| Penn & Teller PCC articles by Penn Jillette | Reprinted with permission. |
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What if you could kill someone? You can kill anyone you want and
it won't be icky. (They're just dead; no bleeding, screaming,
begging, or tearing at your clothes. -- You could watch if you
want, but you don't have to.) You could snuff him or her, (oh,
when he's talking about murder, he's careful about non-gender-
specific language) with no chance of getting caught. Not one
chance in hell that anyone would ever know.
Would you do it? No. Of course not. No way. Get out of Dodge. Uh uh!
Charlie Manson? No. (He's already safe behind bars and with a
swastika whittled into his forehead, he won't ever get paroled.)
Ted Bundy? No. (It's too late, we already did him.)
Robert Palmer? No. (It's kind of too late and he sometimes shows
attractive people in his videos.)
Saddam Housain? Well So, it's not fear of punishment, not the thin blue line, that keeps you from taking a stroll down anarchy lane. That one's too easy. What if you could take all the money from any individual's bank account. Same rules as the hypothetical no-fault-murder -- you can't get caught. Who's bank account? Trump's? (Would you then be forced to make Ivana payments and be an investor in Marla's "Will Roger's Follies?") H. Ross Perot? (The Presidential hobby didn't make a dent and he has other bank accounts. He wouldn't starve.) No. I don't think you'd do that. It just doesn't feel right. What if you could steal one dollar from every man, woman and child in the United States? Most of them wouldn't even notice -- but some would. Less than a half pack of smokes to some, is food for others. It's not worth it, you don't really need $200 million. How 'bout one dollar from every subscriber to PC Computing? (Yeah, I know the joke, most months we steal $2.95 from every one of the readers.) Would they really miss it? Anyone that can't afford a chili dog is not buying a glossy collection of ads with sepia pictures of John Dvorak. That's $945,987.00 cash money -- and remember -- you can't be caught. Would you do that? It's wrong, that money doesn't belong to you but it starts feeling kind of okay, doesn't it? What harm would it do? That's the problem with copying other people's software. Dvorak wrote that it's just taking money from Bill Gates and Bill has too much money anyway. But who decides what's "too much money." The people of Somalia probably think Dvorak has a bit "too much money." John's just wrong, pirates aren't taking it from big companies, you're stealing it from the people who buy honestly. That's the real trickle down. The New York Times says the software industry estimates that $2.4 billion is lost to bootlegging. Now, some of those programs just wouldn't be bought at retail prices and some of that money might end up in Bill Gate's pocket. Some would go into R&D; (which means faster, harder, meaner, tighter, groovier toys). And some of that money would lower retail prices. If you steal software, you can't be caught. Some techy may find a way to make copying impossible but they'd better hurry. As more stuff gets digital, more can be perfectly duplicated and that's less money for Warner Brothers, (who really cares?) but also less for Lou Reed and George Romero (and that's bad). It also means more money each time you want to buy some "intellectual property" the straight and narrow way. It's a tough moral question for you, but not for me. I get all my software absolutely free, directly from the manufacturer because I write this back page. Maybe if you could kill me without getting caught.... |