TPP is obscured by a wall of confusion and disinformation. As a tax payer of the United States (or any other country involved), what do you think the takeaway is? As in, how should I, a concerned citizen, approach this topic at the bar or the dinner table?
>a concerned citizen, approach this topic at the bar or the dinner table?
One argument is : Tell them how their software (games, anything with DRM) spies on their kids and can harm them for life (insurance, job prospects, etc). Present it like this: Companies determine kid has X,y, z trait, their names (just by being connected they can do this with math and correlating other consumer data) then that kid is filtered out of companies/schools that he may want to apply to. Note that universities/corporations can pay to use services to filter out applications using analytics. AKA your equality of opportunity disappears when they can know everything about you and screen you out.
Corporations buy and sell information it's in things like EULA's on videogames that they can collect and infer all sorts of things by how much time you spend on the internet and also track your location.
Another argument : Make it about repairing everyday things, and how IP law is making us wasteful/harming the environment by forcing "waste" model of consumption. Basically corporations are trying to undermine our everyday rights by using intellectual property and copyright laws... to con us out of our right to own products and have them made fairly because we're 100's of miles away from corporations we can't 'storm the gate'.
Say old ages you want to fix an engine or repair the car yourself, there will be all these bullshit IP laws in the way.
Basically they want us to rent everything perpetually never own it... I'd love to make a meme out of "You wouldn't repair your engine would you? That would infringe someones intellectual(or insultingly imagiinary) property".
You can think of better examples but they are radically all trying to undermine our ability to own and repair stuff by controlling our governments laws.
The best way to fight back is to find ways to humor and disparage it and at the same time point out the fraud, and find easy examples effect peoples lives, purposely push the envelope and imagine the worst as well because people aren't rational, so push their buttons and find whatever works.
Note this racket/fraud has been going on for over 100 years now.
It's a question about the right to self-determination, which is not technical or confusing. It expands and enshrines the right of corporate attorneys to take countries to court and modify their laws to suit corporate interests. If the people of the US want to pass a law, should the constitution and government of the US decide if it sticks? Or a group of corporate lawyers at a multinational corporation in a third party business-friendly kangaroo court? If your answer is the first one, then the TPP is morally unacceptable, full stop, no more discussion needed.
The EFF obviously is focused on one aspect of the deal, and I don't find their arguments about the other aspects to be convincing. For the economic benefits, they use the same form of argument that global warming skeptics and creationists do, observing that there exists people who disagree with the general consensus. The fact that they can name one researcher on both sides of the issue does not imply that we should dismiss that issue as "debatable."
The fact of the matter is that "the agreement would reduce 18,000 tariffs. Tariffs on all U.S. manufactured goods and almost all U.S. farm products would be eliminated completely, with most eliminations occurring immediately." [1] Furthermore, we can't realistically ask for the parties to go back to the negotiating table to try to improve the deal. This one was 10 years in the making, which is depressing, but does mean that it's basically this deal or nothing.
Reducing tariffs is not in vogue anymore. Trump is getting lots of support for his proposal to reinstate many tariffs.
>Furthermore, we can't realistically ask for the parties to go back to the negotiating table to try to improve the deal. This one was 10 years in the making, which is depressing, but does mean that it's basically this deal or nothing.
But they told us that negotiating it in secrecy does not matter as there will be a window of so many months in which it will be made public before the legislators will sign it.
The point is that we did not have an opportunity to influence the negotiations and therefore the text of the treaty. We instead are presented almost with a fait accompli that we must either accept or reject altogether.
> The EFF obviously is focused on one aspect of the deal
So ? A chain is as strong as it's weakest link. If one aspect of the deal is unacceptable then there is no point in discussing the rest, you can reject the whole deal.
I don't understand your use of the chain analogy. The TPP is wide-ranging agreement. How are the economic benefits of reduced tariffs eliminated by another aspect of the deal, such as copyrights?
Imagine there is an agreement that does two things: a) eliminates some tariffs and b) murders all children under the age of 12.
