The President of the United States is an idiot.
 

From Obama's speech last night at the DNC:So a great teacher or a grant for college is going to produce the next Steve Jobs, eh?

Steve Jobs was adopted at birth by a working-class couple, Paul and Clara Jobs. Clara worked as an accountant, and Paul a machinist. Clara taught young Steve to read before he began kindergarten.

Steve was, by all accounts, a terrible student. In elementary school he was a notorious prankster whose teachers had to bribe him to study. After an unremarkable high-school education, he enrolled at Reed College, but dropped out after six months. He spent the next year and a half hanging around the college, dropping in on various creative and arts classes, but never re-enrolling- he sustained himself by mooching off of friends, gathering up empty soda bottles for refund money, and dining for free at the Hare Krishna temple.

After a brief stint at employment as a technician at Atari's arcade-game production factory, Jobs fled to India to "find himself" along with a friend. Jobs wondered around India for seven months before returning to the US. He quickly became enamored with both Zen Buddhism and LSD, still unemployed and mooching off of others for the next year.

He then re-joined Atari, and lied his way into a job as an engineer. Realizing that he had no idea how to actually design anything, he took his work home with him and enlisted the help of Steve Wozniak (a college-educated engineer at Hewlett Packard), to whom he had been introduced by a mutual friend. Jobs originally promised to split the proceeds of the design 50/50 with Woz, but instead lied to him about the actual amount of money which he received ($5,000 instead of $700), giving Woz only $350 and pocketing the rest.

After being fired from Atari, Jobs learned of the then-new trend of phone phreaking, and again enlisted his friend Woz to design a Blue Box (an illegal device which allowed one to make free long-distance phone calls) and began peddling them around college campuses, again shafting Woz with regard to the financial rewards.

In 1976, Wozniak independently created a prototype computer, initially as a hobby project for his own enjoyment. Jobs latched onto the idea that he could get rich by selling this machine, and convinced Woz to join him in a business venture. The two Steves founded Apple Computer, and became quite wealthy.

Jobs then spent the next several years fomenting conflict and animosity within Apple. He was loathed as a manager, and notoriously mis-managed the company. After driving his "friend" Woz (along with many other talented engineers and managers) out of Apple, Jobs was himself fired by the board.

His next act involved squandering millions of dollars of venture capital on a blue-sky venture called NeXT, which had essentially no grounding whatsoever in reality.

Finally, after using what little cash he'd been able to steal away from NeXT prior to its implosion, Jobs purchased Pixar with the intention of selling its assets to a medical imaging company. By pure luck, several bored Pixar engineers happened to create a series of animated cartoons in their spare time using Pixar's imaging package, and these cartoons won several academy awards, catapulting Pixar to fame and fortune. This elevated Jobs to the status of Lord and Savior, laying the groundwork for his triumphant return to "save" Apple from the mess which he had created years ago prior to his ejection, and from which it was only then recovering.

Once again at the helm, Jobs ushered in a new era of anti-competitive business practices at Apple. He drove the various companies which were then making Macintosh-compatible computers out of business by bleeding them to death with frivolous lawsuits, and purchased the ruins of his old company NeXT just prior to its bankruptcy, in order to gain access to the portfolio of innovative software patents which it had earned subsequent to his departure. These would, of course, be later used to attack scores of software companies, many of whom relented and paid large settlements to Apple, and others of which were simply driven out of business entirely

Jobs' greatest triumph, of course, came in 2000 when he strong-armed the young company PortalPlayer into granting them an exclusive license to manufacture what would become known as the iPod, perhaps the most iconic consumer-electronics device of that decade. (After Apple eventually abandoned it to seek a cheaper technology supplier, PortalPlayer collapsed in 2007, and its assets were acquired by nVidia.)

The combination of this new technology platform and the iTunes store model allowed Jobs to commit a number of innovative new crimes in the fields of both privacy exploitation and the slightly more mundane (but considerably more profitable) tactic of exclusionary media licensing, earning him recognition in the courts of Norway, Sweden and Denmark, as well as a guest appearance before the European Commission to explain the merits of his price-fixing schemes.



So, yeah. Great role-model there, Mr. President.

Yes, Joe, everyone who is not a blinded fanboi knows Woz is much better/smarter at everything than Jobs.

Unfortunately, that is NOT most of the country. So Steve Jobs is our idol, like it or not.

You are making the mistake of thinking anyone in politics cares about what you think. They don't, they care about the 10 idiots behind you that they can influence with a 30 second commercial.

To be fair...the President's speechwriter is probably the idiot. Well, they may both be idiots. But the inclusion of Steve Jobs in the speech is probably the speechwriter's responsibility.

Thanks again for the "Hackers" recommendation. I knew in general terms that Woz was the brilliant techy guy and Jobs was the clever business guy, but I didn't realize how misguided the pop culture hagiographical view of Jobs is.

Clinton's speechwriter used to be our neighbor.


that is all.

