[ivan.moony]

I was assuming it's about humanity benefiting from the project, not the inventor. You know, there exist a joy of doing something because you believe in it. Everything else is a fake. Sure, you might get crucified along the way, but if you truly believe in what you're doing, that shouldn't pose a problem.

 

[goaty]

I get it.

[ivan.moony]

But then, what would be drawbacks of quantum technology? Cryptography breach to government dirty laundry maybe? That could really be a motive for a murder.

[goaty]

Yeh… being able to crack RSA is an issue...  isn't it...

[ivan.moony]

It shouldn't be. Secrets are what criminals are made of. We should rearrange the web without RSA or anything similar.

[LOCKSUIT]

Don't assassinate the scientist, capture him and utilize him.

[WriterOfMinds]

Secrets are what criminals are made of.

No; secrets are 1) a way of protecting yourself when you don't have the power to directly fight off threats, and 2) a way of proving your identity and preventing theft.  Imagine if we couldn't have secret passwords for our bank accounts and so forth!  Criminals use secrets, yes, but so do plenty of good people.  Since secrets help re-balance power, it can be argued that it is worth letting criminals have them for the sake of making the world more democratic.

[ivan.moony]

There are numerous examples where my stomach turns inside out, but I'll give just this one:

• various medicaments kept in secret in order to pump on the profit

Isn't just this single example worth of making an effort of sacrificing using personal online banking software, or exposing personal e-mails? It would not be much, I'm sure we would work around it, but if we would gain just that one example secret I noted, I believe it would be worth of it.

[goaty]

Ivan,  what do you think about plagiarism?  Good thing, or bad thing?
Say you've developed a quantum computer... and ur worried about ppl copying what you did, especially possibly a group of ppl that lie about inventing things they don't... including this here quantum computer that they clearly took 200 years to not be able to make... and then suddenly it just pops up "so easy to do"  but could they do it without this guy?  no.

[ivan.moony]

Goaty, I wouldn't mind much.

If they want to lie, so be it, it's their life. If they want to steal, so be it, it's their life. If they want to kill, so be it, it's their life.

People are freaking terrifying when it comes to committing to do what they're determined to do. No one could stop them anyway of doing whatever they want, if they really want to do it.

Maybe we should make that hard for them, but if we then have to sacrifice doing something really good, especially when lives are on the stake, I think I'd let them go easily.

Maybe I'm wrong.

[goaty]

I agree with what u say, that it sucks to get your stuff ripped off you,  but maybe it doesn't matter.

But what if quantum supremecy seems like a good thing,  but what about bad it causes,  maybe its best if it never happens.

After the excitement goes away,  are u sure being stuck in a world where nothing is intractable Is always a good thing?

[WriterOfMinds]

If we didn't allow companies to keep medicine formulae secret and profit from them, then we'd be stealing from all the people who worked hard to invent and test that medicine.
Some companies perhaps overdo it and charge too much. But I don't think the right answer is to make all intellectual property public.

If they want to kill, so be it, it's their life.

Are you serious?? If somebody kills, then by definition it's not just their life, it's the life of whomever they're killing!

I also don't understand why you say things like "get rid of secrets to stop criminals" but then turn around and say "let liars/thieves/killers do their thing, so be it." That doesn't seem consistent. Do you want to stop crime or don't you?

[ivan.moony]

After the excitement goes away,  are u sure being stuck in a world where nothing is intractable Is always a good thing?

All things weighted, I'd go for it, but I wouldn't make that decision myself alone. I have my reasons.

[ivan.moony]

If we didn't allow companies to keep medicine formulae secret and profit from them, then we'd be stealing from all the people who worked hard to invent and test that medicine.
Some companies perhaps overdo it and charge too much. But I don't think the right answer is to make all intellectual property public.

World politics sucks, and this rotten capitalism is a thorn in my eye. I'm sure there are plenty other political arrangements that would solve this issue. I believe that governments should offer a solution where everyone would walk away with no blemishes on conscience. If governments are not willing to do it, people should establish an institution which does it. Hiding such an important intellectual properties makes only one side happy (if this could be called happiness).

If they want to kill, so be it, it's their life.

Are you serious?? If somebody kills, then by definition it's not just their life, it's the life of whomever they're killing!

I also don't understand why you say things like "get rid of secrets to stop criminals" but then turn around and say "let liars/thieves/killers do their thing, so be it." That doesn't seem consistent. Do you want to stop crime or don't you?

It is a tricky question, it is hard to judge the others without judging ourselves. We have all done terrible deeds, but I don't want us to commit a mass suicide. I believe in this world.

Forcing things has never caught my heart. I don't like criminal deeds. But I believe whoever does it, should be publicly labelled as doing it. That's as farthest as I'd like to go and plan if I could retain sanity all the time. But I'm just a human being, and I do serious mistakes, sometimes not on purpose, but I'm afraid, sometimes on purpose too. Should I ask for forgiveness? And then should I be able to forgive?

I choose to forgive criminals in advance, but I'm not willing to hear lies. I hope this would work in reducing crime. If I do anything more, I become a hypocrite.

 

[WriterOfMinds]

Hiding such an important intellectual properties makes only one side happy

Not at all.  If we didn't let people keep medicines secret and make money from them, who would make medicine? Almost no one.  If they couldn't make money from medicine, they'd have to work on something else, and there would be no new medicines.  So hiding medicine formulae makes both sides happy: the inventors because they get paid, and the rest of us because we get the medicine.

Working on something just to help the world for no profit is great, but that should be a free choice.  It's not something everyone can do, and I don't think it's something we should force people to do.  If you don't allow people to keep discoveries secret and/or patent them, you are basically forcing them to give away their work for nothing.  And you don't like forcing people to do things ... right?

I'm sure there are plenty other political arrangements that would solve this issue.

I'm not at all sure.  Communism was supposed to solve it, and it turned out to be an absolute horror.

I, too, think that we all do bad things and should forgive others.  But willingness to forgive and abstain from pointless vengeance, is not at all the same thing as refusing to stop someone who is in the act of doing evil. If you don't act to stop a killer from killing, then functionally you care more about the killer than his victims. When the choice is forced upon us, I think we should care about victims more and killers less.  (I know, you want to care about both of them at once. But sometimes that is simply impossible.)  If you forcefully stop other people from doing wrong things, but also accept being forcefully stopped by others when you are in the act of doing wrong (and you would want someone to stop you, wouldn't you?), then you're not a hypocrite.