It may well be true, but the experimental setup does not disprove purely magnetic efects. An accelereometer/sensor has metal and/or wires in it, presumably, and if you move those in a magnetic field (such as the one around a powerfull spinning coil) you are very likely to get induced (eddie current) fields that oppose the movement - hence "acceleration field".
Besides, a strong magnet would interact with the Earths own magnetic field and produce a net force in some direction that can seem to make it lighter on one side. And if its a spinning coil then the force ends up being along the axis - there are older experiments of this kind measuring the weight of the gyro itself.
Good news, but if we are talking about fractions of percents compared to expectations than unfortunately this can be esily shot down by nitpicking at the setup.
Old news. Mines are just such machines. Besides the Russians have had for quite some time this full auto perimeter defence system consisting a machine gun (or a auto granade launcher) mounted on a IR auto-aiming pod. A soldier or a platoon sets it up at night and sleeps under it, and anything hot that appears within 100m radius gets machinegunned (or if you have more than one you set some arcs of fire).
I think the means to alter basic human drives, nature and behaviour already exist and its not like society has come crashing down:). Prozac, THC, LSD, Extasy, Cocaine have been around for quite some time. The means to turn humans into happy vegetables also exist (Heroin/McDonalds+TV). The technological means for an individual to go on a killing rampage exist too - all one needs to do is drive a heavy internal combustion vehicle (a.k.a. truck) on the sidewalk (and it doesnt happen).
Robots and machines already DO make cars, buildings, ships, chips etc. under human supervision/control.
A 200 tones crane could wreck a lot of damage, in the hands of a "evil" operator, and it doesnt happen either. Unloading a container ship with a 200 tones super powerfull crane could be automated, but it hasnt - has it?
What this comes down to, is the authors mistrust in people. "Politicians will make WMDs, and individuals in control of powerfull technology/machinery will not succesfully predict the consequences of their actions to the point of avoiding accidental slaughter. Or people will just deny responsability and just let a machine make decisions".
Well, I could be happening already, but I dont see it happening. Ergo, the problem lies with the author himself.
And the last issue is accidental/unplaned destructive results from unforseen consequences/applications of technology. Global worming is such an event, and it goes slowly enough for people to take action (in a functional society). Fallout form nuclear tests is another such event, and was almost immediately rectified with a ban (took 20 years). So, the faster the negative consequences manifest themselves, the lower the risk and cost of lives. In the extreme case where an experiment has immediate harmfull consequences - there will be only the researchers that would die.
But what about a harmfull experiment that starts a chain reaction and amplifies itself (a deadly virus/the grey goo)?
A) Its like sayng "what if a kid accidentally makes a nuke in his back-yard?". Accidentaly making things is what nature/evolution does anyway with viruses (AIDS etc.), and when people do it its in no way accidental, but very much planed and goal driven.
So - it's up to people and their decisions, and if a kid is smart enough to make a nuke, than that kid will be smart enough to put it appart and tell noone BEFORE that goal has been acheived, if its acheivable at all:
http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/radscout.html
B) Cars are such a virus (they have replicated and evolved quite fast in the last 100 years, and they are changing our ecosystem), and its not like this is going unnoticed or unregulated, and its not like the only solution is to "ban" cars right here right now.
Its ironic that fear and mistrust of technology is actually about fear and mistrust in people... And if fear and mistrust of people is what this is all about - then the solution should be about eliminating the fear and mistrust - NOT about eliminating a general technology by a general ban.
Technology is a tool, what you do with it is up to people. AIs could be given control to make us into domestic animals, OR AIs could sit around doing nothing until asked - "could there be harmfull consequences of this experiment that I haven't thought of; justify your answer".
Actually the more interesting thing about Moore's law (in terms of total processing power) is that it holds way further back than most people think. Mechanical calulator's total numbers and performance (like Charles Babage's difference engine) were also in accordance with Moore's law, and the two curves fit together quite nicely with the advent of the "many women" approach to computing and electronical computers.
Even clock-making reflects Moore's law in the last hundreds of years - in terms of unit numbers, clock sizes, element sizes (the size of the gears), the switch to electronic watches, etc..