Well hes right, other people suffering made Jobs who he is now :party:

Sam Seaborn would never invoke Steve Jobs' name.

True. Saying that the President (or his speechwriter) are idiots is actually completely untrue. They're both likely quite intelligent assholes, who freely distort history in order to influence the less-well-informed who look to them for "leadership." (This ties in to my previous rant about the concept of "truth" in electoral politics.)



You're welcome. And, was it you who recommended "Worm" to me? Fascinating book that's turning out to be. I started it a few days ago and I'm about halfway through it. Reminds me a lot of "The Cuckoo's Egg" set in the internet Age.

It's kind of an interesting personal dichotomy which I battle here. I utterly detest Jobs as a person, and yet I greatly admire him as a businessman. And while I loathe the way in which Apple Computer had evolved into a style cult over the past 20 years, I was actually a big Apple fan back in the days of the IIe and the IIgs.

There have been a huge number of books written about Apple itself as well as the various personalities within it. I'll probably never be able to read them all, but a few that stick out in my mind which were quite entertaining and informative were "Revolution in the Valley," "Insanely Great" and "iCon."

Probably was me. I read it last year sometime and enjoyed it. Glad you're enjoying it too. Mark Bowden is a good writer.

From reading that I got two things,

Steve Jobs is a terrible person but a brilliant capitalist.

True and true.


So, this is interesting:


Apparently, Obama's speechwriter is not to blame after all. The speech, as originally written, cited "the founder of the next Google" as opposed to "the next Steve Jobs."

The speech, in its original form, was even pre-submitted to the New York Times, which published it. You can see the original here: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/06/us...pagewanted=all


Apparently, the decision to ignore the teleprompter and snub Google in favor of Jobs was an impromptu ad-lib, which is interesting in three ways:


1: Google's founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page both come from backgrounds of relative privilege. They are the products of highly educated families (their parents are two computer science professors, one mathematics professor, and one rocket scientist), and they enjoyed the benefits of a formal college education paid for by others. Thus, they more closely exemplify the ideal of Obama's "Successful people didn't build/do/create it on their own- somebody else helped them, and thus, you should expect somebody else to help you" philosophy.

This is in stark contrast to Jobs, who lied and cheated his way out of the blue-collar suburbs without receiving any kind of scholarships / grants / special education; a completely self-made man.


2: Right now, creating jobs in the US seems like kind of a big deal, politically. Apple used to have all of its engineering in-house and manufacturing in the US, but under the leadership of Jobs' second term transitioned to a model of outsourcing pretty much everything it can. They outsource quite a lot of software development to India (a trend which they are actually planning to increase by a factor of four in coming years, and of course their manufacturing operations moved to China long ago.

Amusingly, they have recently been coming under attack by CHINESE ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS about how utterly horrid Apple is about both pollution and worker safety as compared to other US-based companies which outsource production to China.

(When even the Chinese are complaining about how much you pollute and how badly you treat your workers, there is a problem.)


3: Sergey Brin and Larry Page, to the best of my knowledge, are not criminals.

It's possible you're reading far too much into this. Having done on-camera work with a prompter -- rarely live, and nothing even remotely on the scale of 20k people -- you learn to get the gist of the words on the screen and make up the rest. It makes the reverberations coming out of your piehole sound less like you're reading words verbatim from a screen and more like you're having a conversation with the audience. You say what feels most natural and flow-y in the moment, on the fly.

Then again, Obama has off-the-charts public speaking skills and could probably pull off purposeful, conniving, devious changeups during his delivery with no effort at all.

Anyway, Occam's razor, and all that.

I can see this a couple of different ways.

I've never met or worked with the President. I have, however, worked in broadcast TV doing live news. My experience in that domain has been that the joke in Ron Burgandy that "they will read anything that you put on the prompter" tends, to some degree or another, be true. While it's true that newsreaders do often ad-lib in certain well-defined scenarios (such as banter between anchors when tossing from one segment to another), it is extremely uncommon for them to go off-script in the middle of copy.


Of course, I'm not positing that there's any conspiracy here, or that the President had some sinister motive in electing to cite Steve Jobs over Page and Brin.

Quite the contrary, in fact. I can deduce no logical explanation for this whatsoever.

Now, the President and Jobs were personally acquainted, and it's well-known that the President is a fan of Apple's portable elctronic gizmos (iPad, Macbook, etc). But for what seems like such a trivial point, why risk going off-script?

I honestly can't explain it. And the fact is that the why of it doesn't really matter to me. What I find puzzling is the why not.

Why not?

For all the reasons I posted above. Beyond Jobs' questionable character and numerous ethical failings, holding him up as an icon is quite simply contradictory to Obama's "You didn't build that" message. Jobs most certainly did "build that", insomuch as that he built a business empire which is unrivaled to this day, and he did it without any help from his parents, the government, charity, the educational system, an existing industry infrastructure, etc. Jobs is the antithesis of Obama's message to America.

And that just makes no sense at all. It makes me question the President's judgement.

