> Obscurity is perhaps the oldest trick on the book to accomplish that.
> Of you explain the relationship between A, B and C in simple terms,
> that
> explanation, once understood, can be repeated and spread to "the
> masses"
> as you initially suggested, but the producer will not receive a penny
> or
> even recognition, because his/her invention will soon become common
> knowledge. If, otoh, he/she wraps that explanation in the layers of
> obscure and incomprehensible verbiage - the spread of that intellectual
> product will be difficult, if at all possible, without people buying
> the
> whole package in the form of a book or other recording - which suits
> the
> interests of the producers of the intellectual commodity in question.
The one explanatory idea about which almost everyone agrees apparently is that rational "self-interest" is acted out in all that happens. People who claim this don't generally include their own thought and behaviour as part of all that happens however.
Why is it in anyone's rational self-interest to buy "obscure and incomprehensible verbiage"?
Ted