Cynical much? Not that I think the guy is thinking rationally or pragmatically at all, mind you. He's an idealist and the plain brutal truth of it is that NO ONE CARES.

I'm sure has a much more conservative view on "intellectual" property.

I'm sure he doesn't. From what I understand he is somewhat anarchist-leaning, which would involve a resistance to all forms of private property (including intellectual property).

Why not both at once? You've got two hands, y'know.

I fail to see any deep questions about the nature of property, unless "dude, you can't, like, actually OWN anything" is some kind of game-changing observation. The problem I have with guys like Jensen is, by suggesting that mankind would be better off as hunter-gatherers, they're basically saying that we should ignore our own intelligence and reasoning ability.

Each creature on this planet does what its own intelligence allows it to do and no more; if, say, a dolphin could build computers and an underwater dolphin society that could allow it to sit on its ass and watch some kind of undersea television, you damn well better bet it would. Dolphins don't destroy the planet because they're somehow more "moral" or in-tune with the planet then we are, it's because their intelligence does not allow them to. Does that mean that human intelligence is some kind of evolutionary mistake? Maybe. But it's impossible to know this. Giving up our astonishing ability to build and refashion the world is not the answer.

I'd love to throw this guy and Ray Kurzweil in a room together. Polar opposites of crazy.

I think we all figured out long ago that owning property is just a helpful deceit. But I read up on him (see: WIKIPEDIA), and I have to give the man credit for changing the discussion from "This Is How Things Should Be" to "How Can We Make Things Like That". It's rare to get someone this baked yet still interested in doing something.

Still, his ideas are fucking impossible. There are way, way, way too many of us to return to any sort of pseudo-agrarian or hunter-gatherer based culture. Outside of a horrific world wide pandemic that kills off 75% of the population, fucking our fellow humans over will continue to be the standard operating procedure.

Hell, I'm fucking a third world country over right now. Feels GRRRRREAT!

I like where he suggested that nobody would go to a grocery store to buy a salmon if they realized they could fish one out of the river instead.

If only I could pay someone to fish it out of the river for me...

I think we see throughout history the ability for people to take control of their own lives and, in their autonomy, exist far less destructively than as coerced appendages to structures of exploitation (environmental or otherwise).

It's also really interesting how people bring up pot-smoking/hippie stereotypes in order to undermine Jensen's views when they're not really relevant to the argument being made.