I think a serious complication arises in this scenario:
I discover a dangerous idea at age 20, and get a reverse patent on it as described here.
At age 60 I learn I am terminally ill and don’t believe there is any mechanism by which my existence can be carried forward (e.g. cryonics). I am given 1 year to live.
I make the dangerous idea public and collect and large sum for having kept quiet for years so I can enjoy my last year of life, even if the world doesn’t continue much beyond that because it’s destroyed by my dangerous idea.
Maybe some sort of prohibition on collecting if it can be proven that you chose to publicize it would be a good idea.
I argue that in your scenario, the reverse patent is unambiguously a good thing, as it bought us 40 years.
The same ugly incentives apply to pollution, ‘I can get money now, or leave an unpolluted world to posterity’, you don’t need too many people to think that way to get some severe harm.
I think a serious complication arises in this scenario:
I discover a dangerous idea at age 20, and get a reverse patent on it as described here.
At age 60 I learn I am terminally ill and don’t believe there is any mechanism by which my existence can be carried forward (e.g. cryonics). I am given 1 year to live.
I make the dangerous idea public and collect and large sum for having kept quiet for years so I can enjoy my last year of life, even if the world doesn’t continue much beyond that because it’s destroyed by my dangerous idea.
Maybe some sort of prohibition on collecting if it can be proven that you chose to publicize it would be a good idea.
I argue that in your scenario, the reverse patent is unambiguously a good thing, as it bought us 40 years.
The same ugly incentives apply to pollution, ‘I can get money now, or leave an unpolluted world to posterity’, you don’t need too many people to think that way to get some severe harm.