What’s particularly annoying about Scalzi and nearly all the others who have been “debating” about copyright is not one of them discusses any tradeoffs, any benefits or drawbacks of the current system. There is no understanding of the system as is, how it developed, or the part corporations played. All they argue is:

1) Others are grabbing as much as they can, so I should be able to as well.

2) It’s impossible to change because of treaties or something. So we shouldn’t even try.

3) People who believe in the public domain or shorter copyright terms hate authors and want them and their families starving in the streets.

I know that the quality of discourse is no better elsewhere, but these are people who profess to know something about it. And they know nothing! They know nothing at all. They can’t even be bothered to think about it. I realize part of it is that their incomes depend on it, but that’s not all of it. Not even the majority, I think.

They are just completely incurious and because of American propaganda and our atrocious education system, they are literally incapable of any sort of complex thought. They simply cannot do it. They can spout off slogans and propaganda snippets; sound bites and semi-memorized spiels. But nothing else.

It’s just not possible to do anything with people like this other than defeat them. And alas, there are so, so many of them.