Funny that.. It kinda reminds me who were the first whites in Australia, and what section of English society they came from:) (Answer: whores and convicts)
Or in the case of the US? (Answer: Strange religious sects..and convicts)
Gees! Where do YOU come from?:)
ever done military service? or been in a place where people are gathered at randon, and not by economical or regional status, or common interest? if not you have no idea what "cross-section" of (any) society means. frankly, after meeting the cross-section of (a) society I got the feeling that 80% of the cross-section of a society is not good for society:).
Everyone has these problems, not just in IT or Australia. And everyone wants to be a "worker" as opposed to "boss" (at least in some countries). It seems like the supply of IT companies/"bosses" has dwindled in Australia:). Be original, come up with some novel software idea (that creates a niche of it own rather than enter the fray of existing IT dev. areas), borrow money, cash-in on the cheap foreign labour, be rich.
The problem is - Australia is known to be a place that's easy-going, not stressfull, not a place where one must be competitive every second. In other words- "socialist"/"fun" when it comes to the lifestile of the average employee (who, as legend has it - goes diving/surfing/drinking beer with his co-workers after 5). Who wants to be a "boss" in such an environment? Or competitive? What kind of people would want to go to Australia?
I wish all the best to the Australian IT specialists, in their fight against foreign IT specialists. In fact, I think Australian immigration law should be changed so that foreign IT specialists are no longer in the "for naturalisation" section (along with nurses/scientists/engineers). Eastern Europe/Russia/India have a lot to gain from their best specialists NOT going to Australia, but rather stay home and raise their home industry standards and wages.. a very slow, tedious and painfull process, that most good specialists choose not to be part of. Fortunately - there are plenty of US companies outsourcing software dev. to India (as opposed to having Indian programmers on yearly "bussiness trips" to the US to circumvent anti-immigration/foreign employment laws). Its good to see Australia beginning to move in the same direction. Fenck you!
Suppose feynman's "many universes" explanation of quantum phenomena is true, and that we could, at some point blow ourselves up completely and totaly. But, if there are parallel universes where everything happens; then you roll a (trully random) dice - then you (6 of "you") end up in 6 different parallel universes where each of you observes 1,2,3,4,5 and 6 respectively. Now take a revolver. Load 5 chambers, leave one empty. Spin the drum. Aim at your forhead and pull the trigger. In five parallel universes you are dead. In one - you survive and observe that result. Now repeat the experiment. You'll find out that you are still alive, after thousands attempts (you, of course cant find out that you are dead in all the other paralel universes). And the conclusion is? Events that kill all observers "appear" to never happen; chance intervenes. PS. This would have been the case even if all 6 chambers were loaded - then the gun would appear to constantly jam. You might even draw the conclusion that there is an universal law "guns dont fire". Laws of physics that lead to the extermination of all obsevers never manifest themselves..or happen to remain "never investigated".
Or you can derive the same result by induction. Do we know of a time where we (an inteligent life form) were "extinct"? No. Have we observed another inteligent life form going extinct? No. (We havent observed other observers (alien civilizations) at all). Therefore, by induction, we will never die out... uhm, as long as we are alone in the universe:)
If quantum mechanics is true -then
1) there is a possibility of a local big bang etc.
2) there are parallel universes where everything happens; you roll a (trully random) dice - then you (6 of "you") end up in 6 different parallel universes where each of you observes 1,2,3,4,5 and 6 respectively.
Now take a revolver. Load 5 chambers, leave one empty. Spin the drum. Aim at your forhead and pull the trigger. In five parallel universes you are dead. In one - you survive and observe that result. Now repeat the experiment. You'll find out that you are still alive, after thousands attempts (you, of course cant find out that you are dead in all the other paralel universes).
And the conclusion is?
Events that kill all observers "appear" to never happen; chance intervenes.
PS. This would have been the case even if all 6 chambers were loaded - then the gun would appear to constantly jam. You might even draw the conclusion that there is an universal law "guns dont fire".
Laws of physics that lead to the extermination of all obsevers never manifest themselves..or happen to remain "never investigated".
Participation in these studies is open to all categories of domestic individuals and organizations. Minority and disadvantaged institutions and organizations are encouraged to respond to this CP.