He doesn't know WTF he's doing. His strongly-ingrained beliefs have failed him. His Czar's (who share his beliefs) have failed him. Nothing he's doing is working, and he can't understand why (although it is obvious to many that he's strangling the golden goose -- hard). He knows he's in deep doodoo, but he's not nearly as smart or adaptable as Bill Clinton. He's grasping, like a drowning swimmer.

In 2008, he ran as a moderate that could inspire the American people to great things. He definitely was not running as a 100% anti-business socialist. The Reverend Wright thing gave pause, but most took the chance.

Now we know who he is. I don't think he will be elected again.

Joe,

Any other interesting side stories of Jobs?

I don't disagree, he was a bad person, IMHO. But he was a businessman, and he did well at it, even if he did step on some toes along the way ( For lack of a better term ). However, when I read the book ( yeah, i bought it ) about his meeting with Obama and what he told him, I couldn't believe my eyes. The man was left, to say the least, but I'll be dipped if he didnt have Obama pegged from the word go.

And yeah, Wozniak is the man. The iPad won't let me call him Woz unless I do it manually. lol.

How much of Apple's success today (e.g. iPhone, iPad), was due to Jobs?

Given that Jobs was the one who originally came up with the idea to create the Apple Computer Company, and the iThings would not have existed if Apple did not exist, 100% of Apple's success today is due to Jobs.

So indeed he was a visionary, and had great ideas for great products.

Your description of him in post #1 somewhat fits the description of a narcissist, or someone who would score on the low end of the Psychopathy Checklist. I have a theory when someone like him (low morals), otherwise brilliant, tries to get what he wants (wealth, greatness), in a relatively free market, he can do some good, because the free market rewards those that satisfy customer needs and wants. You get a bunch of satisfied customers.

OTOH, when a psychopath desires power and gets into government.... some of them probably become president.

Yes, and no.

Jobs was a visionary in that he was able to see the potential value of the inventions of others (blue box, Apple I, Xerox Alto, Macintosh, etc) with a more potent clarity than their own inventors, and pursue an aggressive strategy to commoditize those inventions.

But Jobs himself was almost totally incapable of having ideas for great new products. He was fascinated by technology and gadgets, but was never successful at creating an idea for a new product which succeeded in the marketplace.

In the early days of Apple, for instance, Jobs was instrumental in creating original designs for both the Apple III and the Lisa, which were both colossal failures in the marketplace.

After these two failures (well, after the first one and part-way through the second) Jobs quite literally stumbled across the Macintosh, which up to that point was being developed in pseudo-secret as a sort of skunkworks project by a group of disgruntled former members of the Apple II and Lisa teams who had found themselves without useful projects to pursue by Jobs' frequent and seemingly random re-organizations.

Jobs pushed aside the manager of the Macintosh project (Jeff Raskin) and seized control of the project, which was sufficiently far along in the development cycle by that time that he was not able to cause significant damage to it other than crippling its memory and removing its internal expansion capability. (Remember that the very first Mac was shipped with only 128k of RAM and was not upgradeable.

This was barely enough memory to run the OS itself, and without the ability to add additional memory, Apple was deluged with returns which would have bankrupted the company were it not for the still-profitable Apple II keeping the company afloat. This machine was quietly discontinued after a little more than one year and replaced with the Macintosh 512, and then, at the insistence of now-CEO John Sculley, by the 1 megabyte Mac Plus four months later. It was in this same year that Jobs was finally driven out of Apple altogether, clearing the way for more powerful (and expandable) Macintosh computers which would make possible the creation of the desktop publishing market that would drive Apple's growth and dominance of the "creative" marketplace for the decade to follow.



Of course, none of this is really relevant to the thread topic, although I do appreciate that you haven't yet tried to blame the federal reserve bank or America's departure from the gold standard for Apple's decline in the mid 1990s.

Where in Apple did the iPhone and iPad come from?

Where are you going with this, and how is it relevant to electoral politics?

It's not, but I find the tangent this thread went on, interesting.

P.S. On topic, Obama just probably used the popular image of Jobs. And he may actually not know any better.

Fair enough.

To be honest, my knowledge of the later history of Apple isn't as comprehensive, as I kid of lost interest in the company during the mid to late 80s. This story will also be a tad long-winded, as it begins in a far earlier era, one with which I am deeply familiar. There is much more history behind the iThings than most people realize.

For the purpose of the following, bear in mind that the Mac was introduced in 1984, Jobs was fired* in 1985, and he re-joined the company as de-facto CEO in 1997.


In the late 60s and early to mid 70s, researcher Alan Kay formulated the description for a computer which he called the Dynabook. The Dynabook was envisioned as a roughly book-shaped device combining a flat display screen, a long-lived battery, and access to a large repository of information. Kay envisioned that such a machine would be an invaluable tool not just for adults, but for children as well. (Remember that in the late 1960s, the idea that a child might use a computer, much less own one, was ludicrous.)

