The first panel of the afternoon - "New political paradigms" - was a rather visionary affair. Predictably, it has the conservative minority steaming.

Declan McCullagh of Politech, whose presentation this morning centered exclusively on the US (how Hollywood has bought the Democrats), was rattled by the suggestion of Tunisian professor Mohamed Ben Ahmed, who said that the system of intellectual monopoly powers should focus on people, not on shareholders.

Declan countered this outrageous argument by mentioning that (in this order) a) half of the US population are shareholders, and b), that shareholders are people too.

Until that time, Declan had made on me the impression of an intelligent person. But this creative use of logic does not further his ratings with me. If there are some people who are shareholders, and unless animals or plants take to buying shares, that means all shareholders are people.

Easy, right? It's the second step which Declan doesn't get. The fact that all shareholders are people does not mean that all people are shareholders. You'd think it's not too hard a concept to grasp.

Good thing there were some more refreshing opinions. Tom Faunce of the Australian National University made a truly visionary suggestion.

Why not save tons of money by downsizing UN organisations, and merging some of them? Why not put together WTO and WHO, and sell the WHO building? Why not fusion WIPO and the Human Rights Council. How's that for saving money?

Tom consistently (and inspiringly) refused to use the term "intellectual property", saying "intellectual monopoly powers" (IMPs) instead. The panel he was speaking on was chaired by WIPO's Anthony Taubman, who dared to take a peek into a brigher future:

"I am looking forward to working for WIMPO."

Now there's a name I like. Forgive me that my entries are increasingly swaying off topic. I'm tired. Luckily, now there's a coffee break.

Just before lunch, we enjoyed a panel about "The politics of new technologies". Or rather, most of it. Kenneth Cukier, a journalist with The Economist gave a presentation about... nothing in particular.

By no means do I mean to offend Kenneth, who, I am sure, is a fine journalist. But that profession's innate generalism did not at all serve his talk well. This way, he gave a fine example of how using the term "intellectual property" fudges things up.

After having started with a test of faith, asking his audience about their beliefs with regard to "intellectual property", he launched into happily mixing up copyright, patents and all other sorts of monopoly powers, which rendered his otherwise interesting examples rather useless.

His manner of speaking was excellent and entertaining. Yet, the talk left many people I talked to feeling somewhat short-changed. It was like listening to a song by Britney Spears: Pretty in the first moment, mind-numbing from then on.

Much the same goes for many other presentations, especially most of those from the conservative camp. The patterns are familiar and recurring: You are either "pro-IP" or "anti-IP"; you either want to keep or abolish the system of intellectual monopoly powers, which is usually an introduction to lengthy panoramas of the anarchy which would then supposedly ensue.

I know that I don't always abstain from focusing the nitty-gritty of the debate into a decisive point. But this sort of over-generalisation certainly does not contribute much to the discussion.