Foreign entities at any level of participation are not eligible for funding from the NIAC. This includes proposals from domestic entities that include foreign entity participation.
right.. just when I thought that I might submit 10 genius proposals online.. I guess they'll stay in my head now:)
what this all comes down to is that ideas are not patentable (patents on them are not enforcable) as there is noone thats qualified to say what constitutes an (original) idea.. and especially not a jury of truck drivers. And it's ideas that matter most to competitiveness, or making and selling new products.
Embodiment of ideas (how its been done) is patentable and enforcable, but there's never a single embodiment of an idea.
Rolling/axial control of an airplane is a good idea, but it can be embodied in many different ways - by wing wrapping, that the Wright brothers patented, or by ailerons (that Curtiss invented to kill the Wright brothers monopoly, but its also an idea - so - not enforcable).
A current switching device all it takes to have digital electronics (good idea), but it could be a vacuum tube, a transistor, a relay, a CMOS device, a molecule..the list is endless - some rely on novel fabrication solutions, some are ideas.
Again - the only things that are patentable and enfoceable are materials science/fabrication solutions - and those dont have to be patented in the first place, as they are (mostly) not reverse-engineerable.
For instance, an iPod (succesfull) competitor could potentially be a portable MP3 player that uses voice/audio interface (and no power wasting screen). You talk to it ("play"/"stop" etc..), it talks back to you in you ear with song titles etc. - no buttons, no click wheel - outside existing patents. So the existance of patents make no diference to its impementation by a competing company.
But then, one could say, Apple would immediately introduce it in its own iPods (if there were no patents). Except that this idea is patentable but not enforcabe to begin with, as it is too general, and voice/audio interface has been arround for a long time (hey, the first "reading" machine was an Apple 2:)
So, it makes no difference.
My point was - the concept of the "hard-drive-mp3 player" is not patented/able, and we owe that to Sony, to prove that the concept of the "portable tape-player" is not patentable. The only single guy in involved is the german who had the idea for the walkman - and thats the only bad things about patents - that he got involved and 10 yeras of his career bit the dust. Without patents - this single guy wouldnt have suffered. The only difference pattents make - is that singe inventors suffer.
The click wheel (electrostatic/film buttons) is a necessity, not an bonus - to package the whole affair as tightly as possible. Could Chineese factories acheive the same fabrications/packaging standards? I dont beleive so. Another American company possibly could - but then it would be a clone that costs the same, and is 2 years behind the iPod version that it was ripped off. So - uncompetitive. I personally dislike the click wheel, as you can't use it in your pocket, just by touch alone (you cant feel your way arround it with fingers - unlike protruding buttons, and you you do - you start activating stuff), thats why they have opted for normal buttons on the ipod shuffle, rather than the (actually) slightly less expensive film stuff.
What this comes down to is that true ideas are not patentable as the patents on true ideas are not enforcable - specific solutions to specific problems are. And specific solutions to specific problems is all that changes during the development of an idea. Different specific solutions to specific problems is what creates a market niche for the competing company using the same general idea - so its not really in their interest to use old (and today - "patented") solutions.
Suppose there were no patents. Cannibalize and then what? Compete with each other, and innovate/develop the idea as fast as possible, as opposed to sit on it. And for this reason it would be in all these companies interest to employ the original inventor and offer him as much as possible (so that he goes to company A, and not company B that has offered less).
And how is that different from today's world? Look at the walkman case. Companies (Sony) still canibalize ideas, and then sue each other endlessly. The diference is: the invenor of the walkman (a german) got nothing out of it, except endless legal trouble and loosing lots of money and time - being a third party legally equal to Sony, in todays world of patents.
Without patents, Sony would have had a vested interest to employ him (before, say, JVC got to him), rather than enter legal battles with him (that off course he lost).
Would we have had that gorgeous 5th generation iPod today, if Apple could hold a general patent on it, and NOT have to compete with the other MP3 player making companies?
Things that are not reverse engineerable are not easy to make, but not impossible. Hell, Iran has been trying to produce replacement jet-turbine blades for its aged f-14s for decades and hasn't gone anywhere. The former communist blok managed to reverse engineer Apple 2s and IBM XTs only through spying, not pure reverse-engineering.
So, strive for novel fabrication ideas in your technology research, and tell noone. Period. Then, figure out what to do with the novel materials science you've come up with (or old materials science, novel fabricaton recipe), that can't be done by other means.
