Thread: Cut Spending? Raise Taxes?

Most new tech comes from war.
There's a lot of motivation when it's kill or be killed.

Originally Posted by shaft

Would we have made it to the moon, or discovered and captured nuclear fusion without gov't funding?

Some things are too big to do competitively, and are better done as a team effort. I don't want the gov't meddling in my shit. I want them to provide me civil liberties out the ass, and be used as a channel to provide societal evolution bigger than individuals, corporations, or the stock market. Funding a giant continuous war machine is not my idea of progress.

Would we have made it to the moon or discovered nuclear fusion without a giant continuous war machine that is not your idea of progress? You can't have your cake and eat it too.

You can't have a massive government involved in every aspect of your life without it meddling in your shit. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

There is nothing worth getting done that the free market won't do. If the only way something can get done is for the federal government to do it, it should not be done.

(Except the shit the founders told the federal government to do.)

Fail. Most fundamental scientific research is government funded. What the free market is good at is commercializing scientific discoveries, years, sometimes decades after the science has been done.

For example, when it comes to medical innovation, most fundamental research is government funded and America still has the best research university system in the world. A good article on how medical research comes about:

Consider it as three tranches: basic, translational, and clinical. Basic is research at the molecular level to understand how things work; translational research takes basic findings and tries to find applications for those findings in a clinical setting; and clinical research takes the translational findings and produces procedures, drugs, and equipment for use by and on patients.

Private Pharma rarely engages in basic research, they are risk averse and are mostly concerned with commercializing high probability, high return drugs, not doing decades long scientific research that leads to fundamental breakthroughs and Nobel prizes. That kind of work is done by scientists through the government funded research grant application process taking place in wealthier countries all across the globe.


Getting back to to the preciously mentioned example of nuclear power (and perversely atomic weapons), the vast majority of the theoretical and mathematical foundations for understanding the atom was done in universities long before Roosevelt funded the Manhattan project.

Looking ahead, Obama has said that he supports nuclear power as a (relatively) clean form of energy:

I've said that I'm a promoter of nuclear energy, something that I think over the last three decades has been subject to a lot of partisan wrangling and ideological wrangling. I don't think it makes sense. I think that that has to be part of our energy mix. I've said that I am supportive -- and I said this two nights ago at the State of the Union -- that I am in favor of increased production.
-- THE PRESIDENT

Nuclear Power = Socialism with bipartisan support?

Even if the free market could economically and safely start building plants in the U.S. again, there are alternatives to Uranium, like Thorium (after the Norse god Thor) that other countries like India and China are investing heavily in: Uranium Is So Last Century — Enter Thorium, the New Green Nuke.

Thorium is potentially more efficient, more abundant, less dangerous than uranium and thorium makes it harder to produce weaponized material from the reaction. Thorium dissolves in hot liquid fluoride salts allowing for a design that makes meltdowns highly unlikely because the reactor would be designed in such a way that prior to a meltdown the liquid would be allowed to simply expand and flow outside the core reaction chamber. A self regulating system.

Still a complex technology, but India has already produced a Thorium breeder reactor and the Chinese government has been stockpiling Thorium in anticipation of future demand.

In a nutshell, almost all of the electronics, computers, chemicals, medicine, advanced materials (carbon fiber, Kevlar, etc.), etc. etc. has its roots planted in government funded scientific research. Private companies simply lack the resources to do BIG science that won't see a return on investment until decades into the future.

Originally Posted by Triage

Uranium Is So Last Century — Enter Thorium, the New Green Nuke.

The comments section is more interesting than the article.

Originally Posted by Tippster

The comments section is more interesting than the article.

WOW,

Thorium forum

I wonder what a TR on that sight looks like.

This whole internet thing is gona cause problems.

Balthorium G is what we really need to be concerned with. That and the International Communist Conspiracy. Have you ever seen a Commie drink a glass of water?

WAH! THERE'S A BUNCH OF NUMBERS MOVING AROUND IN A COMPUTER SOMEWHERE AND I DON'T UNDERSTAND ANY OF IT!