This was, of course, a purely academic exercise as the technology to create such a machine did not exist at the time. But Kay was an academic and self-styled futurist who intended his vision to influence the thinking of computer scientists in the decades to come. You can read a 1972 paper written by Kay while at Xerox PARC here: http://www.mprove.de/diplom/gui/Kay72a.pdf


In 1993, seven years after Jobs' departure, Apple released the first MessagePad (aka Newton). This device was the very first of the free-form graphical PDAs, predating the PalmPilot, HP Journada and others by several years. A number of different MessagePads were produced, ranging in size and power from small PDAs to devices which were comparable to what we call a "Tablet PC" today.


After Jobs' return to the company, he decided to re-assert his dominance as Alpha Dog by adopting the same tactics which had resulted in his ousting a decade earlier. He promptly terminated nearly all ongoing R&D operations (including Newton, the company's first internet suite CyberDog, and the OpenDoc framework), held routine (and seemingly random) layoffs, and as I mentioned earlier, eliminated all clone makers.

Shortly thereafter, the first generation of "real" Tablet PCs began to be introduced by companies such as Fujitsu, Toshiba and HP. These computers generally ran fully-featured operating systems (eg: Windows 95/98/ME) and were therefore fully compatible with applications written for desktop PCs.

Because of their desktop-centric OSes, these machines suffered certain drawbacks. One was the fact that touchscreen technology of the day generally still required a stylus for input, as it had in the earlier PDAs (including the MessagePad / Newton.) Another was that the applications software of the day had in general been engineered with the expectation that input would be derived from a keyboard and a mouse with the ability to host two buttons, click-and-drag, etc. As an owner of one of these machines myself (I use a first-gen fuji for Megasquirt tuning) I can attest to the fact that stylus-based input on a resistive screen in this context is... imperfect.


In 2002, Jobs was attending the birthday party of a Microsoft researcher who was the husband of a friend of Jobs’ wife. Jobs recalled the meeting in his biography with Walter Isaacson:Jobs then set to work, sketching out the design for Apple’s own tablet PC, which would have a square display with, get this, a keyboard beneath it. In an interview given with Walt Mossberg in early 2003, Jobs noted thatFor those who clicked on the PDF I linked to above, Jobs’ design, insofar as the form-factor, was nearly an identical copy of the Dynabook pictured on page 6 of that document. Remember that Jobs had visited PARC in the early 80s while stealing the concept of the mouse-based GUI for use on the Lisa, so it is probable that he had seen Kay's design concepts for the Dynabook at that time.

Fortunately (for Apple), cooler heads prevailed and Jobs was soon able to be distracted away from this design. Incidentally, in the same interview as quoted above, Jobs denied Apple’s plans to produce a Tablet PC.

It is interesting to note that, at this time, Jobs was unable to envision a use for mobile computers which involved primarily the consumption of information rather than the generation of information. A computer which is designed to deliver data to the user without the expectation of the user inputting much data into the machine would naturally not require a keyboard, and this is precisely the paradigm under which the modern tablet operates. This is especially ironic given that the graphical world-wide-web had already gained mass-acceptance by 2002/2003, and text-based input was even then becoming a relic of the past.


During this time, of course, the then-new iPod was rapidly gaining in popularity and market-share, attracting a number of competitors, none successful. In 2004, Motorola approached Apple with a request to license its iPod technology for incorporation into a cell phone. Apple agreed, and the product of this partnership was the Motorola Rokr E1. The phone sold modestly well, but technological problems combined with Motorola’s perception of Apple being a difficult company to work with led them to partner with RealPlayer for the Rokr E2 in 2006.

In typical fashion, Jobs was infuriated by this perceived insult, and embarked upon another “Fuck You” design campaign. Fortunately for Apple, Jobs had already secretly been planning to backstab Motorola by partnering with Cingular Wireless prior to the Rokr’s release, and this partnership yielded what is today known as the iPhone.


As for the iPad, you remember Jobs’ earlier argument at the birthday party?

By the late 2000s, Tablet PCs in their original form had been all but abandoned by the Intel/Windows crowd, but a new technology had emerged: the e-reader. Devices such as Amazon’s Kindle were, in fact, perhaps the truest interpretation yet of Alan Kay’s Dynabook concept, and represented a casual-use marketspace which Apple had not yet been successful in penetrating.


Enough time had now gone by since the termination of the Newton project (and the abandonment of tablet PCs in general in the early 2000s) that Jobs could tout the Tablet PC as his own invention, but only if Apple entered the market before Kindle-like devices were able to evolve beyond static display of books into interactive computer-like devices, and before the Android system (which at the time was, like iOS, restricted only to smartphones) could leverage its open-source appeal to potential competitors from Asia.

