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"New ideas come mostly from recombining old ideas." Does this suggest that new ideas would become easier to find over time because there are more combinations

by mrbgty 6y ago

"New ideas come mostly from recombining old ideas." Does this suggest that new ideas would become easier to find over time because there are more combinations of old ideas?

Tagbert 6y ago
It also means that patents restrict the flow of new ideas by locking up the source material for invention. The idea that invention is a isolated creative force that pops up without dependency on anything else has always been a myth without foundation.
- TaylorAlexander 6y ago
  I’ve become extremely interested in this notion lately. When I have discussions about intellectual property with random people the dominant idea is that patent promote innovation. People get angry if I suggest that might not be true, as if they think I want all creative people to go bankrupt or something. But its increasingly questionable to me. Open source software has shown the great wealth of innovation that occurs when we collaborate instead of hiding our work. I think we could (probably) sharply increase the rate of innovation if we let go of intellectual property restrictions. I really want economists and other thinkers to take seriously this notion that intellectual property restrictions are deeply harmful to society and study it in detail. Unfortunately entrenched interests benefit from the status quo (naturally) and I feel they would be in opposition here. But we can still work to open source our output. It’s harder when open source competes with closed source, but if we can learn how to use open source to our advantage we might be able to win. In any case I think it is desperately important that we take seriously the idea that IP laws might be doing more harm than good. Most people I speak to take it as a given that we need them, and I think we’re shooting ourselves in the foot.
  - kd5bjo 6y ago
    > I think we could (probably) sharply increase the rate of innovation... As long as we're looking at deeply held assumptions, it's probably also a good idea to figure out what the ideal pace of innovation is. None is certainly bad, but too fast also causes problems for people: technological products are expensive and will be shorter-lived as innovation speeds up. At some point, the cost to society of all that churn probably balances against the benefits.
    - TaylorAlexander 6y ago
      It’s a good point. I would argue however that reducing or eliminating intellectual property restrictions also significantly eases the difficulty in repairing and upgrading old hardware. So obsolete technology is more easily upgraded or repurposed.
  - pacala 6y ago
    How do you solve for 'work for 5 years on open source project, get it to some degree of popularity, watch AWS making a service out of your code without paying you a dime'?
    - bobblywobbles 6y ago
      A new licensing model where it's prohibitive to make a profit off of this work.
      - pacala 6y ago
        The more restrictive the license, the more it drives potential users and collaborators away. That being said, do you have a concrete licensing model in mind?
        wolco 6y ago
        The Unity licease works. I think any licease that takes 50% of revenue would be fair to both parties with a minimum for the small user.
        TaylorAlexander 6y ago
        50% of revenue might make sense for Unity, where Unity provides clear value. But it absolutely would not make sense for some small library that gets used for a few operations. It also would not make sense for high profit work. Personally I’m seeking an end where everyone shares basically everything they do and no one extracts anything out of the duplication and re use of information.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
        pacala 6y ago
        That end is incredibly sad. We still have to pay our mortgage and our dentists, but can't ask for a fair pay for our highly skilled work. I guess we deserve the ad-based monetization model that has taken over the world. Brave new world, let's shill for megacorps with all the clickbait we can possibly muster.
  - thu2111 6y ago
    I think you'd lose a lot of people with the open source argument. Open source software is many wonderful things but it's not innovative. Been using and writing it for over 20 years: the projects that fundamentally change the conversation are nearly always proprietary (or sometimes open sourced for strategic reasons but developed as proprietary). Open source hits are usually clones. Linux -> clone of UNIX, on desktop sometimes macOS Git -> clone of BitKeeper Android -> developed in a proprietary way with minimal community, heavily iOS inspired GIMP -> clone of Photoshop OpenOffice -> clone of MS Office qemu -> clone of VMWare etc. It makes sense. Open source projects exist to 'scratch an itch' and are rarely optimised to maximise the size of the userbase. There's little incentive for open source developers to innovate: more users can be as much of a downside as an upside. Mostly it just equals more support headaches. Proprietary products are all about getting lots more users, so there's an incentive to try new things.
ta1234567890 6y ago
Or they would become harder to find when there are too many of them. For example, it's probably easier to find one thing among 3 than among 1 million.
Daub 6y ago
Hmmm. Maybe. But also, some ideas get 'ploughed under' by time. Also, many new ideas require re-stating as they get older.
friedman23 6y ago
Yes. How many novels nowadays riff off of history and paint it as fiction?

by mrbgty 6y ago

"New ideas come mostly from recombining old ideas." Does this suggest that new ideas would become easier to find over time because there are more combinations of old ideas?

