Hacker News Reader

Theft removes the incentive to do r&d. If you are just going to get it stolen, others will just invest in stealing. No one will waste on r&d. There are reasons we have laws. You are making infantile arguments for pro theft with no thought to the obvious consequences. The fact that you’re getting upvoted on HN is alarming.

View on HN

> If you are just going to get it stolen, others will just invest in stealing. No one will waste on r&d.

Okay, why does Linux exist? And why is it competitive with every proprietary OS kernel? And why does it get development from for-profit companies?

> There are reasons we have laws.

Of course there are. Many of those reasons are not good. In the specific realm of intellectual property law, some of those reasons are "because Disney has lobbyists".

I'm not sure this is historically supported. There's a long list of innovators who do not end up making the lion's share off of their achievements. I think innovation is just what we (humans ... or maybe even life in general?) do best and cultural values and need dictate how resources are allocated in this respect.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com