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The reason things are set up this way is that the government is great at funding long-term research, whereas industry is pretty terrible at it, for the most par
by woodandsteel 10y ago
The reason things are set up this way is that the government is great at funding long-term research, whereas industry is pretty terrible at it, for the most part. But then when it comes to making an invention actually useful to people and producing it at a reasonable price, the government is awful and industry is amazing.
- matthewmorgan 10y agoCare to provide a single fact in support of those two amazing assertions?
- woodandsteel 10y agoOn the research side, see things like the internet. Corporations, with rare exceptions like Bell Labs, don't fund research that has no clear commercial potential or that might but it would take decades to pay off. On the production side, we have countless products like automobiles and smart phones that corporations have produced, but none from the government. The only semi-exception I can think of is the USSR turned out a lot of great military technology, but that was part of an arms race, not providing commercial products. But you are familiar with these sorts of examples, yet you think my claim is all wrong. Is it because you have lots of specific examples, for research and also for production?