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> No not tragedy of the commons, it's that businesses are so focused on growing short term profits they'll enter into efforts that yield profits in the three ye
by CogitoCogito 7y ago
> No not tragedy of the commons, it's that businesses are so focused on growing short term profits they'll enter into efforts that yield profits in the three year timeframe that are long term losers (giving up IP) in the medium to long term. It's madness.
Okay sure it's a combination of searching for short-term profits and tragedy of the commons. Individuals acting in their own self-interest against an overall greater good.
- dv_dt 7y agoIMHO, government has little real power to pragmatically curtail this as a formal trade issue. If it's legally not allowed, it's not like employees in China can't walk away with the tech anyway. The question is where you want to build your technology base and where short term greed drives you to build. Private IP of companies isn't any sort of public commons. By deciding to build stuff in China, they've already left the only arguable commons part of that - the common labor knowledge base that forms naturally where you put your actual build operations.
- CogitoCogito 7y agoWell the US could for example put up trade barriers that are costly enough for China to change. Of course it might not work due to lack of US political will, or strong Chinese political will, or any number of reasons, but it's not like nothing is possible. I'm not necessarily saying this is a good idea, but it's not like this is some magically impossible problem to solve.