It has been like this for ages. Cast iron cannons, damaskine swords, slow burning gun-poweder..
Materials science is what has historicaly driven technology forward, since the dawn if times. They arent called "stone, bronze, iron etc. ages" for nothing.
You dont lose 20000 USD per year maintainig a patent, you dont lose money defending it.
I have great sympathy for the Wright brothers, who lost their patent rights in suits with Glen Curtiss, but..hey? They lost, didnt they, like so many others..IBM to John Atanasoff (first computer, and it was actually Alan Turing who invented it in the first place to crack German codes).. Marconi and the radio.. is there ever a happy patent story involving a great invention? PCR inventor, anyone? Well, it doesnt work and it has never worked, when it comes to things that matter.
So, lets scratch it off altogether and save our money and mental health.
If you are an egnigneer (and not rometely conected to materials science/chemistry/physics) - Publish, be famous, get given money to invent more for everyone (a la Leonardo Da Vinci and the Medici familly)
PSS. When you are this way - your best approach to technology is reverse engineering/copying what others have done before you. This way one can keep some semblance of technological parity. This, however, is also a dead end - because the people who are best at being "trendy" with their research and/or technological development - will not recognise a good (original) idea even if it hits them on the head. So, such an environment has positive feedback towards being more and more "second best".
Ps. There can be no chineese middle class (outside the party conections bureaucracy) as the chineese proto-middle class can never compete with the american when it come to the resource - the chineese workers. If it is a fair competition - about making the most money out of them. If it is not - then they wouldnt learn how to be efficient and competitive - would they.
So - I dont see any problems in the forseeable future. Unless people start seeing a problem where it doesnt exist and force chineese immigrants to go back to China.
What has China got? Ideally trained workers - will work for little, do everything you tell them, very obedient, taking no initiative (i.e. cannot mess up things by doing something stupid). What can China do with them? Nothing - lets not forget - there's the workers, and the Party with its planned economy (in the 20th century). No middle class, no initiative, no inovation. Party people have no originality or initiative or innovativeness by being bureaucrats, and the workers are just trained to not take initiative.
So, China decides (in the 70s) to sell their workers to those who can actually make good use of them. i.e. foreign companies. And suddenly China starts making money.
Can anyone explain me how selling your resources to the world can be a threat? China is nowhere near being capitalist (and therefore competitive), when it comes to technology. Because technology requires innovativeness, originality, individualism, and dislike for established paradigms/authorities in a specific matter. China hasn't got what it takes when it comes to educating/upbringing the scientists and engineers that will be doing the research, and those chineese who go abroad and learn a different mindset and like it - will not go back to China.
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It may well be true, but the experimental setup does not disprove purely magnetic efects. An accelereometer/sensor has metal and/or wires in it, presumably, and if you move those in a magnetic field (such as the one around a powerfull spinning coil) you are very likely to get induced (eddie current) fields that oppose the movement - hence "acceleration field". Besides, a strong magnet would interact with the Earths own magnetic field and produce a net force in some direction that can seem to make it lighter on one side. And if its a spinning coil then the force ends up being along the axis - there are older experiments of this kind measuring the weight of the gyro itself. Good news, but if we are talking about fractions of percents compared to expectations than unfortunately this can be esily shot down by nitpicking at the setup.
Old news. Mines are just such machines. Besides the Russians have had for quite some time this full auto perimeter defence system consisting a machine gun (or a auto granade launcher) mounted on a IR auto-aiming pod. A soldier or a platoon sets it up at night and sleeps under it, and anything hot that appears within 100m radius gets machinegunned (or if you have more than one you set some arcs of fire).
What this comes down to, is the authors mistrust in people. "Politicians will make WMDs, and individuals in control of powerfull technology/machinery will not succesfully predict the consequences of their actions to the point of avoiding accidental slaughter. Or people will just deny responsability and just let a machine make decisions". Well, I could be happening already, but I dont see it happening. Ergo, the problem lies with the author himself.
And the last issue is accidental/unplaned destructive results from unforseen consequences/applications of technology. Global worming is such an event, and it goes slowly enough for people to take action (in a functional society). Fallout form nuclear tests is another such event, and was almost immediately rectified with a ban (took 20 years). So, the faster the negative consequences manifest themselves, the lower the risk and cost of lives. In the extreme case where an experiment has immediate harmfull consequences - there will be only the researchers that would die.