If (a) is good and (b) is not related to or necessary for (a) then clearly we should do (a) and not (b), and an agreement that ties them together for no reason is flawed and should be voted down so we can come back and vote on the separate issues separately.
If (b) is related to and necessary for (a) then clearly (a) isn't worth (b) and we should vote down the whole agreement.
Notice that in both cases we should vote down the whole agreement.
You didn't argue for why the chain analogy applies here. You just argued that we should reject the entire agreement if one part is so egregiously bad that it outweighs the others, which is obviously true. Why does the "weakest link" analogy apply to the actual TPP, which, as far I know, does not call for the murder of any children at all.
The agreement is supposed to be a chain. The things in it are supposed to be related in some way, otherwise why are they together? Dumping many completely unrelated things into the same agreement so that things that should not pass have to be passed in order to do things people want is the thing so egregiously bad that it outweighs everything else. It's a chain with a link so weak it doesn't even exist.
Otherwise you could take an agreement which is net +1000, add absolute garbage to it until it's net +0.5 and then argue that we should still pass it because the net result is still positive. Which, compared to the alternative of throwing away the net +0.5 agreement and insisting on the net +1000 agreement, is net -999.5.
A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. The strength of all other links is irrelevant.
A better measure for a deal like this is the geometric mean of its components. If one component is zero, the entire deal is worth zero, but otherwise each component contributes to the aggregate value of the deal.
And people like to criticize the Koch Brothers and George Soros, but how many policy promoting non phrofits does David Rockefeller have? Dozens?
What if Rockefeller's personal political philosophies are flawed? Him and the Foreign Policy Establishment have uniformly defined globalization as Balassa's theory of economic integration.
The TPP is the 2nd or 3rd stage of a 7 stage process. It is very dangerous, if you believe in natural rights and human freedom.
It is indeed a fact that the TPP moves us closer to Economic Integration. Claiming that Economic Integration is a threat to classical liberalism is your opinion, and is not supported by the link you cited.
Economic Integration is undeniably a threat to American sovereignty and classical liberalism. The evidence is overwhelming.
The entire concept is that the centralization of power is always a good thing. There is no acknowledgement of natural rights in the European Union.
So a supranational world government that replaces the American Constitution and Bill of Rights is going to be rooted in popular sovereignty? Ha.
You are being overly optimistic in a world full of powerhungry collectivists who certainly see classical liberalism as an impediment to world peace and a perfect society.
"The Difference Between the U.S. Constitution and EU Constitution - MEP Dan Hannan"
https://youtu.be/dS6hQQ2pyco
There are many other controversial aspects of the bill, such as extensive copyright protections and reduced access to generic medicines, both of which were forced in through US pressure. To me it sounds like the agreement is designed primarily to benefit large American corporations.
Most Americans want tariffs. We've seen what removing protectionism and globalizing the economy has done: things are great for American elites and corporate interests, and American workers have been thrown in the dumpster. "Removing tariffs" is a negative, not a positive aspect of a law for most Americans at this point.
And the fact that it is up-or-down without our input makes me more inclined to simply say no. If you don't want my input but you want me to agree, you had better tailor-make your proposition with my interests in mind.
"This deal or nothing" is an easy choice much like a bully saying "my way or the highway" -- the highway is fine, thank you.
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[ 439 ms ] story [ 163 ms ] threadOne argument is : Tell them how their software (games, anything with DRM) spies on their kids and can harm them for life (insurance, job prospects, etc). Present it like this: Companies determine kid has X,y, z trait, their names (just by being connected they can do this with math and correlating other consumer data) then that kid is filtered out of companies/schools that he may want to apply to. Note that universities/corporations can pay to use services to filter out applications using analytics. AKA your equality of opportunity disappears when they can know everything about you and screen you out.
Corporations buy and sell information it's in things like EULA's on videogames that they can collect and infer all sorts of things by how much time you spend on the internet and also track your location.
Another argument : Make it about repairing everyday things, and how IP law is making us wasteful/harming the environment by forcing "waste" model of consumption. Basically corporations are trying to undermine our everyday rights by using intellectual property and copyright laws... to con us out of our right to own products and have them made fairly because we're 100's of miles away from corporations we can't 'storm the gate'.