The iPhone project had given Apple a head-start in both advanced touchscreen input and the development of “apps” which scaled well into the non-keyboarding world, thus enabling Jobs to ret-con his earlier objection to keyboard-less computing. And shortly after the release of the iPhone, the second half of the story fell into place when Jobs was shown a copy of a video produced in 1994 by Knight-Ridder News, showcasing a design idea created (but never patented) by technological visionary Roger Fidler. In it, Fidler demonstrates and describes a physical mockup of his design, and predicts how it will function in a manner which, in hindsight, is nearly indistinguishable from a modern-day iPad. (Except for Angry Birds. Fidler missed the boat on that one.)

With both the technology of the iPhone and the design inspiration of Fidler’s concept, Jobs was able to pull a repeat performance of his 1976 success and direct Apple to “invent” the tablet PC. Jobs borrowed heavily from the Fidler design (right down to the shiny black cover and rounded corners) and the rest is history.





* = whether Jobs was technically fired or not continues to this day to be the subject of some debate. Jobs himself always maintained that he was fired, while then-CEO John Sculley claimed that Jobs had resigned. What is known is that Apple’s board of directors had ordered Sculley to “contain” Jobs, and “limit his ability to launch expensive forays into untested products” (eg: Lisa2, Mac XL.) When Jobs learned of this directive, he attempted to stage a coup and oust Sculley from Apple. When Sculley learned of this and revealed it to the board, it voted to strip Jobs of all managerial authority. That Jobs did technically resign seems plausible, given that subsequent to this meeting, Jobs was instructed to move his office out of the “Bandley 3” building which housed the Macintosh division headquarters and into a building located some distance away from the main campus, whose sole occupants were himself, his secretary, and one security guard.

Arguably, "you didn't build that" applies to Jobs as well, lol.
Thanks for typing the above.

P.S. Joking aside, Obama's famous utterance is silly.
Of course nobody builds things in a vacuum. But the idea that you should be *forced* to share the fruits of your labor and innovation is ludicrous. (But said fruits shouldn't be gathered via political means)

As is befitting the thread title:

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1347216670

Who's suffering? his competition?

Wut competishun?

Competition is the people who "stole" Apple's IP that they totally made themselves and didn't copy from anyone despite the large mountain of evidence to the contrary.

my mother and aunt went to see him in downtown WPB. :party:

:bowrofl:



I could go a couple of ways here.


You've often espoused the philosophy that the legal recognition of intellectual property rights via patent and trademark protection, in general, is a bad thing. In a hypothetical world without these protections, one could well argue that nobody had actually invented anything on their own since fire and the wheel. There would be less incentive to create truly original innovations, and no incentive at all to prove that you'd actually done so rather than just copying someone else.


But on a more serious note, the President's "you didn't build that" message just doesn't work in this context.

In any civilized society, some degree of collectivism is inescapable. Doesn't matter whether it's a tribal agrarian culture, a communist dictatorship, or an industrialized capitalist nation.

The famed astronomer Carl Sagan once wrote that "if you wish to truly make an apple pie from scratch, first you must create the universe." And it's true that the baker does benefit from having a planet with gravity and an atmosphere to stand on, apple trees from which to pluck apples, a foreknowledge of how to make fire in order to bake the pie, and so on. But this does not at all diminish the accomplishment of pie-making, given that these amenities (gravity, fire, applies) are equally available to all, and yet not all create apple pies.

In the same way, the only things which Jobs relied upon to "create" Apple Computer were also available to everyone else living in the United States in the mid 1970s. He didn't found the Homebrew Computer Club in Menlo Park, but many such clubs existed and membership was free to all. He didn't create the schematics to the Apple 1, but Woz freely shared them with all who asked. He didn't design the 6502 microprocessor which it used, but MOS Technology was practically giving them away inside boxes of Geek Flakes cereal.

Jobs, in fact, had almost nothing going for him aside from the "baseline" of civilized society which every white American in the early 1970s had access to. He wasn't privileged to attend Harvard like Gates and Allen, where they had access to copious amounts of free mainframe computer time and the inspiration of some of the finest minds of their generation. He wasn't raised by PhD professors who inspired him to learn about science and technology like Page and Brin. He didn't even have any money- the sale of his old VW Bus (along with Woz's HP digital calculator) provided the startup capitol to build the first production run on Apple 1s.

In every way that matters, Jobs most certain did "build that." He built an empire.



What really stands out in the President's speech, however, is the specific context of Jobs' invocation. He spoke of "an escape from poverty by a great teacher or a grant for college" as being the prerequisite for the creation of the next Steve Jobs. And that's just so far detached from the real story of Steve Jobs, the product of a blue-collar family who was uninspired in school and dropped out of a liberal arts college after one semester, that it's almost incomprehensible.

i donated a $100 pair of dress pants this weekend; amoung other things.

Agreed 100% with the paragraph invoking Sagan.

Re: IP - I've read both sides of the argument, and I suspect that the world would be a better place overall if there were no IP, but this would require a bunch of other changes (i.e. a much free-er society), and of course it is all conjecture. Right now if all else is maintained as-is, an IP overhaul is the most realistic way to improve things.

+1

The 20 year patent protection originates in a law created in 1861. Why should we expect it to be appropriate for things like computer hardware and software?

As a person that makes their living creating IP, I find this stance completely retarded. I'm supposed to slave for a company, but you can steal what I create with no consequence? Good luck getting anything new made or invented.

I'm just going to quote my friend here:

IP law is a tough nut.

Clearly the system is much more easily abused in the 21st century than it was in the days of Benjamin Franklin. Patent trolling has become recognized as a legitimate profit-making scheme at traditional corporations, and while I wouldn't go so far as to say that this stifles innovation (innovators gonna innovate), it certainly complicates the inventive process and disproportionately burdens companies and inventors who are less able to amass patent portfolios and pay for legal counsel.


On the other hand, we already have modern-day examples of what happens when there is little to no IP protection as well.

One extremist example would be that of soviet-era Russia. While they were often successful at cranking out innovation at the barrel of a gun (space race, arms race, etc) very little in the way of private innovation took place behind the iron curtain, either in the way of artistic expression such as cinema or in technological innovation. The soviet computer industry, for example, consisted almost entirely of copying western technologies- they didn't really invent anything of their own. Their "big" computers were mostly clones of machines from DEC and IBM, and their PCs were typically copies of designs from US and UK companies like Apple, TRS, Sinclair and IBM. They even built their own knockoffs of popular CPUs like the 6502 and 8086.

Was this "good" for the Russian people? Well, it meant that they had access to cheaper computers (since there was no need for R&D), but it also meant that they trailed behind western nations in computing performance. And, of course, the Russians contributed almost nothing at all to advancing the state-of-the-art in general.


China, today, is in a very similar position. There's been a lot of press lately surrounding the new iPhone in China, and how local Chinese companies have been busy producing lookalike clones of it. Same goes for their auto industry- have you actually looked at a Lifan 320, a Shaunghaun Noble, or a Great Wall Coolbear? Virtually indistinguishable from a Mini Cooper, a Smart Fortwo and a Scion xB, respectively. (Those are just a few random examples.) Hell, we've even seen TV transmitters scattered around Asia which are almost indistinguishable from Harris-made designs of the 1990s, except for the lack of the word "Harris" printed on the front. They even copied our paint colors. Repeat ad nauseum for consumer appliances, consumer electronics, and so forth. Heck, you'd have a hard time buying a DVD in most Chinese cities that wasn't bootlegged.

Like the Russians before them, and unlike their contemporary counterparts in Taiwain and South Korea, Chinese mainlanders seem unwilling to actually bother inventing anything on their own. And why should they, when it's so much easier to just duplicate the designs of others? Now, is this rally beneficial to anyone? Does it make the Chinese "better" as a society?

Most patents are fine. I only have a problem with 2 kinds of patents. Software patents, and genetic patents.

Software is already protected by copyright, and the effect of software patents is that established companies can (and do) push out small businesses and individuals. The entire point of a patent is to hold the knowledge contained in the patent for public good once the patent has expired. But that doesn't apply to software patents, since there isn't any actual code on the patent, at best what you get is a lawyer describing what it is that the code does.

As for patents on the human genome, well, I shouldn't really have to explain that one, should I?

Also, one thing I forgot. Every single SIGNIFICANT software invention came before software patents were granted.

How might one separate the effects of lack of IP law from the effects of lack of profit motive when evaluating the reasons for the lack of private innovation in Soviet Russia?

Is it coherent to even talk about private innovation in the context of Soviet Russia, unless we are referring to the black or grey markets?

Also I should point out that the constitutional basis for IP is the public good, not because an inventor deserves it.

uh huh.

"That, on the principle of a communion of property, small societies may exist in habits of virtue, order, industry, and peace, and consequently in a state of as much happiness as Heaven has been pleased to deal out to imperfect humanity, I can readily conceive, and indeed, have seen its proofs in various small societies which have been constituted on that principle. But I do not feel authorized to conclude from these that an extended society, like that of the United States or of an individual State, could be governed happily on the same principle." --Thomas Jefferson to Cornelius Camden Blatchly, 1822. ME 15:399

I don't think so.

Contrary to what you might imagine, the USSR was not George Orwell's 1984.

While ownership of "the means of production" in the USSR was granted only to the state, and this included the ownership of homes / apartments, personal property did exist, and could be bought and sold. The Soviet government also recognized the concept of IP protection, and granted “inventors' certificates” to individuals who created new things.

The Inventors' Certificate differed from the Patent in that it did not confer exclusive ownership of the design to the individual, but it did recognize his or her contribution to advancing the state of the art.

I think you and I are actually telling the same story here, though. Soviet Russia clearly possessed many talented individuals who, when forced at the point of a gun, were capable of inventing new technologies and designing innovate products. But in the absence of the motivation of assured personal profit, very little independent personal innovation took place.


Still, I recognize that the USSR is an imperfect analogy, which is why I also cite China. While China may still ostensibly be a communist state, this is in name only. China has evolved into a totalitarian socialist state, where concepts such as party loyalty and respect of government are still strictly enforced, but the concept of private ownership of businesses and trade in a capitalist marketplace have also been embraced, in recognition of the economic and quality-of-life benefits which stem from them.

