AreYouSureThatYouRemember/Chapter-10.md

Chapter 10

Michael was deep in his thought as he lightly hugged Alice on another lesson by Mr. Molly. Mr. Molly talked about Neurological aspect of arguing. The chemistry in the brain. The various chemicals that make up various connections between neurons to allow various thoughts to come through. It was of course interesting. But Michael's head was in a different world. Neon was a cracker and this driver has outsmarted Neon and the whole world. He wanted to get into a fight with him. If not murder him, he wanted to humiliate him very much by proving him something outrageous. Michael remembered the bold man from the mega-structures that walked away from talking. He badly wanted this person would be the driver. And he badly wanted a public debate arena full of people when he will prove this bald man that he indeed had long hair. It was violence with words. Michael looked at Alice. A memory crossed him mind as she said - "Knife is a weapon of an incapable. Capable kill with speech.". Or did she say it? Did he remember it correctly?

"Michael, Michael..." - Mr. Molly was trying to make Michael pay attention - "What I just said?". Michael was lost - "Er... Neuro... er...". Mr. Molly blinked at him - "Do you realize that it's a waste of your own money if you don't participate in the lesson?". Johnathan sat down and simply waited, all this time looking at Michael. Trying to observe something. Michael didn't understand it. He waited until Johnathan will speak again.

"The human brain is a huge pile of..." - Johnathan said, waiting for Michael to continue the sentence. Michael was confused. He almost didn't listen at all. Johnathan Molly stood up. He headed towards the exit of the room. On the way out he said - "... pile of Neurons, Michael. Frank, Alice, make him be on the level where I need him to be and then call me.". And he left. Michael felt embarrassed. Especially in front of Alice.

Frank stood up in front of Michael. He looked at Michael with at most seriousness. It was scary. Frank said - "Let's take a walk. It's boring here." - then he started also walking toward the door.

A minute later three of them were walking in the mega-structures. Frank was speaking - "Do you remember that dude with no hair? Or any other person that gets angry when you argue with them? Well..." - he pointed his hand towards the crowds of people around them - "All humans have evolved a mechanism that protects them. For a long time if you had been in a dangerous situation. Either a mammoth or a wolf attacking you, or a bunch of criminals running at you with knives, or a structure falling and you just happened to be underneath it. Humans almost always developed a chemical called Adrenalin that would feel up the brain."

"So wait..." - said Michael - "... When I feel scared, my brain creates Adrenalin?"

"No, dumb ass!" - said Alice - "When you realize danger, your brain creates Adrenalin. When your brain has Adrenalin, that's when you start feeling scared. Without Adrenalin, there would not be a feeling of scariness."

Michael wrapped his head around it. He asked - "So, if I inject Adrenalin, I feel scared without any danger?". Frank and Alice both said - "Yes.". It blew Michael's mind - "That's how drugs work!" - he said with an aw - "Wait... And there are then other chemical for other feelings?". Frank and Alice both said - "Yes".

Frank pointed at a woman in the distance that played with a baby in a carriage - "See this happiness feeling, it's Dopamine.". Michael turned to Frank - "Dopamine, I heard that. It's the addiction drug.". Frank frowned - "Not really. It's more complicated then that.". Alice jumped into the conversation - "This is not Dopamine, Frank. It's Oxytocin."

"But she is smiling." - said Frank.

"She is loving." - said Alice - "And love is Oxytocin."

"It's also Dopamine and Testosterone and Estrogen and Serotonin. Love has a lot of nuances." - said Frank.

"She is not trying to have sex with the baby..." - said the six year old Alice - "... what Estrogen are you talking about?"

"I'm lost!" - said Michael. So they explained him it a bit more clearly. Adrenalin is the drug that makes people feel scared. It blocks most of the cognitive functions apart of those that help the person fight or get out of the situation. There is though, a drug very similar to Adrenalin. It's name is Norepinephrine. And it's function is almost identical to Adrenalin. But instead of dealing with physical danger, Norepinephrine deals with ideological. It's hard to sell to hackers because they already know where to get things without paying for them. If you try to persuade them to buy something they will have a rush of Norepinephrine and their brain will get into a mode of ignorance. They will shut their ears and will scream "Bla Bla Bla Bla..." just not to hear what you say. In the worst cases they might even attack you.

In order to argue with a person, it's better that either he doesn't know anything about what you are trying to sell him. Because then he doesn't have a viewpoint to protect. Or you should make it that person will not feel like there is an argument at all. A lot of good arguers try to induce a great level of Dopamine in the person. But usually a better idea is to go for Serotonin instead. The difference is, Dopamine is an excitement drug. Thus it makes the person very high, so a complex idea would be hard to communicate. Serotonin on the other hand makes a feeling of calmness. Which is an ideal feeling for complex ideas.

It took an hour or so for Michael to understand it and how it's related to the arguing with people. Then they walked back into Mr. Molly's house. On the way in, Michael glanced at the unfortunate turn. A line in a structure was beautifully going straight from top to bottom. There was a hole in the structure to allow visibility on the turn and that hole was a hole in that line. It was out of place visually and seemed like it was done later. Michael noticed this detail only now.

When they entered Mr. Molly was in the middle of selling. Michael observed the process silently.

Mr. Molly was not selling anything he himself produced. He was selling copies of information. If you even seen an old western film, where there is a character at the door to a saloon that seen who came and who's gone. And the main character wants to know things that this person knows them. He can go and ask other people, but quite frankly he needs to know it now. And he is willing to pay for the information.

This guy at the saloon didn't hold a patent or a copyright for the information, but he still got payed. Mr. Molly is this same concept turned business model. In the era in which all of them lived, there was no copyright. At first, a century ago, there were movements brought up to defeat copyright as they thought that it was too harmful for public liberty. Information should be free! They all said. And slowly but surely those movement grew and became prominent.

They developed a very interesting concept that became largely a base for today's law of sharing. It was called back then Copyleft as to mock the Copyright law. And the whole concept was indeed to mock the copyright law, using copyright law. The idea was simple. Copyright doesn't allow people to share copies. But if the holder of the copyright let's people copy the work, they can. And the holder of the copyright can add various restrictions and terms to the people who want to start copying. So they developed various licenses that allowed who ever that received a copy to copy it more, only if the license will not be removed from the subsequent copy. For software the licenses were a lot more complex. Since to be free, with software you also needed it's corresponding source code, to make changes in it. Copyleft licenses became huge and detailed. Most licenses spread the copyleft to various modified works and works that were based on the original work or used parts of the original. You had to give the corresponding source of the work. The instructions of installing the work. Explanations, documentations and so on. Copyleft spread as a virus.

A lot of companies back then, didn't like the idea of freedom. If they could keep people under control they would not need to be clever to sell anything. They used the force of copyright. But as we all know: Force is a weapon of the incapable. Capable people use speech. After a few generations of copylefted work being unable to produce enough money to compete with those big companies, clever spokes people arrived to help the projects. Slowly but surely creating sustainable business models on the basis of speaking and cleverness. Not on the basis of restriction. Few generations of success like this brought with it the attention of the law makers. And puff, copyright was gone.

The clever trickery in Mr. Molly's work was to sell software that he didn't develop, that was available to download without paying nobody. A production cost of which was zero. And to sell it to a customer for real money. This was the problem. And now he was doing just so...