[HN Gopher] Ideas Want to Be Shared
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       Ideas Want to Be Shared
        
       Author : exrook
       Score  : 34 points
       Date   : 2022-01-06 11:16 UTC (11 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (kk.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (kk.org)
        
       | qnsi wrote:
       | I think we should just abolish all patents
       | 
       | https://web.archive.org/web/20120329153458/https://www.paten...
        
         | disintegore wrote:
         | It was never more than a patchwork attempt to force the market
         | economy where it didn't belong
        
       | DoreenMichele wrote:
       | I don't know the solution. I don't know how we determine a better
       | solution.
       | 
       | I do know that once you publicly share an idea without somehow
       | copyrighting it, people will run with it and the originator can
       | get badly screwed financially by people talented at essentially
       | intellectual theft and lining their own pockets who have an
       | absence of ethics and are too stupid to see that screwing their
       | source is not in their long-term best interest.
        
         | soperj wrote:
         | And with patents no one who originates an idea gets screwed?
        
           | DoreenMichele wrote:
           | I said no such thing. Please don't put words in my mouth.
        
             | soperj wrote:
             | I didn't. It was a question.
        
               | DoreenMichele wrote:
               | The article under discussion covers the fact that patents
               | aren't perfect in that regard. They cover the first
               | person who stakes their claim, which may not actually be
               | the originator.
        
         | cwkoss wrote:
         | Accept that ideas are low value. If you love the idea, set it
         | free.
        
           | DoreenMichele wrote:
           | My time, knowledge and expertise in developing an idea is not
           | cheap and I need to eat. A local organization has been
           | stealing my ideas and actively shafting me for absolutely no
           | reason other than they are awful people.
           | 
           | They nominally do economic development. I was happy to freely
           | provide ideas but I did expect it to be a networking
           | opportunity and a means to build my professional reputation
           | and local contacts and thereby enhance my income.
           | 
           | That has not happened.
           | 
           | I quit going to meetings because I was tired of their abusive
           | treatment of me and now they cyber stalk me and continue to
           | steal my ideas, give me zero credit, etc so some local cretin
           | and his awful bosses can pretend they are worth the money
           | that the city pays them.
           | 
           | I am getting nothing out of this at all. They can't even be
           | bothered to tell people where they get their ideas so my
           | reputation would be enhanced.
           | 
           | I continue to be dirt poor. I have done everything in my
           | power to play by the rules as I understand them and the
           | result remains the same both online and off: People think I'm
           | wonderful. They think I have great ideas. They also think I
           | should do everything out of the goodness of my heart instead
           | of for pay and everyone turns a deaf ear to the fact that I
           | am dirt poor, going hungry and desperately need more earned
           | income.
           | 
           | I have a real problem here, your platitudes not withstanding.
        
             | csdvrx wrote:
             | Do like Atlas: shrug, and start working on what you
             | perceive to be important problem within the right
             | environment, a set of people that recognize your value and
             | share their own values with you.
        
               | DoreenMichele wrote:
               | I'm doing my best to do exactly that. But it's not easy
               | to simply cut these people out. If it were, I would have
               | already done so. It's not like I haven't tried.
        
             | cwkoss wrote:
             | An idea that no one is willing to pay for is effectively
             | worthless.
             | 
             | Nobody gets rich from ideas, they get rich from execution.
             | 
             | An unexecuted idea which is kept secret has zero impact on
             | the world except inflating the ideators ego.
        
       | csbartus wrote:
       | I guess this is already happening in web development, at least,
       | but we've seen in operating systems and perhaps everywhere code
       | (GPT-3]
       | 
       | And if software eats the world, perhaps it will eat patents, too,
        
       | uniqueuid wrote:
       | Just as a comment for anyone new enough to not remember the
       | historical background:
       | 
       | The title is alluding to the famous quote "information wants to
       | be free" by Steward Brand. The full quote famously includes the
       | opposite as well, because information "wants to be expensive
       | because it's so valuable".
       | 
       | Kevin Kelly as an early collaborator of Brand of course knows
       | this intimately.
       | 
       | There is a wonderful and very insightful book on Brand, by the
       | way, called "From Counterculture to Cyberculture" by Fred Turner.
       | [1]
       | 
       | [1] https://fredturner.stanford.edu/books/from-counterculture-
       | to...
        
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