Internally, China does in fact have a patent system. A Chinese inventor may create a device, patent it, and profit from that innovation. What China does not have is a strong respect for the patent systems of other nations. As a result of this, nearly all present-day Chinese "innovation" consists of copying products designed in other countries and then patenting them domestically. As a result, nobody really has a strong incentive to "create" anything original- they can just copy the innovations of western nations and their neighbors in Japan and South Korea.

The Constitution is an old, old document, and sometimes it is difficult to derive the true meaning from the founding Fathers.





This is not one of those cases.

It says it right there in the first sentence. "To promote the progress of science and useful arts..."

I think the real key phrase is "to authors and inventors." This would argue against the notion that patents are transferable, and that reform would eliminate the problem of patent-trolling.

So if I invent a machine which gives blow-jobs in a more stylish way than existing blow-job machines, I should be able to GRANT A LICENSE to Apple to manufacture a blow-job giving machine using my technology. But should Apple be able to purchase every blow-job patent that exists and use this portfolio to create a de-facto blowjob monopoly?

that's why it's easy to go through all their work and writings on the subjects and actually read their intents.

"To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"

is not the first sentense BTW, it's not even in the first article, nor the first power granted to congress in Article 8.

the first sentense is "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

keywords: promte general welfare, and secure liberty to ourselves and our posterity.

this was dirived from Article III of the Articles:

"The said States hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship with each other, for their common defense, the security of their liberties, and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to assist each other, against all force offered to, or attacks made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretense whatever."


the inclusion of promote general welfare is something they compromised on because hamilton was a statist who should have stayed in england.

and we all know that our country and revolution was founded on the writings of, in a nutshell, one man: John Locke. Locke was concerned with private property rights. His idea was that the government should allow men to protect their property in courts of law, in lieu of each man being his own judge and police force.

he wrote:

Man...hath by nature a power...to preserve his property - that is, his life, liberty, and estate - against the injuries and attempts of other men.”

on the otherhand:

the French Revolution was influenced by the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Rousseau saw the government as the vessel to implement the “general will” and to create more moral men. Through the unchecked power of the state, the government would “force men to be free."

It didn't end well for them:

Of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence, all died of natural causes in old age, with the exception of Button Gwinnett of Georgia, who was shot in a duel unrelated to the revolution.

The leaders of the French Revolution all died violently, by guillotine.

more fun facts:

The most famous quotes from the American Revolution is Patrick Henry’s “Give me liberty or give me death!”

The most famous slogan of the French Revolution is that of Jacobin Club “Fraternity or death.” or better put, "Be my brother or I'll kill you."

Americans celebrate the Fourth of July, the date our written demand for independence from Britain was released to the world.

The French celebrate Bastille Day, a day when a thousand armed Parisians stormed the Bastille, savagely murdered a half dozen guards, defaced their corpses, stuck heads on pikes -- all in order to seize arms and gunpowder for more such tumults. It would be as if this country had a national holiday to celebrate the L.A. riots.

its both; it grants a temp monopoly to the inventor so they can sell what they have made, but it also allows everyone else to see how it ticks if you will. Its totally ok to make a 'significant' innovation based on someone else's work and get a patent of your own, therefore obsoleting the other thing in the process. A good analogy would be color tv> B&W tv.

Love the inside line on apple history too.

Right. It grants a temporary monopoly. Why? So the inventor can recoup his R&D costs? False. "To promote the sciences and useful arts?" Yes, that is why.

I cant tell if your being sarcastic....

What? Can you read? Article 1, Clause 8, Section 8:

Emphasis mine. How much more clear can it get? Is there a second meaning that I am missing here?

The Admin has:

For purposes of promoting quality control and general welfare, by disallowing access to miataturbo.net for limited times to members and accessors;

the bold emphasis is the reasoning, not the ends.

The text reads:

To promote the Progress of all knowledge, including philosophy, literature, etc. and the work of artisans, people skilled in a manufacturing craft, etc. the Congress has the power to secure, for limited times, to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;


https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1347307061

I think its very clear, but for what other purpose would someone want to use their writings or discoveries if not for profit? And if its public domain why guarantee the exclusive right? The notion that the device (i don't like this current trend of patenting ideas, fwiw) can then be sold to re-coup costs or freely given away at the discretion of the inventor is implied; in other words we would not need ANY patent law or protection provided by it if the all inventions instantly became public domain.

edit: Its part of the core thinking of the founders. "To promote the progress of science and useful arts" means to offer incentive for people to invent new things by granting a temporary monopoly. If not for that there would be less of an incentive to make new things.

It's not about individual use. It is saying that exclusive right may be granted for the benefit of progress. Meaning that it helps everyone to secure limited monopolies for inventors.