Say old ages you want to fix an engine or repair the car yourself, there will be all these bullshit IP laws in the way.
Check out the "DRM" coffee maker.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140227/06521826371/keuri...
Basically they want us to rent everything perpetually never own it... I'd love to make a meme out of "You wouldn't repair your engine would you? That would infringe someones intellectual(or insultingly imagiinary) property".
You can think of better examples but they are radically all trying to undermine our ability to own and repair stuff by controlling our governments laws.
The best way to fight back is to find ways to humor and disparage it and at the same time point out the fraud, and find easy examples effect peoples lives, purposely push the envelope and imagine the worst as well because people aren't rational, so push their buttons and find whatever works.
Note this racket/fraud has been going on for over 100 years now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_Term_Extension_Act#/...
All I've heard so far is Jingoism, we should hold ourselves to a higher standard.
The fact of the matter is that "the agreement would reduce 18,000 tariffs. Tariffs on all U.S. manufactured goods and almost all U.S. farm products would be eliminated completely, with most eliminations occurring immediately." [1] Furthermore, we can't realistically ask for the parties to go back to the negotiating table to try to improve the deal. This one was 10 years in the making, which is depressing, but does mean that it's basically this deal or nothing.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Partnership#Tari...
>Furthermore, we can't realistically ask for the parties to go back to the negotiating table to try to improve the deal. This one was 10 years in the making, which is depressing, but does mean that it's basically this deal or nothing.
But they told us that negotiating it in secrecy does not matter as there will be a window of so many months in which it will be made public before the legislators will sign it.
So then it does matter, after all.
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/tech-law-topics/tpp/
So ? A chain is as strong as it's weakest link. If one aspect of the deal is unacceptable then there is no point in discussing the rest, you can reject the whole deal.
If (a) is good and (b) is not related to or necessary for (a) then clearly we should do (a) and not (b), and an agreement that ties them together for no reason is flawed and should be voted down so we can come back and vote on the separate issues separately.
If (b) is related to and necessary for (a) then clearly (a) isn't worth (b) and we should vote down the whole agreement.
Notice that in both cases we should vote down the whole agreement.
Otherwise you could take an agreement which is net +1000, add absolute garbage to it until it's net +0.5 and then argue that we should still pass it because the net result is still positive. Which, compared to the alternative of throwing away the net +0.5 agreement and insisting on the net +1000 agreement, is net -999.5.
A better measure for a deal like this is the geometric mean of its components. If one component is zero, the entire deal is worth zero, but otherwise each component contributes to the aggregate value of the deal.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_integration#Stages
And people like to criticize the Koch Brothers and George Soros, but how many policy promoting non phrofits does David Rockefeller have? Dozens?
What if Rockefeller's personal political philosophies are flawed? Him and the Foreign Policy Establishment have uniformly defined globalization as Balassa's theory of economic integration.
The TPP is the 2nd or 3rd stage of a 7 stage process. It is very dangerous, if you believe in natural rights and human freedom.
The entire concept is that the centralization of power is always a good thing. There is no acknowledgement of natural rights in the European Union.
So a supranational world government that replaces the American Constitution and Bill of Rights is going to be rooted in popular sovereignty? Ha.
You are being overly optimistic in a world full of powerhungry collectivists who certainly see classical liberalism as an impediment to world peace and a perfect society.
"The Difference Between the U.S. Constitution and EU Constitution - MEP Dan Hannan" https://youtu.be/dS6hQQ2pyco
And the fact that it is up-or-down without our input makes me more inclined to simply say no. If you don't want my input but you want me to agree, you had better tailor-make your proposition with my interests in mind.
"This deal or nothing" is an easy choice much like a bully saying "my way or the highway" -- the highway is fine, thank you.
Stephen Miller, Donald Trump senior economic adviser discusses his policy here
https://soundcloud.com/breitbart/breitbart-news-daily-stephe...
If you are into wonk talk you will dig this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctvZuQMmY90