I run a blog called Maximum Progress which covers topics in economics, mathematics, philosophy, history, and technology. You can read all of my essays on my Substack here: https://maximumprogress.substack.com/
Maxwell Tabarrok
Karma: 48
Intellectual Property Is Worse Than You Think
Patents are much more useful in high-CAPEX industries, but I wouldn’t call them necessary. There have been expensive capital investments without patent protection, even if they are not common.
Agree here.
’Reasonable” does a lot of work here. Economists usually define reasonable as price = marginal cost and the whole goal here is to raise price high above that level. But the point is well taken that there is more consternation over pharma pricing than is justified.
This is sort of an orthogonal point but I think the reliance of pharma on patents is an example of the “break your leg and give you a crutch” strategy that the government often takes. A huge part of the CAPEX that goes into pharma development is going through FDA approval. So if that process is not going to change, patents are essential for further pharma development. But in some lassiez-faire counterfactuals I think we could get more pharma development even without IP protection.
I think that prizes could replace the incentives of patents without most of the negative second order effects that I pointed out. Theoretically you could just match the monopoly profit with a subsidy, get the efficient quantity produced, and there are some mechanisms for dispersing the cash which avoid the rent dissipation.
If you haven’t read it already, ‘Where’s my Flying Car’ is basically a direct answer to the question you pose here. Hall has scientific, technological, political, and cultural analyses of several possibly impactful technologies like flying cars, nuclear energy, nanotech, etc.
He uses specific case studies but the book definitely synthesizes general principles which can explain the nontechnical barriers in many technologies. Things like ‘failures of nerve’ and imagination and ‘the Machiavelli effect’ are illustrated with cases but are applicable to a wide range of technologies. Jason’s summary is great but I really think you would enjoy the book. It’s fun to read, not too long, and I think it is the most comprehensive answer to your question out there right now.
Do you think that you could significantly improve the prospects of nuclear power if you were commissioner of the NRC? or would you be too constrained by politics and other rules?
If you think it would be impactful to have a progress-minded person running the NRC, then convincing the current commissioner or getting the right person appointed seems like an important and even tractable agenda item.
Interland: The Country In The Intersection
Enlightenment Values in a Vulnerable World
Many of the movements you are involved in and praise (e.g econ and EA) use online writing/blogging to communicate and generate new ideas.
Will this continue in recognizable form despite AIs surpassing human skill at writing? Are the young people who are investing in this skill learning how to use the hand powered loom in 1800?
How would you restructure the production of education and research? Universities are clearly pretty inefficient. How to improve them? Are there any politically feasible plans? Will AIs just obviate internal reform by creating an entirely new form of education and research?
A Model of Strong-Link Science and Peer Review
Does the Vegas Sphere Mark the End of Monument Stagnation?
Something Is Getting Harder To Find But It’s Not Ideas
I basically agree with everything you’ve said here.
On the subdomains point, you can have decreasing returns within each subdomain but constant returns overall if you keep finding new subdomains. I think this is an accurate model of progress. It captures ideas like paradigm shifts and also integrates the intuitions for low-hanging fruit and burden of knowledge in a way which still allows rapid progress. My favorite example is the Copernican revolution. There were huge obstacles from burden of knowledge and low-hanging fruit in Ptolemaic astronomy. It took so much extra data and education to improve the epicycles of Mercury by a few decimal points. But once astronomy moved to a new model, there was a whole new grove of low hanging fruit and almost none of the investment in Ptolemaic astronomy was necessary to make progress so the burden of knowledge was reset.
No you’re right, I had a section in there evaluating the different possible reasons for slow down but it got too long so that will be coming in future posts. Sorry for the hyperbolic title!
Did Medieval Peasants Have More Vacation Time Than Us?
Why Governments Can’t be Trusted to Protect the Long-run Future
Well if it affects one plot of land that is currently the property of just 1 person it can still be an externality because lots of different people will own this land in the future.
I definitely agree that a bigger difference between original investment costs and copying costs makes patents more beneficial, but all of the criticisms I pointed out still apply. The Pharma industry spends billions on patent courts and lobbying. This has to be subtracted from the benefits that they provide, in addition to all the welfare losses from super expensive name-brand drugs.
What do you think about using prizes or direct subsidies for high CAPEX projects instead of IP?
In a more meta sense, I wonder if it is possible to have patents only for high CAPEX industries. It may be that the lobbying forces will inevitably push to expand the reach of patents, and one cannot separate the benefits of high CAPEX patents from the costs of low CAPEX ones.