But what about a harmfull experiment that starts a chain reaction and amplifies itself (a deadly virus/the grey goo)?
A) Its like sayng "what if a kid accidentally makes a nuke in his back-yard?". Accidentaly making things is what nature/evolution does anyway with viruses (AIDS etc.), and when people do it its in no way accidental, but very much planed and goal driven. So - it's up to people and their decisions, and if a kid is smart enough to make a nuke, than that kid will be smart enough to put it appart and tell noone BEFORE that goal has been acheived, if its acheivable at all: http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/radscout.html
B) Cars are such a virus (they have replicated and evolved quite fast in the last 100 years, and they are changing our ecosystem), and its not like this is going unnoticed or unregulated, and its not like the only solution is to "ban" cars right here right now.
Its ironic that fear and mistrust of technology is actually about fear and mistrust in people... And if fear and mistrust of people is what this is all about - then the solution should be about eliminating the fear and mistrust - NOT about eliminating a general technology by a general ban. Technology is a tool, what you do with it is up to people. AIs could be given control to make us into domestic animals, OR AIs could sit around doing nothing until asked - "could there be harmfull consequences of this experiment that I haven't thought of; justify your answer".
Actually the more interesting thing about Moore's law (in terms of total processing power) is that it holds way further back than most people think. Mechanical calulator's total numbers and performance (like Charles Babage's difference engine) were also in accordance with Moore's law, and the two curves fit together quite nicely with the advent of the "many women" approach to computing and electronical computers. Even clock-making reflects Moore's law in the last hundreds of years - in terms of unit numbers, clock sizes, element sizes (the size of the gears), the switch to electronic watches, etc..
Funny that.. It kinda reminds me who were the first whites in Australia, and what section of English society they came from :) (Answer: whores and convicts)
Or in the case of the US? (Answer: Strange religious sects ..and convicts)
Gees! Where do YOU come from?:)
ever done military service? or been in a place where people are gathered at randon, and not by economical or regional status, or common interest? if not you have no idea what "cross-section" of (any) society means. frankly, after meeting the cross-section of (a) society I got the feeling that 80% of the cross-section of a society is not good for society :).
Everyone has these problems, not just in IT or Australia. And everyone wants to be a "worker" as opposed to "boss" (at least in some countries). It seems like the supply of IT companies/"bosses" has dwindled in Australia :). Be original, come up with some novel software idea (that creates a niche of it own rather than enter the fray of existing IT dev. areas), borrow money, cash-in on the cheap foreign labour, be rich.
The problem is - Australia is known to be a place that's easy-going, not stressfull, not a place where one must be competitive every second. In other words- "socialist"/"fun" when it comes to the lifestile of the average employee (who, as legend has it - goes diving/surfing/drinking beer with his co-workers after 5). Who wants to be a "boss" in such an environment? Or competitive? What kind of people would want to go to Australia?
I wish all the best to the Australian IT specialists, in their fight against foreign IT specialists. In fact, I think Australian immigration law should be changed so that foreign IT specialists are no longer in the "for naturalisation" section (along with nurses/scientists/engineers). Eastern Europe/Russia/India have a lot to gain from their best specialists NOT going to Australia, but rather stay home and raise their home industry standards and wages.. a very slow, tedious and painfull process, that most good specialists choose not to be part of. Fortunately - there are plenty of US companies outsourcing software dev. to India (as opposed to having Indian programmers on yearly "bussiness trips" to the US to circumvent anti-immigration/foreign employment laws). Its good to see Australia beginning to move in the same direction. Fenck you!