Tagbert 6y ago

It also means that patents restrict the flow of new ideas by locking up the source material for invention. The idea that invention is a isolated creative force that pops up without dependency on anything else has always been a myth without foundation.

TaylorAlexander 6y ago
I’ve become extremely interested in this notion lately. When I have discussions about intellectual property with random people the dominant idea is that patent promote innovation. People get angry if I suggest that might not be true, as if they think I want all creative people to go bankrupt or something. But its increasingly questionable to me. Open source software has shown the great wealth of innovation that occurs when we collaborate instead of hiding our work. I think we could (probably) sharply increase the rate of innovation if we let go of intellectual property restrictions. I really want economists and other thinkers to take seriously this notion that intellectual property restrictions are deeply harmful to society and study it in detail. Unfortunately entrenched interests benefit from the status quo (naturally) and I feel they would be in opposition here. But we can still work to open source our output. It’s harder when open source competes with closed source, but if we can learn how to use open source to our advantage we might be able to win. In any case I think it is desperately important that we take seriously the idea that IP laws might be doing more harm than good. Most people I speak to take it as a given that we need them, and I think we’re shooting ourselves in the foot.
- kd5bjo 6y ago
  > I think we could (probably) sharply increase the rate of innovation... As long as we're looking at deeply held assumptions, it's probably also a good idea to figure out what the ideal pace of innovation is. None is certainly bad, but too fast also causes problems for people: technological products are expensive and will be shorter-lived as innovation speeds up. At some point, the cost to society of all that churn probably balances against the benefits.
  - TaylorAlexander 6y ago
    It’s a good point. I would argue however that reducing or eliminating intellectual property restrictions also significantly eases the difficulty in repairing and upgrading old hardware. So obsolete technology is more easily upgraded or repurposed.
- pacala 6y ago
  How do you solve for 'work for 5 years on open source project, get it to some degree of popularity, watch AWS making a service out of your code without paying you a dime'?
  - bobblywobbles 6y ago
    A new licensing model where it's prohibitive to make a profit off of this work.
    - pacala 6y ago
      The more restrictive the license, the more it drives potential users and collaborators away. That being said, do you have a concrete licensing model in mind?
      - wolco 6y ago
        The Unity licease works. I think any licease that takes 50% of revenue would be fair to both parties with a minimum for the small user.
        TaylorAlexander 6y ago
        50% of revenue might make sense for Unity, where Unity provides clear value. But it absolutely would not make sense for some small library that gets used for a few operations. It also would not make sense for high profit work. Personally I’m seeking an end where everyone shares basically everything they do and no one extracts anything out of the duplication and re use of information.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
        pacala 6y ago
        That end is incredibly sad. We still have to pay our mortgage and our dentists, but can't ask for a fair pay for our highly skilled work. I guess we deserve the ad-based monetization model that has taken over the world. Brave new world, let's shill for megacorps with all the clickbait we can possibly muster.
- thu2111 6y ago
  I think you'd lose a lot of people with the open source argument. Open source software is many wonderful things but it's not innovative. Been using and writing it for over 20 years: the projects that fundamentally change the conversation are nearly always proprietary (or sometimes open sourced for strategic reasons but developed as proprietary). Open source hits are usually clones. Linux -> clone of UNIX, on desktop sometimes macOS Git -> clone of BitKeeper Android -> developed in a proprietary way with minimal community, heavily iOS inspired GIMP -> clone of Photoshop OpenOffice -> clone of MS Office qemu -> clone of VMWare etc. It makes sense. Open source projects exist to 'scratch an itch' and are rarely optimised to maximise the size of the userbase. There's little incentive for open source developers to innovate: more users can be as much of a downside as an upside. Mostly it just equals more support headaches. Proprietary products are all about getting lots more users, so there's an incentive to try new things.

ta1234567890 6y ago

Or they would become harder to find when there are too many of them. For example, it's probably easier to find one thing among 3 than among 1 million.

Daub 6y ago

Hmmm. Maybe. But also, some ideas get 'ploughed under' by time. Also, many new ideas require re-stating as they get older.

friedman23 6y ago

Yes. How many novels nowadays riff off of history and paint it as fiction?