Is it wasted time? That may be the case for you, but for me, one of the great appeals of this place is exactly that lively debate and other people’s knowledge which allows us to grow, learn and adjust our own viewpoints. It think I would just give up now, in both work and personal growth, if I thought my opinions (and they are usually manifold, strong and often pretty vocal!), would never change in the face of others’ wider experience than those of my own microcosm.
Besides, the wider discussion that unfolded from your original post, was not really opinion-based anyway. It was more a flagging of the wider legal implications of the use of someone else’s intellectual property. Whatever your standpoint on the ethics of intellectual property – and I am surmising, based on your comments, that perhaps yours deviates from legal definition – it exists as a state in law and if contravened, can land you in some very hot water. As B said, the ensuing discussion became relevant to anyone reading, who did not realise this to be the case.
Furthermore, whether I agree or not, with the views on property you alluded to, actually they would interest me to hear more about. Even if my own standpoint was, as you suggest, merely affirmed, it becomes a more honestly-held and defensible one, the more I understand disparate thoughts on the subject. Isn’t that the entire point of discussion? Otherwise we would all just stick to the formative viewpoints fed to us by our parents and never grow.
And here we have yet another 3am, insomnia-driven quasi-rant that was only meant to be a short response!