Suppose feynman's "many universes" explanation of quantum phenomena is true, and that we could, at some point blow ourselves up completely and totaly. But, if there are parallel universes where everything happens; then you roll a (trully random) dice - then you (6 of "you") end up in 6 different parallel universes where each of you observes 1,2,3,4,5 and 6 respectively. Now take a revolver. Load 5 chambers, leave one empty. Spin the drum. Aim at your forhead and pull the trigger. In five parallel universes you are dead. In one - you survive and observe that result. Now repeat the experiment. You'll find out that you are still alive, after thousands attempts (you, of course cant find out that you are dead in all the other paralel universes). And the conclusion is? Events that kill all observers "appear" to never happen; chance intervenes. PS. This would have been the case even if all 6 chambers were loaded - then the gun would appear to constantly jam. You might even draw the conclusion that there is an universal law "guns dont fire". Laws of physics that lead to the extermination of all obsevers never manifest themselves..or happen to remain "never investigated". Or you can derive the same result by induction. Do we know of a time where we (an inteligent life form) were "extinct"? No. Have we observed another inteligent life form going extinct? No. (We havent observed other observers (alien civilizations) at all). Therefore, by induction, we will never die out... uhm, as long as we are alone in the universe :)
If quantum mechanics is true -then 1) there is a possibility of a local big bang etc. 2) there are parallel universes where everything happens; you roll a (trully random) dice - then you (6 of "you") end up in 6 different parallel universes where each of you observes 1,2,3,4,5 and 6 respectively. Now take a revolver. Load 5 chambers, leave one empty. Spin the drum. Aim at your forhead and pull the trigger. In five parallel universes you are dead. In one - you survive and observe that result. Now repeat the experiment. You'll find out that you are still alive, after thousands attempts (you, of course cant find out that you are dead in all the other paralel universes). And the conclusion is? Events that kill all observers "appear" to never happen; chance intervenes. PS. This would have been the case even if all 6 chambers were loaded - then the gun would appear to constantly jam. You might even draw the conclusion that there is an universal law "guns dont fire". Laws of physics that lead to the extermination of all obsevers never manifest themselves..or happen to remain "never investigated".
what this all comes down to is that ideas are not patentable (patents on them are not enforcable) as there is noone thats qualified to say what constitutes an (original) idea.. and especially not a jury of truck drivers. And it's ideas that matter most to competitiveness, or making and selling new products. Embodiment of ideas (how its been done) is patentable and enforcable, but there's never a single embodiment of an idea. Rolling/axial control of an airplane is a good idea, but it can be embodied in many different ways - by wing wrapping, that the Wright brothers patented, or by ailerons (that Curtiss invented to kill the Wright brothers monopoly, but its also an idea - so - not enforcable). A current switching device all it takes to have digital electronics (good idea), but it could be a vacuum tube, a transistor, a relay, a CMOS device, a molecule..the list is endless - some rely on novel fabrication solutions, some are ideas. Again - the only things that are patentable and enfoceable are materials science/fabrication solutions - and those dont have to be patented in the first place, as they are (mostly) not reverse-engineerable.
For instance, an iPod (succesfull) competitor could potentially be a portable MP3 player that uses voice/audio interface (and no power wasting screen). You talk to it ("play"/"stop" etc..), it talks back to you in you ear with song titles etc. - no buttons, no click wheel - outside existing patents. So the existance of patents make no diference to its impementation by a competing company. But then, one could say, Apple would immediately introduce it in its own iPods (if there were no patents). Except that this idea is patentable but not enforcabe to begin with, as it is too general, and voice/audio interface has been arround for a long time (hey, the first "reading" machine was an Apple 2:) So, it makes no difference.
My point was - the concept of the "hard-drive-mp3 player" is not patented/able, and we owe that to Sony, to prove that the concept of the "portable tape-player" is not patentable. The only single guy in involved is the german who had the idea for the walkman - and thats the only bad things about patents - that he got involved and 10 yeras of his career bit the dust. Without patents - this single guy wouldnt have suffered. The only difference pattents make - is that singe inventors suffer. The click wheel (electrostatic/film buttons) is a necessity, not an bonus - to package the whole affair as tightly as possible. Could Chineese factories acheive the same fabrications/packaging standards? I dont beleive so. Another American company possibly could - but then it would be a clone that costs the same, and is 2 years behind the iPod version that it was ripped off. So - uncompetitive. I personally dislike the click wheel, as you can't use it in your pocket, just by touch alone (you cant feel your way arround it with fingers - unlike protruding buttons, and you you do - you start activating stuff), thats why they have opted for normal buttons on the ipod shuffle, rather than the (actually) slightly less expensive film stuff. What this comes down to is that true ideas are not patentable as the patents on true ideas are not enforcable - specific solutions to specific problems are. And specific solutions to specific problems is all that changes during the development of an idea. Different specific solutions to specific problems is what creates a market niche for the competing company using the same general idea - so its not really in their interest to use old (and today - "patented") solutions.
Suppose there were no patents. Cannibalize and then what? Compete with each other, and innovate/develop the idea as fast as possible, as opposed to sit on it. And for this reason it would be in all these companies interest to employ the original inventor and offer him as much as possible (so that he goes to company A, and not company B that has offered less). And how is that different from today's world? Look at the walkman case. Companies (Sony) still canibalize ideas, and then sue each other endlessly. The diference is: the invenor of the walkman (a german) got nothing out of it, except endless legal trouble and loosing lots of money and time - being a third party legally equal to Sony, in todays world of patents. Without patents, Sony would have had a vested interest to employ him (before, say, JVC got to him), rather than enter legal battles with him (that off course he lost). Would we have had that gorgeous 5th generation iPod today, if Apple could hold a general patent on it, and NOT have to compete with the other MP3 player making companies?
Things that are not reverse engineerable are not easy to make, but not impossible. Hell, Iran has been trying to produce replacement jet-turbine blades for its aged f-14s for decades and hasn't gone anywhere. The former communist blok managed to reverse engineer Apple 2s and IBM XTs only through spying, not pure reverse-engineering. So, strive for novel fabrication ideas in your technology research, and tell noone. Period. Then, figure out what to do with the novel materials science you've come up with (or old materials science, novel fabricaton recipe), that can't be done by other means. It has been like this for ages. Cast iron cannons, damaskine swords, slow burning gun-poweder.. Materials science is what has historicaly driven technology forward, since the dawn if times. They arent called "stone, bronze, iron etc. ages" for nothing. You dont lose 20000 USD per year maintainig a patent, you dont lose money defending it. I have great sympathy for the Wright brothers, who lost their patent rights in suits with Glen Curtiss, but ..hey? They lost, didnt they, like so many others..IBM to John Atanasoff (first computer, and it was actually Alan Turing who invented it in the first place to crack German codes).. Marconi and the radio.. is there ever a happy patent story involving a great invention? PCR inventor, anyone? Well, it doesnt work and it has never worked, when it comes to things that matter.
So, lets scratch it off altogether and save our money and mental health.
If you are an egnigneer (and not rometely conected to materials science/chemistry/physics) - Publish, be famous, get given money to invent more for everyone (a la Leonardo Da Vinci and the Medici familly)
PSS. When you are this way - your best approach to technology is reverse engineering/copying what others have done before you. This way one can keep some semblance of technological parity. This, however, is also a dead end - because the people who are best at being "trendy" with their research and/or technological development - will not recognise a good (original) idea even if it hits them on the head. So, such an environment has positive feedback towards being more and more "second best".
Ps. There can be no chineese middle class (outside the party conections bureaucracy) as the chineese proto-middle class can never compete with the american when it come to the resource - the chineese workers. If it is a fair competition - about making the most money out of them. If it is not - then they wouldnt learn how to be efficient and competitive - would they. So - I dont see any problems in the forseeable future. Unless people start seeing a problem where it doesnt exist and force chineese immigrants to go back to China.
What has China got? Ideally trained workers - will work for little, do everything you tell them, very obedient, taking no initiative (i.e. cannot mess up things by doing something stupid).
:).
What can China do with them? Nothing - lets not forget - there's the workers, and the Party with its planned economy (in the 20th century). No middle class, no initiative, no inovation.
Party people have no originality or initiative or innovativeness by being bureaucrats, and the workers are just trained to not take initiative.
So, China decides (in the 70s) to sell their workers to those who can actually make good use of them. i.e. foreign companies. And suddenly China starts making money.
Can anyone explain me how selling your resources to the world can be a threat? China is nowhere near being capitalist (and therefore competitive), when it comes to technology. Because technology requires innovativeness, originality, individualism, and dislike for established paradigms/authorities in a specific matter. China hasn't got what it takes when it comes to educating/upbringing the scientists and engineers that will be doing the research, and those chineese who go abroad and learn a different mindset and like it - will not go back to China.
Unless kicked out of the USA/Europe