Should the United States Declare Books an ‘Essential Good’?
1–10 of 28 posts
Re: Should the United States Declare Books an ‘Essential Good’?
#2" At the same time, price discounts on books are limited to 5 percent and can’t be offered in conjunction with free shipping."
They've recently just tried this law in Israel. The result? The printing of New books has screeched to a halt. When you can't offer discounts on new books, the publishers are only willing to take the chance on famous well established authors. The law is especially absurd, because even if you're a self published author, you can't offer discounts on your own books.
When you pass laws against book discounts, fewer books will be published, fewer books will be bought and fewer books will be read.
Re: Should the United States Declare Books an ‘Essential Good’?
#3You don't die without them, Books are not essential for Live.
They are not really essential for learning development either, but an essential factor in the development of culture since the invention of the book-press.
Consider the intrinsic value to be much higher than the production cost of books, so much that free information can be guarantied by law, where books should be equal to internet access, a telephone and if you will a TV; or the socially direct communication through people. Books as medium are inseparable from the speech and should therefore remain free speech and not seizable, whether essential or merely sufficient. This is partly guaranteed through public libraries, but the capacity is limited, compared to a distributed model.
tl;dr: didn't read the link :/
Re: Should the United States Declare Books an ‘Essential Good’?
#4" At the same time, price discounts on books are limited to 5 percent and can’t be offered in conjunction with free shipping." They've recently just tried this law in Israel. The result? The printing of New books has screeched to a halt. When you can't offer discounts on new books, the publishers are only willing to take the chance on famous well established authors. The law is especially absurd, because even if you'…
To a halt? Surely people will keep writing regardless and somebody will want to read it.
Re: Should the United States Declare Books an ‘Essential Good’?
#5Books record ideas, but the medium itself is usually bottom of the barrel commodity trash. Where does that paper come from? Who printed it and how is that business run?
Are those companies worth saving despite a changing medium? That's the real question.
Re: Should the United States Declare Books an ‘Essential Good’?
#6" At the same time, price discounts on books are limited to 5 percent and can’t be offered in conjunction with free shipping." They've recently just tried this law in Israel. The result? The printing of New books has screeched to a halt. When you can't offer discounts on new books, the publishers are only willing to take the chance on famous well established authors. The law is especially absurd, because even if you'…
While I am inclined to agree with you (government overreach? almost sounds like some form of censorship, as a law), I think it's fallacious to believe that new books have some intrinsic good. In fact, new books probably don't, if we take into account the vast number of them being written every year. And I do think that if someone has written something great, a discount is unlikely going to do it any real damage. The point is that good books will be good, and their newness has little to do with it. Conversely, classics are classics for a reason.
That probably leaves the question about books that become "accidental hits" or "sleeper hits". But even then, this discounts aren't going to completely wipe them out and I would believe that these sorts are the exception rather than the norm. Again, there are simply so many new books published all the time, and very little of it can possibly be good.
Gwern has some good thoughts that I feel are relevant:
Re: Should the United States Declare Books an ‘Essential Good’?
#7" At the same time, price discounts on books are limited to 5 percent and can’t be offered in conjunction with free shipping." They've recently just tried this law in Israel. The result? The printing of New books has screeched to a halt. When you can't offer discounts on new books, the publishers are only willing to take the chance on famous well established authors. The law is especially absurd, because even if you'…
To a halt? Surely people will keep writing regardless and somebody will want to read it.
Its not the writing that's an issue. It's the publishing.
Taking someone's writing and turning that into a book requires work and funding.
When price controls and discount bans are enforced on book publishers and book stores, publishers are much less willing to take risks on unknown authors.
Sure, a new JK Rowling or Danielle Steele book will always find someone willing to publish them, but would a young aspiring author be able too?
The good news is that publishing costs and risks have dropped thanks to e-books and crowd sourcing for books. But most books still need a publisher willing to take a financial risk in order to see the light of day.
Re: Should the United States Declare Books an ‘Essential Good’?
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
To a halt? Surely people will keep writing regardless and somebody will want to read it.
Its not the writing that's an issue. It's the publishing. Taking someone's writing and turning that into a book requires work and funding. When price controls and discount bans are enforced on book publishers and book stores, publishers are much less willing to take risks on unknown authors. Sure, a new JK Rowling or Danielle Steele book will always find someone willing to publish them, but would a young aspiring aut…
And even JK Rowling had to go through 12 publishers before she got a deal.
Re: Should the United States Declare Books an ‘Essential Good’?
#9The content is an essential good, but the container is just a container.
Re: Should the United States Declare Books an ‘Essential Good’?
#10" At the same time, price discounts on books are limited to 5 percent and can’t be offered in conjunction with free shipping." They've recently just tried this law in Israel. The result? The printing of New books has screeched to a halt. When you can't offer discounts on new books, the publishers are only willing to take the chance on famous well established authors. The law is especially absurd, because even if you'…
While I am inclined to agree with you (government overreach? almost sounds like some form of censorship, as a law), I think it's fallacious to believe that new books have some intrinsic good. In fact, new books probably don't, if we take into account the vast number of them being written every year. And I do think that if someone has written something great, a discount is unlikely going to do it any real damage. The…
If someone pays for a book, that person wanted the book.
That is the only kind of "good" there is.
You are correct that new books are not intrinsically good because there is no such thing as intrinsic good, ever.
That view is based on invalid philosophical theories.
Thanks, Plato.