[MURG] Re: MURG digest, Vol 1 #295 - 5 msgs

[Martín O. Baldan]

On Mon, 08 Mar 2004 01:35:17 -0500
Yan King Yin wrote:

>As I pointed out before, IP does not prevent disclosure or
>publication, it actually facilitates openness.

Well, it does facilitate disclosure by the author or inventor (that's the
supposed reason patents were created in the first place) when the
alternative is to easily and securely hide the details of the invention and
sell the product as a black box. But it undermines disclosure, examination,
open discussion and experiment among other scientists, engineers and
amateurs. People are divided into producers and consumers of
intellectual products. "Consumers" are not supposed to know or try to learn
anything about the technology they are using. "Producers" are supposed to
behave as competitors, not colleagues. The sharing of knowledge is
discouraged.

>There isn't much reason to feel sad. Federal funding appears
>to be free only because it is a hidden cost. Therefore the
>'spirit of openness' is actually an illusion.

If you are trying to tell me that it would be desirable to find an
alternative to tax money, then I totally agree.  I dislike the dichotomy
"openness and tax money vs free market and IP". Remember that freedom is not
the same as openness. With tax funding of resarch, you've got lots of
openness because researchers don't have to worry about money, but many
citizens are forced to pay for things in which they are not interested, and
this restricts their freedom.

With IP, openness is undermined, for the abovesaid reasons. And what about
freedom? Well, you are free to buy device only if you want it, but you are
not free to examine it and make a copy, or even to assemble another device
which looks too similar, without permission from the patent holder. This is
no less *state* oppression than taxes are.

>Can you elaborate on your idea of fund raising? It doesn't
>seem very plausible, unless you're talking about charity,
>in which case the amount of funding would be very limited.

Not quite. I'm talking about a service-based economy. In the example of
mind uploading resarch, we have:

_A service: resarch on mind uploading
_Offerents: researchers who would like to work on mind uploading if they
could live on that.
_Demandants: People who want resarch on mind uploading and would pay for it.

Some possible problems:

1) If the findings of the research will eventually benefit everyone,whether
they paid for the research or not, then why pay?

2) What if I pay, but few other people does, and the project is cancelled?
Do I loose my money?

The main motivation to pay for something that you could get for free is to
 get it as soon as possible and under the best conditions. A good system
should ensure that researchers know the amount of money they will get before
they start working, and that payers get their money back if the research is
not conducted as agreed.

For example, let's suppose that a group of scientists want to conduct a
particular piece of research which is relevant to MU. They provide an
estimate of the cost and the time required. An independent institution
guarantees the credibility of the project. Those who are interested can make
conditional donations, through the internet or by other means. A typical
scheme of conditional donation would be the following: once you make a
donation, you can't in principle get it back, except if the project is not
finished according to the independent institution when the deadline expires.

It is convenient to distinguish the operative costs (in equipment and the
like) from the bonus given to researchers as an incentive. The latter can be
delayed, at least in part, until the research is finished to satisfaction of
all parts involved. The former is necessary, and it's spent, during the
research. So, there should be some kind of "research insurance" institution
to refund the contributors if the research fails to produce acceptable
results for any reason. I think it would be quite natural if the
certifying institution were funded by potential contributors and the
insurance institution were funded by the research community, always on a
voluntary basis.

So, you may ask, if it is possible to finance research this way, then why is
it not done? I think that some of the reasons are:

1) If a researcher (or an engineer) wants to make big money, there's a
better alternative: intellectual property. There's nothing like getting the
help of monopolistic laws to make a profit. While the scheme I propose could
probably be realised rigth now, it could only become predominant after the
abolition or substantial weakening of IP.

2)There's already an institution which is supposed to promote research: the
State. People pay taxes and some of that money is supposed to sustain
research. A voluntary research funding system would permit a substantial tax
cut. But the change from the old system to the new one would probably be
slow and careful.

I hope my position is somewhat clearer now.

yours,

             Martin O. Baldan