Originally Posted by Jer

Balthorium G is what we really need to be concerned with. That and the International Communist Conspiracy. Have you ever seen a Commie drink a glass of water?

Vodka, they drink vodka.
It's all part of a vast Communist Conspiracy to sap and impurify all our precious bodily fluids.

And quantum physics was not a product of our military.

Originally Posted by Triage

Fail. Most fundamental scientific research is government funded. What the free market is good at is commercializing scientific discoveries, years, sometimes decades after the science has been done.

For example, when it comes to medical innovation, most fundamental research is government funded and America still has the best research university system in the world. A good article on how medical research comes about:

Consider it as three tranches: basic, translational, and clinical. Basic is research at the molecular level to understand how things work; translational research takes basic findings and tries to find applications for those findings in a clinical setting; and clinical research takes the translational findings and produces procedures, drugs, and equipment for use by and on patients.

Private Pharma rarely engages in basic research, they are risk averse and are mostly concerned with commercializing high probability, high return drugs, not doing decades long scientific research that leads to fundamental breakthroughs and Nobel prizes. That kind of work is done by scientists through the government funded research grant application process taking place in wealthier countries all across the globe.


Getting back to to the preciously mentioned example of nuclear power (and perversely atomic weapons), the vast majority of the theoretical and mathematical foundations for understanding the atom was done in universities long before Roosevelt funded the Manhattan project.

Looking ahead, Obama has said that he supports nuclear power as a (relatively) clean form of energy:

I've said that I'm a promoter of nuclear energy, something that I think over the last three decades has been subject to a lot of partisan wrangling and ideological wrangling. I don't think it makes sense. I think that that has to be part of our energy mix. I've said that I am supportive -- and I said this two nights ago at the State of the Union -- that I am in favor of increased production.
-- THE PRESIDENT

Nuclear Power = Socialism with bipartisan support?

Even if the free market could economically and safely start building plants in the U.S. again, there are alternatives to Uranium, like Thorium (after the Norse god Thor) that other countries like India and China are investing heavily in: Uranium Is So Last Century — Enter Thorium, the New Green Nuke.

Thorium is potentially more efficient, more abundant, less dangerous than uranium and thorium makes it harder to produce weaponized material from the reaction. Thorium dissolves in hot liquid fluoride salts allowing for a design that makes meltdowns highly unlikely because the reactor would be designed in such a way that prior to a meltdown the liquid would be allowed to simply expand and flow outside the core reaction chamber. A self regulating system.

Still a complex technology, but India has already produced a Thorium breeder reactor and the Chinese government has been stockpiling Thorium in anticipation of future demand.

In a nutshell, almost all of the electronics, computers, chemicals, medicine, advanced materials (carbon fiber, Kevlar, etc.), etc. etc. has its roots planted in government funded scientific research. Private companies simply lack the resources to do BIG science that won't see a return on investment until decades into the future.

Why would a private company waste money on researching the "basic" stuff as you say it is when the govt does it for them, and they can spend their money elsewhere. Pull out the govt funding and you bet your ass theyll do some research.

Originally Posted by AdironRider

Why would a private company waste money on researching the "basic" stuff as you say it is when the govt does it for them, and they can spend their money elsewhere. Pull out the govt funding and you bet your ass theyll do some research.

How many examples do you people need to understand the scientific benefit of teamwork and sharing of information? I know that none of you (the free market enthusiasts in this thread) are in field of science...maybe this is why it is harder to comprehend?

We are not talking about the creation of products here, we are talking about something larger. The most painstaking part of the scientific process is data collection. When the gov't has a role in scientific exploration, multiple teams from universities around the country share data and research findings to systematically work towards a goal.

Market competition does not reward sharing of data. In fact, it stifles it. Pharmacutical companies, for instance, are rewarded for being secretive about test findings so that they have the opportunity to become first to market. This results in mutiple companies doing the same research at the same time...severely limiting the efficiency of the scientific process. By working together, they can achieve the objective faster.

Would you call the March of Dimes a success story?

[nomedia="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVimVzgtD6w"]YouTube- Hans Rosling: No more boring data: TEDTalks[/nomedia]