Plagiarism is totally fine

One way to avoid stripping the planet of it’s amazing natural resources is finding ways to replicate what that resource offers, rather than simply harvesting it.

I came across a video on LinkedIn today, shared by a guy who’s title is simply “Entrepreneur”, demonstrating the incredible water-repelling qualities of the down of Icelandic Eider Ducks (link to 7-second video here).

The video shows a dry clump of down being held above a tank of water, getting dunked underwater, then re-emerging again completely dry. It looks like a magic trick… being an internet video, it may well be.

But assuming it’s not–the sentiment of the LinkedIn post was “imagine the possibilities”.

The sentiment in the comments however, was “imagine yet another extinct species when demand inevitably outstrips supply”.

I agree with both sentiments… but a biomimicry approach offers a far less extractive way to explore the possibilities. Much like how chimneys, velcro, and many adhesives came to be, let’s look for ways to mimic the properties of the down instead of just taking it.

I love this summary from Janine Benyus (her TED talk on biomimicry is here). Biomimicry sees nature as:

• A model. It studies nature’s models and imitates them or uses them as inspiration for designs or processes with the goal of solving human problems
• A measure. It uses ecological standards to judge the rightness of human innovations
• A mentor. It is a new way of observing, assessing and valuing nature

When it comes to nature, plagiarising a design blueprint is 100% encouraged.