cavscout43

Francis Cabot Lowell stole the designs of the power loom from the UK.

To be fair, a private individual working in that industry watching the looms and memorizing how they work to recreate later is a bit different than state-sponsored industrial espionage and government sanctioned hacking of cutting edge proprietary technologies. That's a bit of a stretch to compare.

The points about "kicking away the ladder" are often overlooked; and are particularly being noted in climate change agreements (Is India not allowed to industrialize after all the damage Western industrialization did over the last century and a half?)

I think the question at hand, however, is that in a globalized world where information is becoming far more important than physical capital, what actually promotes global growth?

If innovation is they key driver of growth, and the rewards for it diminish due to near-instantaneous theft of the IP and distribution to competitors, what's the incentive to create rather than imitate?

And Zach is only an expert at being snarky in comic form.

Makes some great SMBC comics and entertaining "science for dummies" style illustrated books though!

Didn’t Colorado end up raising so much money from sales of marijuana that it gave a small dividend to citizens?

It was only going to be a few dollars per person, and the vote passed for the state to retain it and spend the excess appropriately...one of those rare times people voted against a tax refund.

Colonel, you'll need to remember that most young americans and many redditors don't understand the vital strategic advantage that having the world's most powerful military force has earned America and her people.

Many Americans don't understand that because they don't see positive impacts in their day-to-day lives, and it's a fair argument for them to raise.

Telling someone they're safe from the Ruskis, but not safe from dying due to lack of medical coverage, or ending up declaring bankruptcy, or not finding meaningful employment to rise out of poverty, they're completely right to ask why social services are being cutting to increase military spending. They're right to wonder why we have a military capable of waging a two-ocean war even as homeless vets starve on the streets.

Benefits earned by a soldier for putting his life on the line for his country is not the same as a citizen paying taxes and deserving the same.

That dismissal of the argument by sidestepping actual points such as life expectancy, quality of life, economic growth, and a better society overall resulting from education and healthcare is intellectually lazy at best.

I put in over a decade in the Army and find it pitiful that we let people go bankrupt, die, or be underemployed simply by not being born wealthy.