5 ms·

What is the "real thing" and how would one give it away?

by darawk 4y ago

lapinot 4y ago
The real thing is materialistic independence and you give it away by educating skilled workers giving away IP and financing locally operated factories and other infrastructures. But global power have institutional safeguards against this because then they'll push themselves into a bad corner negotiating for resources they need themselves.
- lbrito 4y ago
  I don't think its that simple. Not even close. Yes, IP protectionism is a problem, and breaking IP sometimes is extremely beneficial (e.g. generic drugs). But that doesn't account for the underdevelopment of most countries. There are many factors involved -- geographical, historical, social, political and so on. Its a long discussion that is ill fitted to a comment box, but suffice to say B&M Gates isn't _the_ reason underdeveloped countries are that way.
- mordae 4y ago
  This. US - for example - might solve most of it's expensive drugs problem by simply licensing all relevant IP to India for a guarantee that they would be able to buy the drugs with up to 20% profit for the Indian seller after shipping, close an international deal, establish arbitrage and watch drug prices fall to <10% over a decade while Indians build up. If they established a mutual research fund (possibly with EU and British ex-colonies), they would exceed the current rate of research at 70% of current funding (if the research is kept in the west, basically guaranteed saving - 30% feeds profits and marketing), but if they were to exploit lower Indian wages... But this will never happen, because US is literally a business-interest device nowadays.
  - lapinot 4y ago
    Yeah, i agree, but still, i believe we should even aim for higher standards than what you propose: actually licensing current relevant IP is not enough. At least in the sense that we actually have to develop IP that is small-scale operable, easily shareable, etc. Current techniques are mainly geared toward large scale, investment heavy and resource exploitative applications. It's a start to at least be open about these techniques and share them, but like the article i shared above explained, if you're sharing monoculture technology, you're actually not giving away resilience and robustness. Tons of our current technology has to be reevaluated because it optimized the wrong things.
- karmakurtisaani 4y ago
  In other words, you help them to the point where they can become viable competition. Can't have that.
- darawk 4y ago
  You mean like this? https://www.gatesfoundation.org/our-work/programs/global-growth-and-opportunity/global-education-program https://www.gatesfoundation.org/our-work/programs/global-gro...
  - lapinot 4y ago
    No, i mean like this https://archive.org/details/AK47AKMTechnicalDrawingsRussian/page/n11/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/AK47AKMTechnicalDrawingsRussian/... ;) I'm joking a bit, but really, i'm not talking about teaching arithmetic and giving away pencils (which again, is something which is progressive, but at the same time it's not hard), i'm talking about giving strategic knowledge that gives you negotiation power (not weapons particularly btw). Building up strategic independence for these territories.
    - darawk 4y ago
      Don't you have to teach people arithmetic before you can teach them to do complex manufacturing? It doesn't seem to me like most of Africa has the level of education necessary to sustain operations like these.
      - lapinot 4y ago
        Yeah right, they barely have enough braincells to not basically do group sucide and have so much trouble behaving rationally, like you know posting cats on instagram. Dude. Everywhere in the world you can find people to organize elementary school, they have local intellectuals too. They have artisans, musicians, mechanics, farmers and markets, philosophers. It's disrespectful to consider that they have other problems for these kinds of job than financial and materialistic ones. No society is this dumb. And it's even also kind of dangerous, or at least not very culturally consensual, to come there grab small kids and with our best intentions teach them the western way. Maybe this won't be very well received. Maybe it really shouldn't be well received given all the mixup with evangelism (religious and cultural) that has taken place. Educating kids is a local matter and no one should be allowed to do more than help local people teach their kids. This is how you build trust and bidirectional/balanced relationships. Additionally, if you micro-manage people like that, they will still be vulnerable to another entity like you taking your place. So i maintain my position: what matters is the actually hard stuff, all the manuals we have, annotated maps, high-quality data sources and costly laboratory machines. High level information about what's going on and basic means to act on that. They'll find out what to do and you will actually build a strong ally, not a puppet you have to take care of.

