[aurizon]

Basically, lack of IP protection = no patent or copyright. Now our patent length is OK, but copyright is far too long. In old Rome, if you made a new process, you locked up the shop and kept it secret. Anyone steal the secret and you could do nothing. There are stories of Roman senators killing inventors to maintain a controlled market. In addition, Rome had zero electronics, and no document tradition via printed books = all hand copies(printing in old China) There some relics that hint at plating cells for silver and perhaps gold, but no firm data

[widowlark]

on its face I don't know that patents alone drove the industrial revolution - I imagine that the modality of labor and capital also played a significant role

[Simplicitas]

This convo reminds me of .. “my contention is that prior to the Revolutionary War, the economic modalities—especially in the southern colonies—could most aptly be characterized as agrarian pre-capital —"

https://genius.com/Good-will-hunting-good-will-hunting-bar-s...

lol

[Log_out_]

So where do justice systems come from?

[trilbyglens]

Probably extend that to structuring societies around legal frameworks and institutions as well. Things like labor contracts, stable interchangable currencies, standardized education, etc. Lots of parts undergirding the industrial revolution.

[dannyobrien]

I would love to hear of those senator stories -- do you have a source?

[carapace]

> According to Petronius (c. 27 AD – c. 66 AD) in his work Satyricon, the inventor of flexible glass (vitrum flexile) brought a drinking bowl made of the material before Tiberius Caesar. The bowl was put through a test to break it, but it merely dented, rather than shattering. The inventor repaired the bowl very easily with a small hammer, which he pulled from a pocket in his toga, according to Petronius. After the inventor swore that he was the only man alive who knew the manufacturing technique, Tiberius had the man beheaded. It has been suggested this was either to protect the existing glassmaking industry,[2] to ensure that glass remained breakable as an effective planned obsolescence or because he feared that the glass would devalue gold and silver, since the material might be more valuable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexible_glass