Harry Guerrilla
DP Veteran
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- Dec 18, 2008
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Yes, it does work because if it is a day or a year doesn't matter. You gotta recoup costs of R&D, and you will not before you are pushed out of the market.
bicycles were popular before roads. Horse Drawn Wagons were popular before roads. Why could it not be true for cars?
Well, I'm arguing IP and I don't appreciate the insinuation that I've been dishonest (or worse, wrong) regarding the time requirements for reverse engineering and retooling (for what presumably could be a computer program).
I made my point, yours is irrelevant, thanks for playing.
Well, for one thing, cars travel a lot faster than bicycles or horse drawn wagons. They tear up dirt roads a lot faster than bikes or horses, and they're a lot more difficult to control off-road. For another thing, some roads DID exist during the era of bicycles and horse-drawn wagons (just look at old paintings/photographs). They weren't paved, but they were still roads.
Automobiles could never have caught on to the extent that they did without some serious government involvement. Can you imagine trying to drive to the nearest city through random fields and forests without a road? Let alone trying to drive WITHIN a city, navigating randomly around buildings? That model doesn't work so well. Lots of African cities have tried it.
The roads (or more likely, paths and tracks) would exist due to the use of wagons and horses - it wouldn't be "random fields and forests", unless you were way the hell off the "beaten path"...Which, come to think of it, is a saying that proves my point, to an extent.Well, for one thing, cars travel a lot faster than bicycles or horse drawn wagons. They tear up dirt roads a lot faster than bikes or horses, and they're a lot more difficult to control off-road. For another thing, some roads DID exist during the era of bicycles and horse-drawn wagons (just look at old paintings/photographs). They weren't paved, but they were still roads.
Automobiles could never have caught on to the extent that they did without some serious government involvement. Can you imagine trying to drive to the nearest city through random fields and forests without a road? Let alone trying to drive WITHIN a city, navigating randomly around buildings? That model doesn't work so well. Lots of African cities have tried it.
Why so... absolute? No middle ground?
People did do these things though, way before the invention of cars there were roads, both formal and informal.
The roads (or more likely, paths and tracks) would exist due to the use of wagons and horses - it wouldn't be "random fields and forests", unless you were way the hell off the "beaten path"...Which, come to think of it, is a saying that proves my point, to an extent.
And sure as hell, I bet wagons and horses navigated randomly around buildings...Why not cars?
The Mark said:Given enough horse and wagon traffic, I would bet some kind of traffic control arose...despite there being no cars.
With that comment and my next one, I was attempting to say that with enough of any traffic, be it motorized or not, would probably cause some type of traffic control/better road construction/placement to occur.Because that model of infrastructure is impractical, as any attempt to navigate a city in Sub-Saharan Africa shows.
Why?That traffic control would also have been the result of government intervention though.
Yes but they've always been funded (or at least planned) by the government. Especially within cities.
Could not there be a privately funded traffic control system, in some area? What precludes any such occurrence?
Yes, it does work because if it is a day or a year doesn't matter (notice the biblical reference?). You must recoup costs of R&D, and you will not before you are pushed out of the market. Developing a new product or process would always be a loss without IP except when the biggest distributor innovates.
stiffled
Without IP, private innovation or invention ceases for all practical purpose. End of story.
That traffic control would also have been the result of government intervention though.
Traffic control is a result of more vehicles
Ockham said:yet dirt roads were used before paved or stone ones.
Ockham said:As you see in this video, there was no traffic control and out of this 7 minutes I didn't see anyone run over or accidents occur.
Yes. In other words, more vehicles (and a successful auto industry) would not be possible without traffic control.
You seem under a sort of delusion. Vehicls were already successful without government controlled roads or traffic control.Yes. In other words, more vehicles (and a successful auto industry) would not be possible without traffic control.
They were initially animal trails or are you saying the government now controlled animals somehow too? However in 1893 there were government funds used to promote roads - not vehicles like the bicycle or wagon, under the Dept. of Agriculture. In the 1900's there were crys to get vehciles out of the mud to promote more roads but there was no promotion of the vehicles themselves. So you're partially right.They were still planned and maintained by government.
Laws were not generally implemented until the 1920's through the 1930's. Yes, "Rules of the Road" was written in 1903 but there was no enforcement nor adoption until much later.There also weren't as many cars on the road then. And what makes you think there was no traffic control there? I see a road. I see at least some basic traffic laws generally being obeyed (e.g. drive on the right side).
I don't agree, even without IP people would still invent stuff because they would be first to the market and first to profit.
Not to mention that they would have more knowledge over the product to solve problems with it.
Correct, nevertheless, it is difficult to play with history here. I would still say it is an important contribution to the playing out of history.
“Every single great idea that has marked the 21st century, the 20th century and the 19th century has required government vision and government incentive,” he said. “In the middle of the Civil War you had a guy named Lincoln paying people $16,000 for every 40 miles of track they laid across the continental United States… No private enterprise would have done that for another 35 years.”
- Joe Biden, Manhattan Fund raising even 10/26/2010 - NY Daily News
Think about some of the things you use every day. Some of the biggest inventions that have changed the way we live over the past 200 years. Our health. Transportation. Communication. Did all of those great ideas need government vision and government incentive?
Now take the poll.
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