What is the "real thing" and how would one give it away?

by darawk 4y ago

What is the "real thing" and how would one give it away?

The real thing is materialistic independence and you give it away by educating skilled workers giving away IP and financing locally operated factories and other infrastructures. But global power have institutional safeguards against this because then they'll push themselves into a bad corner negotiating for resources they need themselves.

lbrito 4y ago
I don't think its that simple. Not even close. Yes, IP protectionism is a problem, and breaking IP sometimes is extremely beneficial (e.g. generic drugs). But that doesn't account for the underdevelopment of most countries. There are many factors involved -- geographical, historical, social, political and so on. Its a long discussion that is ill fitted to a comment box, but suffice to say B&M Gates isn't _the_ reason underdeveloped countries are that way.
mordae 4y ago
This. US - for example - might solve most of it's expensive drugs problem by simply licensing all relevant IP to India for a guarantee that they would be able to buy the drugs with up to 20% profit for the Indian seller after shipping, close an international deal, establish arbitrage and watch drug prices fall to <10% over a decade while Indians build up. If they established a mutual research fund (possibly with EU and British ex-colonies), they would exceed the current rate of research at 70% of current funding (if the research is kept in the west, basically guaranteed saving - 30% feeds profits and marketing), but if they were to exploit lower Indian wages... But this will never happen, because US is literally a business-interest device nowadays.
- lapinot 4y ago
  Yeah, i agree, but still, i believe we should even aim for higher standards than what you propose: actually licensing current relevant IP is not enough. At least in the sense that we actually have to develop IP that is small-scale operable, easily shareable, etc. Current techniques are mainly geared toward large scale, investment heavy and resource exploitative applications. It's a start to at least be open about these techniques and share them, but like the article i shared above explained, if you're sharing monoculture technology, you're actually not giving away resilience and robustness. Tons of our current technology has to be reevaluated because it optimized the wrong things.
karmakurtisaani 4y ago
In other words, you help them to the point where they can become viable competition. Can't have that.
darawk 4y ago
You mean like this? https://www.gatesfoundation.org/our-work/programs/global-growth-and-opportunity/global-education-program https://www.gatesfoundation.org/our-work/programs/global-gro...
- lapinot 4y ago
  No, i mean like this https://archive.org/details/AK47AKMTechnicalDrawingsRussian/page/n11/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/AK47AKMTechnicalDrawingsRussian/... ;) I'm joking a bit, but really, i'm not talking about teaching arithmetic and giving away pencils (which again, is something which is progressive, but at the same time it's not hard), i'm talking about giving strategic knowledge that gives you negotiation power (not weapons particularly btw). Building up strategic independence for these territories.
  - darawk 4y ago
    Don't you have to teach people arithmetic before you can teach them to do complex manufacturing? It doesn't seem to me like most of Africa has the level of education necessary to sustain operations like these.
    - lapinot 4y ago
      Yeah right, they barely have enough braincells to not basically do group sucide and have so much trouble behaving rationally, like you know posting cats on instagram. Dude. Everywhere in the world you can find people to organize elementary school, they have local intellectuals too. They have artisans, musicians, mechanics, farmers and markets, philosophers. It's disrespectful to consider that they have other problems for these kinds of job than financial and materialistic ones. No society is this dumb. And it's even also kind of dangerous, or at least not very culturally consensual, to come there grab small kids and with our best intentions teach them the western way. Maybe this won't be very well received. Maybe it really shouldn't be well received given all the mixup with evangelism (religious and cultural) that has taken place. Educating kids is a local matter and no one should be allowed to do more than help local people teach their kids. This is how you build trust and bidirectional/balanced relationships. Additionally, if you micro-manage people like that, they will still be vulnerable to another entity like you taking your place. So i maintain my position: what matters is the actually hard stuff, all the manuals we have, annotated maps, high-quality data sources and costly laboratory machines. High level information about what's going on and basic means to act on that. They'll find out what to do and you will actually build a strong ally, not a puppet you have to take care of.