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Comment by Synaesthesia | Hacker News Reader

It's also how the US grew in the 18th century, by stealing IP from the global technological leader, Britain (who stole a great deal from India).

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I know Britain exploited the hell out of India as a colony, but what IP did they steal?

Or did you just mean stolen resources?

Stolen resources.

India had advanced steel making, ship making and textile technologies which were taken by the British.

Huh, I am Indian and have never heard it said like this. Do you have any sources to back this up, apart from the rockets and textile industries?

For the steel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wootz_steel

I think I stumbled upon that a while back. Thank you!

I don’t have a reference, but high quality steel making would be one.

You don't have a reference, because high quality steel was invented in the U.S.

I'm talking about an earlier time https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wootz_steel

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congreve_rocket

Huh.

It's the source of the rockets red glare.

Huh. So this is why Indian civilization gets a gunpowder boost in Age of Empires 2

India had 25% of world's before Britishers arrived and sucked all the wealth to bring it down to 4% when they left. That's some serious exploitation.

Considering we're all just going to end up "stealing" each others' technology in the end anyway, it strikes me that it might be much easier if we all just collaborated in the first place.

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