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Comment by mpoteat | Hacker News Reader

The theory is that nobody will invest in e.g. researching how to build a complicated lumber cutting machine if they don't have protections against their competitor copying the results.

Let's say this research costs 1 million dollars, and the company bankrolls this via a loan. They build it and are successful, and begin paying it off.

Their competitor copies their idea, and exploits the fact that they have more capital and less debt to buy up more of the market, and end up the winner.

So, under a zero protection scheme it is optimal to wait until your competitor invests in research, and then just steal it. Which is what happens on a geopolitical level where there is no feasible enforcement possible.

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Is it such a bad thing? The United States did it in order to industrialize and I would say that's a good thing.

Certainly depends on your utility function and the degree to which the ends justify the means. Is it good to steal from an apothecary to treat your ill wife? etc.

The underlying issue with Pareto optimal scenarios like this is that we end up trapped in a local minima.

I think in a particular case it's important to look at the context. For this, it likely depends on the scale, so in small town Georgiaville it would prevent innovation, but across the world scope its better* for ideas to be free.

*given most mainstream progressive utility functions and non-zero-sum philosophies

One might argue that the us did it in a time where markets weren't really developed on a global scale like they are today, so that comparison is only valid to a certain degree.

Some protection is good but there is this sort of hedonic drive to keep extending protection even though only a certain amount is needed to keep industries alive. At that point it is purely a wealth transfer.

It depends on how much the invention cost in the first place.

Some inventions are pretty expensive, like mRNA vaccines. If there is no way to profit from them, no one will spend crazy money on the research.

(Notably, mRNA was originally researched by the academic sector, but it did not recognize the importance of the topic and Katalin Karikó had to move to the private sector to finish her work.)

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