this post was submitted on 21 Jun 2026
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Intellectual property is bullshit in general, but intellectual property of LIVING ORGANISMS is just an entirely other level of fucked up
I think generally speaking it's good to have a short period of protection for new innovations, whether it's a new kind of engine or a new kind of fruit, to encourage research and development with the promise of exclusivity for some period of time. Like, within a Capitalist market system, I don't think patents are a bad thing
Intellectual property only encourages research and development in profitable sectors. I don't see why we have to wait and see if markets will research something if deemed profitable enough, when we could democratically decide what research gets funded, and fund it through public institutions. Most research already takes place in public institutions, even in capitalism, only the final step is done by companies which then patent the final step once 99% of the work is done, and profit immensely from it. Also, the researchers themselves don't even get the IP, it goes to the company they work for.
It's so untenable to me.
Exactly. Reminder that there was a doctor that wanted to develop a new autoclad that cleaned prions off surgical tools but had to abandon it because he couldn't prove it would be profitable to do so. Fuck capital.
Reminds me of the unbreakable East German glasses that they developed, ultra resistant thin glasses that could be dropped from table height onto a stone floor and wouldn't break 90% of the time. The inventors were puzzled when they tried to export the glasses and found out that no western distributor wanted to sell glasses which wouldn't break periodically
sure, within a capitalist market system. but isn't it clearly better to just directly publicly fund research and development instead of trying to create some sort of jackpot market incentive which duplicates effort and silos information
of course.
but if conglomerates exist i need protection from the conglomerate
Within the belly of the beast, a little digestive acid is not such a bad thing.