3 ms·
America owes its very existence to the land it stole from Native Americans. It owes a huge part of its prosperity to the entire lives it stole from generations
by scarcely 8y ago
America owes its very existence to the land it stole from Native Americans. It owes a huge part of its prosperity to the entire lives it stole from generations of black people by using them as draft animal (hence freeing the white man to think about science, mathematics, whatever). The entire material infrastructure that enabled the production of these fruits of the intellect is stolen, with direct violent human consequences (by comparison, the consequence of "IP theft" is that certain already well-to-do entrepreneurs make less money than they think they are entitled to). It's like if I kicked someone out of their house, adducted someone else, put them in my basement in chains to work for me. I then did a bunch of experiments and came up with some nice designs. But as I was the process of monetizing them I realize someone else stole the design for me, and now I suddenly feel morally outraged. How can he do that to me? The injustice!!
(To anyone who's prepared to invoke 'whataboutism' or whatever, note that my point is that the US's moral outrage is hypocritical, given its extensive history of (much more violent) theft. It's not about whether "IP theft" is morally permissible.)
- dontreact 8y agoMy parents immigrated here. Is it hypocritical for me to be upset about this? Also my interpretation of the parent post is that we should not attribute China’s success to their authoritarian government without considering IP theft as a major factor.
- foobarian 8y agoDon't forget how much American intellectual progress actually came from Europe. Europe did the hard work of educating and raising generations of scientists and other cream of the crop intellectual elites, who then proceeded to get chased away by wars and persecution and ended up in America. I heard some execs in startup land joke about how they managed to "get their Russian scientists" with relief that their intellectual problems will be solved now.
- IllogicalLogic 8y agoYes, America stole the fruits of European theft.... We all should realize that Pre-15th century most of Europe could barely do basic math. All the books about advanced sciences and mathematics were translated from Persian (which were compiled from Ancient Greek, Chinese, Indian, and Arab knowledge). The biggest thieves in history are just mad that the involuntary investors in their societies are coming to get a return on their investments. Don't forget when Europeans basically stole land and labor from whole continents, resulting in enough wealth to develop certain technologies. This is all part of the cycle empires go through and we in the West are on the tail end of one hell of a ride. This isn't controversial, this is history.
- patrickg_zill 8y agoThe land was not stolen any more than the native Americans stole it from someone else. Did they have no war before the Europeans came? America had slavery, but unlike untold other empires and large countries, it ended it. It owes very little if any part of its port-1865 prosperity to the work of slaves, given the destruction wrought by the Civil War.
- dingoegret 8y agoThe fact this got down voted so much proves how American centric this site is. Disgusting
- vixen99 8y agoSo who are these groups of people with morally irreproachable ancestors who've contributed so much to our world?
- IllogicalLogic 8y agoI personally like the idea of the ancient Indian college (in modern day Pakistan) that considered knowledge a gift from God (meaning it should be free to all). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxila https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxila This idea could propel mankind into the future faster than the steal, iterate, then lock down IP method we are using today.
- zzo38computer 8y agoI agree to make the knowledge to free. They should be public domain, not copyright and patent. (Public domain is what I do, at least. The law ought to abolish copyright and patents (to make them all public domain), in my opinion.) However, I fail to find the mention in that Wikipedia article (am I not looking enough?)