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The politics of ideas
When I was in graduate school and a single mom working on my doctorate, now nearly 40 years ago, I learned the hard way about keeping ideas to myself, even among people you count as your friends. At that time, like just about everyone attending graduate school, I was chronically short of resources. I did a lot of research to locate a scholarship I might be competitive for. Regrettably, I innocently shared that information with a colleague, EH, before the deadline for submissions had passed. The same week I received a kindly rejection letter, I had lunch with EH only to find out that she had been awarded the scholarship. My mistake wasn’t in raising the topic. I let my enthusiasms carry me away. My mistake was in going overboard by sharing too much detail about it.
Conversation is not copyrighted. It’s like the illusive scent of subtle perfume. It’s not copyrighted until it is in a bottle and the formula is locked away in a safe. In the research world, that means it isn’t an ethical battle until it rises to the level of plagiarism. It is very likely that the person purloining an idea you thought uniquely yours is unaware they heard it somewhere else. Very likely, they’d be astonished at the suggestion that they heard it from you. Very likely is that others have had the same idea.
Chefs are infamous for making a famous recipe tricky to duplicate by omitting a key ingredient from the recipe. When asked “what are you working on?” the trick is to be circumspect or guarded in what you say by only speaking in the most guarded way.
