It puzzles me how an already extremely wealthy man, who is described as being a family man also, would care so little about his legacy and how he is remembered.
It's not so much how the world tolerates these people - how do these people tolerate themselves?
I can imagine doing some pretty seedy stuff in desperation, but the people participating in shenanigans like this are usually very intelligent, wealthy, and already successful. Surely they have higher-level goals (e.g., leaving a proud legacy, making the world better, etc) than merely more cash?
This reminds of the story of the creation of the Nobel Prize: a Parisian paper accidentally published Nobel's obituary early, and having read it he became concerned with being remembered as a merchant of death (being the inventor of TNT). It's one of the main drivers of why he established the prize. Surely smart, already successful people care about what they leave behind?
If you're a trial lawyer with a family you don't have the time to be very introspective. There is also a class of people who don't give a fuck about the world, they are just here to win a game. New York is filled with these types.
> he became concerned with being remembered as a merchant of death (being the inventor of TNT).
TNT != dynamite. TNT is an explosive compound in its own right, and dynamite is a stabilized form of nitroglycerin.
[According to Wikipedia: "The energy density (joules/kilogram or J/kg) of dynamite is approximately 7.5 MJ/kg, compared to 4.6 MJ/kg of TNT."]
Which is why I find it a little funny for him to be considered a merchant of death since the development of dynamite was prompted by the instability of nitroglycerin and the hazards of transporting it (which was usually a dangerous line of work). IIRC, it's main use was construction, mining, etc.
You assume there is a causal relationship between intelligence with success and moral fiber.
While there may be some correlation I don't think there is necessarily any causative relation. You also assume the patent and IP law issues have an obvious morally correct stance to everyone else.
Perhaps not moral fiber - but there's a self-serving element to doing good. I imagine rich, successful people like this guy here care about how they will be remembered.
After all, nobody wants to get his grave pissed on after he's dead. Nobody wants his children to bear the burden of having their father remembered as a parasitic burden on society.
Even in a completely selfish frame of reference, once you've reached some limit of wealth higher-order goals like this should start kicking in.
In fairness, we don't actually know everything there is to know about the guy so maybe he gives 99% of his income away to charity. If he is 'doing good' in some unrelated way then maybe he feels this patent silliness is the best way to maximize his income so he can do good with it.
I think we still need this kind of person. We've outgrown the stage where we tolerate armed thugs riding around in Jeeps terrorizing the villagers with AK-47's but we haven't grown so much as to permanently quell the impulse to do so in all of our citizens. So its kind of a compromise. We tolerate this kind of asshattery while we collectively wait to grow up because this way, at least no one dies.
The market is efficient. When this sort of thing starts causing real problems, the problem will be made to go away. He just need to pick on the wrong big company, and patents are all over.
The market is subject to manipulation, and the problem often doesn't go away purely because of market forces. Any system can be gamed. The patent system is an example.
