memes

Without corporations there isn't a need for intellectual property. Public research, i.e. most research, is conducted without intellectual property, and most scientists dedicate their live to science not because they think they can get rich by selling one product, but because they get a decent wage and position for doing so, intellectual stimulus, and social recognition. Research and invention don't necessitate intellectual property, only private companies do.

People, in general, do not work for material gain. They work because they have to in order to live, procreate and raise their children. People want a minimum amount of prosperity and economic safety. Beyond that, they want to work in a way and a place that fulfills them. Work itself is fun when done right, and working with others is awesome. Not even the "smart ones" or whatever work mainly for material gain in general. There are an overwhelming amount of counter examples to any variation of your claim. It would be more accurate to say people work for fame and glory, or to get laid (again reproductive success).

But even if what you said was true, it does not justify a complete monopoly. You could have something like "congrats you patented a new idea - if it catches on you will get a free house as a price!"

Of course you know all this and are just arguing facetiously. If "the person who can solve climate change" does anything but trade stocks they would contradict your argument. There is no money in inventing climate solutions. But nice insult to the people who are working on things like that.

Your actual argument is that we reward gambling and non-productive activity too much. That the smartest people are not working towards the survival or wellbeing of humanity, but for... crumbs off the table of the capitalists. That our economic system is not efficient in working towards our shared human values.

The people who create products don't own the IP, the company that employs them does.

I am aware that there are people like that that exists and that its quite a big number of people

But I will never understand how people like that exist. And to be very controversially honest I don’t trust the sincerity and thus ideas of people that think like this. Though i still respect such people like anyone else all the same.

Granted i am a certified autist but personal gain has almost no value to me, to the point that being paid actually demotivates me because:

• I believe i deserve to have a good quality life regardless of economic value and know that statistically humanity has enough resources/food to guarantee such for everyone. It being conditional makes me feel exploited.

• I always want to be the best possible version of myself and accomplish whatever i, with my human limitations, am able to, which has the most general positive effect on the total universe. Regardless of anything. I consider it personality offensive others assume i would want anything else.

I feel devaluated because society appears convinced that i would not do work if they were not threatening my survival, and because corporate hierarchy is what it is i actually have to underachieve all the time because fighting to make actual improvements would quickly threaten the control of higher ups and thus become a risk for my own means of survival.

Sure, if i could solve climate change and no one would even thank me for it leaving starving poor then i would be very sad. But self worth and identity would be Intact because i would be doing what i know is right.

While changing that in favour of stock trading maybe my life standards would be better but with the lack of any real value and living of a system designed around exploitation of existing value will make me feel worse to the point i may actually end up an existential crisis and kill myself.

To die sooner for the right reasons is a better life than to survive longer for the wrong reasons.

While i know my stance is rare i know there are plenty of people who think exactly like i do about this.

Anyway i also got a bit side tracked because this wasn't about ip laws anymore, but my belief remains that if people can work on what they want without it affecting their personal access to luxury then there is no reason why they would not work on things that benefit all of society and thus themselves.

I think we need to differentiate between the potential of something versus the reality of something. We see people being super secretive of innovations right now and because they're patented they cannot even be reverse engineered. Innovations do die all of the time because the thing that is patented is a black box and even people who would reverse engineered it would get copyright trolled to hell.

My favourite example is spare parts for trains. Because the parts themselves are encumbered, it is illegal to repair trains yourself, thank you Siemens and Bombardier. Because if you get caught manufacturing spare parts, which are the intellectual property of someone else, you'll get into big trouble. How exactly does this behaviour help with innovation?

Another example are video codecs. AV1 was specifically engineered to avoid any sort of patent trolling. How much better would AV1 be if all of that engineering time could have been spent on innovation instead of trying to avoid encumbrance?

Also in your example, if there was a small invention and Walmart would just copy it, would the small inventor really have the resources to pursue Walmart in court for years on end? Best example is Amazon. They steal innovations all of the time and because they're doing it with small inventors, they face zero consequences because they do not have the resources to compete with a megacorporation.

But the biggest problem I have with patents is that it's not even internally consistent with capitalism. Example being, capitalism says competition is an objective good, while a monopoly is an objective bad. So why grant an unlimited monopoly for something if competition is good? Because if people were competing, then everyone would try to make the best version of something.

I mean, the theory may be pretty neat from some perspective, but the reality is we get the worst of both worlds. Innovations get killed off because everything is super proprietary and reverse engineering is prohibited and megacorporations can do whatever they want because, well, it's a free country. If you don't like it, just sue the megacorporation for years on end and just maybe get recourse for their transgression.

Corporations will do whatever is most profitable for them. If the strategy to patent something and then copyright troll the world to hell and back is the most efficient thing, that will be done. If the strategy to make the best product possible and get the most customers possible is the most efficient thing, that will be done instead. This would be internally consistent with the ideology of capitalism. " Why should the big government intervene with the free innovation of the free market? Let the invisible hand guide the innovation and may the best innovation win."

Edit: Also about trains. Train companies with the resources repair them all of the time, luckily. Because try to piss off someone who holds the power to just annihilate hundreds of millions worth in contracts overnight if they wanted.

Copyright (in many jurisdictions) is 70 yrs after death until next time Disney extends it

I think i meant smart phone. Apparently cell phone adoption was in the 60%+ range in 2005

https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/mobile/