Man acts purposefully, to improve his situation. He doesn't need to be rewarded with a privilege. He fucks around and finds out, and copies other good ideas and behevior automatically. He does it alone and together with others. One man's creativity inspires others. When it happens it feels like magic. Very little gives a dopamin rush like understanding something new. And when to people's ideas melt and turn into a third idea, the magic and dopamin  is almost overwhelming. This is why dopamin often is referred to as "the learning hormone."

IP, on the other hand, is nothing but government fiat. 

It's sold with a promise that a nothingness consisting of government fiat can produce something we call material wealth. 

Government doesn't even attempt to prove its case.

And it rarely ever talks about the costs of blocking free dissemination of ideas.

Only when government profits from talking about it, as the US govt did in the 19th century, they mention it. 

If you think otherwise, prove me wrong.

Show me how government fiat creates something from nothing, and explain to me why the cost of fiat is less than the profit.

And show me how IP distributes wealth fairly.

If you don't make any attempt to do this, we're finished talking about IP.

 

 I thought a lot about this during the past few days and it seems to me that we were talking about different things.

I was talking about the spreading of ideas and not the distribution of wealth or power.
And I still think that publishing patents accellerates the global distribution of ideas compared to companies not having this incentive to publish. In most cases it has nothing to do with dopamine but is a rational business decision.

Anyway, thanks for the discussion and sharing your thoughts.