Poverty is relative.

Apparently there were 1.5 million households (including 2.8 million children) in the US living on less than $2 a day before government assistance. That's not 46 million, but still quite a lot, and actual poverty. That said, the US government maintains that poverty is not having enough money to clothe, feed and house yourself. And that's quite a few people.

"R&D is the cost of doing business. It should never be passed on the customer."

Uhm, absolutely ALL costs are passed on to the consumer, otherwise you're operating a business at a loss.

An example:
Right. So I spend my life's savings. I build a smart thing, and show a compelling reason why it works. You want it. So I sell it, at a price that will replenish my life's savings and make me some money, ie materials cost + R&D cost offset + profit.

Then Eve comes along, sees my idea, figures out how it works by spending a few afternoons tinkering, since she has a working prototype at marginal cost. She has no R&D costs, and can immediately start undercutting me.

You don't give a monkey's toss who made it, so you buy from Eve, and I end up poorer than I was for being foolish enough to invent something.

Knowing this in advance, I'll save myself from researching it and making myself poorer.

With patent law, I know I have, say, 12 years to make money off the patent. So I know that if I spend $12000 on R&D, I need to make at least $1000/yr margin just to break even from sales, plus some actual profit. If I license the tech out to Alice, Bob and Carol, and I don't want to set up manufacturing, I can license it for $4000 and be in the clear and still sell the product. Each of them has an R&D investment of $4000, so the product becomes cheaper (in a more crowded marketplace).

First of all, the extreme wealth inequality in your country means that 46 million people are living in poverty. People are using food stamps for fuck's sake, and it's not even actual war time. Using money as a reason to not live a life is hardly realistic.

Second of all, as far as I can tell the parents aren't the ones fucking over the donor, it's the state of Kansas.

Thirdly... I got nothing, you're right on that one.

Patents work, and are necessary for research.

If Samsung spends $10 billion researching holographic displays, and all their competitors could just then reverse engineer the technology and build their own devices with holographic technology, then no one will ever have incentive to work out a way to get it done. Except for the 'cool' factor, but the 'cool' factor doesn't gather $10 billion in support unless a US president sets it as a goal and makes room in a governmental budget.

Move to Detroit. I've seen free-standing houses for less than $5000 on some real estate sites. Plus it's in a colorful, lively neighborhood.

Lacking a fundamental skill in society and then basing your political system on requiring that skill does not seem a winning strategy.

Small government cares about local people, and can represent them. Centralized government of hundreds of millions is incapable of effective government.

Well yes, we here in Europe have fought the occasional war. Because we are actually different countries, with cultural differences. Which is why several European countries that had been asked to vote on the EU Constitution in a referendum voted no (France, Ireland and the Netherlands). Obviously, in the end we all signed it, and now we have essentially a federal government.

Our next war will be a civil war.

Clearly they're curious as to what they might use a computer for. And the only way to figure that out is to get one. But, sadly, they shall never know.

Agreed. And if you can't do any project on your own, from your own house, without having to see people for three months straight, you're just a slacker.
</sarcasm>

We value collaboration in the workplace, because it allows us to do great things. We should also value collaboration in institutes of higher learning.

... well shit. Cursory research to fix knowledge that "everybody knew YEARS ago already" is not in the preview button for a comment.

There actually WAS a court case that was predicated on this point, where a farmer claimed cross pollination happened. It turns out he had sprayed roundup on a patch of crops near a farmer's field that did have "Roundup Ready" plants growing. So he knowingly attempted to get the seeds without paying for them. The court found he had been attempting to use their patented seed illegitimately, but he didn't have to pay anything because the benefit obtained was too insubstantial. So, similar, but there actually WAS nefarious intent on the part of the farmer.

Also, some farmers have sued Monsanto over the same thing happening (Roundup Ready crops out-competing non-RR crops), although I'm not sure on the status of that.

The point is that the farmers in question DID NOT SIGN ANY CONTRACT. Farmer A has Monsanto corn, Farmer B has traditional corn. Season passes, cross pollination occurs. Farmer A has to buy more Monsanto corn, Farmer B just picks the best growing corn from his field, saves that for seed, and sells the rest.

The next year, Farmer B plants out his saved seed, and Monsanto comes-a-knocking that Farmer B is using Monsanto-patented genes. From the cross pollination. Monsanto sues, wins, farmer has to pay up loads of money.

See where this is going wrong?

That's why it'll also be used for automatic fining of traffic violations (ostensibly for safety, actually for cash), and fraud detection. Lucrative.

And if the next xenophobic dictator arises in Europe again, presumably to track and round up minorities with ease.

Sounds good, but then electric vehicles won't get taxed. Everyone will go to those, which sounds like a win, except for all gas stations, and Royal Dutch Shell. Oops.

Currently only a fraction of the collected road tax is actually used for road improvement. Something like 20%. The rest flows into the general budget. Right now we just pay road tax depending on the weight of our vehicle, and regardless of usage. That seems fine. Reduce that by 80% and I won't complain.

Gas tax sounds good, but doesn't work, because it would force a move to electric vehicles (and the Dutch economy relies in part on Royal Dutch Shell doing well, so that would be bad).

Change your OS? Only after shredding the mainboard and getting a new PC. If you're paranoid or in a high-money environment, that is. There is malware that nestles in the BIOS, and can install keyloggers or network sniffers before the OS is even allowed to boot up.