On: Our Intellectual Property Laws Are Out of Control (2013)

[perfunctory]

I read somewhere that neanderthals were not less intelligent than humans, but humans "won" because being more social animals they can better learn from each other and spread ideas faster. Sometimes I feel like excessive "intellectual property" laws make us more like neanderthals.

[jimmySixDOF → perfunctory]

Anthropologist Joseph Henrik has a theory about H.Sapiens vs Neanderthal using a Copycat vs Genius metaphor explained in the book Humankind [1]

Copycats are 10x more social Geniuses are 100x more inventive

1 in a 1000 Copycats will invent a new fishing rod but will share this knowledge with 10 others

1 in 10 Geniuses will invent the new rod and only teach to 1 other

Given a 50% sucess rate for learning:

A max of 1 in 5 Geniuses will ever have the new Fishing Rod knowledge in a population (50% invented and 50% learned)

Copycats will get to 99.9%

[1] Humankind: A Hopeful History https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52879286-humankind

also

[2]https://aeon.co/essays/forget-the-lone-genius-it-s-copycats-...