electromagnetic communications device, download any number of memes, which can be passed onto others with no restraint.

In this environment contact is impermissable- who knows what memes may be stolen simply from observation of alien cultres. Fortnately, our frinds in the RIAA are working on the problem- soon all thoughts will be licensed and regulated, and the proper sources credited. It's our duty to support them in this task, so we can join galactic civilization.