Quote:
Originally Posted by Xist
Ah, conspiracy theories. You periodically hear about people who invent something that would significantly reduce petroleum usage and the oil companies buy their patent, possibly suing them into bankruptcy first. While that definitely sounds like a conspiracy theory, I do think that it is possible.
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Ideas aren't easily contained. I suppose it's possible for someone to invent something disruptive, only to sell it to someone else who is unscrupulous, and never utter about it again to anyone, but it's exceedingly unlikely.
If I were an oil company and someone invented something that would put me out of business, I'd buy that thing and then get wealthy off it. If there was a technology that doubles fuel efficiency of an engine, it would hold enormous profit potential even for someone making a living off of selling oil.
Basically the only way for a secret to exist between 2 people is for one of them to be dead. Large conspiracies are nearly impossible to accomplish.
Regarding drug companies; we know practically nothing about human biology. Mapping the human genome is a recent development, and we know practically nothing about it. Understanding physiology is even more difficult than the insanely difficult task of understanding global climate change.