Except it doesn't always. Software patents, for example, are overwhelmingly owned by hardware companies (IBM, Motorola, Samsung, etc) and not software companies. 67% of software patents are held by companies who employ 6% of developers. So clearly they aren't being used to "To promote science and the useful arts." It's more like "To promote our monopoly."

Occupy silicon valley?

I am the 94%

I agree that the patent system is very broken, periods are too long, you can patent an IDEA, software without source code, etc...

"to To promote the progress of science and useful arts" phrase again. As I understand patent law from my college class on it, that means I could not use a patent and reverse engineer a widget and sell my own copy of it. Now, I AM free to do that for my own personal use. AND if I make a significant improvement I could get my own patent for the improvement. I think this is how the system should work in principle.

What the patent system is now days is a perversion of what the founders intended to exist.

I'm surprised I didn't see any of these when I was last over in Germany:

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1347493425

(Yes, it's a real product.)

Apple and samsung occupy 90% of all cell phone sales.

Just realized I never responded to this. Here we go.

Okay, but that's not quite the same, right? A certificate is lovely, to be sure, but I'd argue that for most Soviet citizens (subjects?), it wouldn't compare to the right to market and sell a product at a price of one's own choosing, for one's own benefit. The greater success you achieved, the more likely that the state would notice and claim for itself the rewards of your ingenuity and hard work. This is clearly a disincentive to private innovation.

Right -- that was essentially my point. The nitty-gritty details of patent law and exclusive rights takes a back seat when the profit motive itself is seriously in question.

Agreed, in that China is a stickier situation (which is why I did not address it in my comment, as it did not [necessarily] apply).

I think there's a second dynamic at play here, which you may have in mind but I didn't see expressed fully in your response. China is essentially a developing nation desperately trying to catch up to the West in terms of technology. There are reasons for this state of affairs, but to discuss them would be to expand the discussion. I'll leave it at this -- it is vastly more profitable for Chinese tech companies to copy the innovations of others because they are so far behind -- they cannot yet stand on the shoulders of giants, because they are still clambering up that giant's midsection, if you will. In developed markets, on the other hand, copying market leaders offers much less profit -- even the act of copying means you are 6 or 12 months behind a rapid technology curve -- so companies are forced to rapidly innovate (including borrowing and building on competitor's innovations) in order to find that last margin of profit available in a much tougher playing field.

Directive 10-289

"In the name of the general welfare," read Wesley Mouch, "to protect the people's security, to achieve full equality and total stability, it is decreed for the duration of the national emergency that--

"Point One. All workers, wage earners and employees of any kind whatsoever shall henceforth be attached to their jobs and shall not leave nor be dismissed nor change employment, under penalty of a term in jail. The penalty shall be determined by the Unification Board, such Board to be appointed by the Bureau of Economic Planning and National Resources. All persons reaching the age of twenty-one shall report to the Unification Board, which shall assign them to where, in its opinion, their services will best serve the interests of the nation.

"Point Two. All industrial, commercial, manufacturing and business establishments of any nature whatsoever shall henceforth remain in operation, and the owners of such establishments shall not quit nor leave nor retire, nor close, sell or transfer their business, under pentalty of the nationalization of their establishment and of any and all of their property.

"Point Three. All patents and copyrights, pertaining to any devices, inventions, formulas, processes and works of any nature whatsoever, shall be turned over to the nation as a patriotic emergency gift by means of Gift Certificates to be signed voluntarily by the owners of all such patents and copyrights. The Unification Board shall then license the use of such patents and copyrights to all applicants, equally and without discrimination, for the purpose of eliminating monopolistic practices, discarding obsolete products and making the best available to the whole nation. No trademarks, brand names or copyrighted titles shall be used. Every formerly patented product shall be known by a new name and sold by all manufacturers under the same name, such name to be selected by the Unification Board. All private trademarks and brand names are hereby abolished.

"Point Four. No new devices, inventions, products, or goods of any nature whatsoever, not now on the market, shall be produced, invented, manufacturerd or sold afer the date of this directive. The Office of Patents and Copyrights is hereby suspended.

"Point Five. Every establishment, concern, corporation or person engaged in production of any nature whatsoever shall henceforth produce the same amount of goods per year as it, they or he produced during the Basic Year, no more and no less. The year to be known as the Basic or Yardstick Year is to be the year ending on the date of this directive. Over or under production shall be fined, such fines to be determined by the Unification Barod.

"Point Six. Every person of any age, sex, class or income, shall henceforth spend the same amount of money on the purchase of goods per year as he or she spent during the Basic Year, no more and no less. Over or under purchasing shall be fined, such fines to be determined by the Unification Board.

"Point Seven. All wages, prices, salaries, dividends, profits, interest rates and forms of income of any nature whatsoever, shall be frozen at their present figures, as of the date of this directive.

"Point Eight. All cases arising from and rules not specifically provided for in this directive, shall be settled and determined by the Unification Board, whose decisionswill be final."

Joe's new avatar?

https://www.miataturbo.net/attachmen...ine=1347540964