Philosophical Quandry: Piracy

[Fyron]

you hardly see any swashbucklers these days.

A shame, really.

[TerranC]

[quote]Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:

Piracy of physical items is much more easily prevented, and you hardly see any swashbucklers these days.

In well-protected waters, that is, such as waters near Europe, North America, Austrailia, and NE Asia. Piracy is still alive and kicking in SE asia, where people are poor, but have easy access to boats, guns, and small, hidden, deserted islands for pirates to hide away.

[Baron Munchausen]

[quote]Originally posted by TerranC:

quote:

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Originally posted by Suicide Junkie:

Piracy of physical items is much more easily prevented, and you hardly see any swashbucklers these days.

In well-protected waters, that is, such as waters near Europe, North America, Austrailia, and NE Asia. Piracy is still alive and kicking in SE asia, where people are poor, but have easy access to boats, guns, and small, hidden, deserted islands for pirates to hide away.

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And even there you're only speaking in relative terms. No one really knows how many battles there have been between various drug cartels or immigrant smugglers over ships as well as other tools of the trade (planes, etc.) and their cargos as they ply their various businesses. Only 'law abiding' people report when their ship has been taken by violence. You're not gonna get much help from the navies of the world if you report that your 10,000 tons of cocaine was snatched by a rival cartel. So a true picture of the amount of 'piracy' in the world is difficult to form.

[ July 14, 2003, 02:25: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[dogscoff]

You're not gonna get much help from the navies of the world if you report that your 10,000 tons of cocaine was snatched by a rival cartel.

Is that so..?

*dogscoff scratches his chin thoughtfully for a few moments, then digs an eye-patch and cutlass out of his sea-chest.

[Loser]

Originally posted by Baron Munchausen:
You're not gonna get much help from the navies of the world if you report that your 10,000 tons of cocaine was snatched by a rival cartel.

I would have to disagree with this, though not in such a way that it invalidates your point in any way.

You can get plenty of help. Just hand the right information to the right people. One cartel determines what another cartel is doing and when (they can use resources and facets of human intelligence gather no longer available to mainstream government intelligence), and reports it to The Law. They got help, though not in the same way that a legitimate business would get help.

It is said that no big drug bust occurs that is not the result of a tip or an accident. I wonder if that applies to other illicit activity like human trafficking or stolen goods.

[Erax]

Another quote from a famous industrial spy : "Stealing information is different from stealing physical goods. If I steal your shoes, I can wear them and you can't. But if you have some information and I make a copy of it, you still have yours, you can still use it."

I don't necessarily agree or disagree with this statement, but I find it interesting.

[geoschmo]

Obviously the problem with that statement is that if your business depends on the sale of that information, and people make copies of it without paying then you end up not being able to afford to buy new shoes.

Geoschmo