I don’t think the ancients were altogether different from us when it comes to protecting trade secrets. Innovations of military or economic value were kept secret to preserve an advantage, and they still are today.

I also don’t think there’s a slam dunk answer to whether innovation is spurred more by the profit motive inherent in the proprietary approach, or by the widespread enablement of the high-openness approach.

The historical record seems to show a great deal of knowledge being obtained, then lost.

Knowledge transfer ain't bean-bag.

Yes. Secrecy associated with silk manufacture is a great example [0].

[0].

Unsure if you missed pasting the link, or you're being ironic...

This is amazing: denote empty citations as an alernate to the terminating sarcasm tag (/s). It's probably even more explicit, and we are forced to charity by the absence of reference.

Imagine what wonders the wandering of undeclared references shall do to a mind numbly scrolling through comments; forced to pause, and brief attention focused on the fitting of a slotted thought.

Calculus, flight, transistors etc. were not delayed because of knowledge being confined, but because of knowledge being persecuted.

(a) Both can be among the causes for slow knowledge growth

(b) The past tense is by no means in order where persecution is concerned.

Sure, agreed with (a) in general that they both can be causes of decline, but in the specific case of this post, it is amply clear that the wide range of intellectual areas that ancient Greece excelled in (with barely a parallel) was radically narrowed and almost destroyed due to persecution of this knowledge rather than it being restricted to the elite.

I don't understand what you're trying to say with (b).

(a) Euclid and Pythagoras have surviving writings, but the physical applications were lost.

(b) Look at the scientists trying to view Covid accurately.