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Even though I'm a small government, pro-markets kind of guy, one point this article touched on which I find quite interesting is that so much of the good stuff

Even though I'm a small government, pro-markets kind of guy, one point this article touched on which I find quite interesting is that so much of the good stuff on the Internet (TCP/IP, the WWW, NCSA Mosaic, the Linux kernel, the IRC protocol, etc.) was basically publicly funded--if not directly then it was usually a guy at a university somewhere. Whereas the bad stuff (AOL, Internet Explorer, spam, the scammy digital ads industry, Orwellian Google, Orwellian Facebook, mandatory DRM) has generally come from the private sector. (And VC, dear Hacker News, bears its share of responsibility.) My only takeaway from this, and it is admittedly milquetoast, is we should take a little more of that public money we spend on war and instead spend it on general science and technology research.

fivestar 9y ago
Google came out of Stanford--there was a lot of academic involvement in search engine research, competitions, and so on at the time. I went to some of the conferences where it all took place. I was startled by how quickly Google rose, though. I hear you about the "Orwellian" part--this isn't the Internet that I imagined, the one with RFCs and protocols. The worst offender is Facebook. I will never have anything to do with Facebook. I really wish there were more search engine competitors, too. It's important to not have monopolies on information seeking.
- apatters 9y ago
  This only underscores the point. "Do no evil" Google originated with academics who had figured out some neat tricks for improving search relevance. It was only later when they started investing huge amounts in ad tech that Orwellian Google emerged and they created something nefarious.
vtange 9y ago
It's funny you end your comment with that remark on war... The Internet you mentioned at the top of your comment saw its roots as a DARPA project called "ARPANET". That's right, it was a Department of Defense project. During the Cold War and the Space Race, the military was heavily tied with "general science and technology research". Aerospace, materials, you name it, if it had some sort of military application it was looked into. So yeah, war sucks and the military might waste money in some projects but it's unwise the look at military and science in black-and-white, this-or-the-other terms.
- burkaman 9y ago
  DARPA just funds research. There's no reason that has to be done through the military, that's just the way it is right now. If DARPA had the same funds but was part of the department of transportation or something, we still would have gotten the internet. We still need defense research, but the fact that a lot of our advancements have come through the military doesn't mean that's the only way it can happen.
  - whiskers08xmt 9y ago
    Wasn't ARPANET started as a project where individual communication nodes could fail, and the message could still arrive? Military technology generally needs to be reliable, which makes it a good fit for civilian use as well. Of course, there are plenty of aspects of military technology that isn't as necessary in civilian life.
    - burkaman 9y ago
      It was originally an internal tool for ARPA researchers to collaborate. It had very little to do with the military, and ARPA scientists were not the only ones working on something like this. It absolutely would have happened somewhere else around the same time if the defense department wasn't interested.
- wgyn 9y ago
  You're overlooking the counterfactual here. The fact that ARPANET was a Department of Defense project doesn't mean that defense spending itself caused it to come to fruition, and similarly it doesn't mean that without war (and defense spending), something like the ARPANET would never have been invented. Separately, it seems far more significant that the early ARPANET was composed of networked computers based at universities.
- apatters 9y ago
  This is very true, however DARPA was not prosecuting wars -- it was doing, well, general science and technology research intended to assist us in prosecuting wars. Ultimately we reaped benefits far greater than those intended. So maybe if the military merely shifted more of its budget from actually dropping bombs over to R&D, we would at least be making progress.
specialist 9y ago
What's the (right wing) libertarian strategy for mitigating our winner takes all economy?
- snomad 9y ago
  Having actually read some Adam Smith (not the whole book), he goes on and on about asymmetric access / advantages granted through government and how it must be prevented. The free-market strategy is to recognize that the winner take all capitalist frequently uses the government as the vehicle for winning, and thus limit government. That is not the same as no regulation / de-regulation! Adam Smith was basically saying we need regulation, to keep the government and business apart. IMO, government regulation works when it is structural (e.g. Glass-Steagall worked because it was a simple structural rule) and when it is at the right level (DMVs works because they are state based) and it is easily understood.
  - specialist 9y ago
    I want to believe that governance (such as market regulations) can work when there are checks & balances, transparency, accountability.
- mac01021 9y ago
  Who says they need one? Define a "libertarian" as someone who advocates for the state to play a minimal role in the lives of people. There are a few different reasons I could be libertarian: 1> I believe that I will be better off if the scope of the state's activity is minimized. 2> I believe that most people will be better off if the scope of the state's activity is minimized. 3> I believe the world will be more just if the scope of the state's activity is minimized, whether or not that leads to anyone being better off. Libertarians in groups [1] & [3] need not offer a strategy for mitigating any economic phenomenon, even if that phenomenon is to the detriment of the majority. I've heard people argue the validity of belief [2], saying that the amount of value in the economy will grow faster than than it is absorbed by the "winners" who are amassing it. I'm not convinced, though.
- fivestar 9y ago
ikeyany 9y ago
> Even though I'm a small government, pro-markets kind of guy There's something at the root of the American psyche that makes us deathly afraid to admit otherwise. Is it a fear of appearing weak, relying on institutions? Is it a fear of being compared to those who are on welfare? I believe this fear is holding back many of us from discussing solutions in earnest. Social services, and the pervasive hand of the government, has a place in a healthy technologically oriented society in the 21st century. But it must be a place of transparency and low-corruption in order for our institutions to be trusted. Or we can continue to fervently worship short-term profits over long-term pursuits, and continue to insultingly underfund research.
- vtange 9y ago
  Your last line pretty much answered your own question. Most small-government guys (myself included) distrust anything controlled by flawed humans with the power to target and totally ruin an individual at a whim. I personally hate the idea that I could build myself up from nothing and someone could conjure up a story to take my work away from me. We are just pessimistic when it comes to institutions... yes it can bring great benefit, but you can also lose a great amount. History has shown us many examples of people striving towards utopia and ending up causing unspeakable loss.
  - ikeyany 9y ago
    And proselytizing our current system isn't setting up a dystopia of its own?
    - vtange 9y ago
      Your question makes the assumption that our current system qualifies as "small government". The filibuster is gone.. Trump is able to by executive order deport people and change America's course on the world stage.. Net Neutrality is being destroyed and new laws are being made to promote the big players in the market... That's not small government. That's big government.
      - 9y ago

fivestar 9y ago

Google came out of Stanford--there was a lot of academic involvement in search engine research, competitions, and so on at the time. I went to some of the conferences where it all took place. I was startled by how quickly Google rose, though. I hear you about the "Orwellian" part--this isn't the Internet that I imagined, the one with RFCs and protocols. The worst offender is Facebook. I will never have anything to do with Facebook. I really wish there were more search engine competitors, too. It's important to not have monopolies on information seeking.

apatters 9y ago
This only underscores the point. "Do no evil" Google originated with academics who had figured out some neat tricks for improving search relevance. It was only later when they started investing huge amounts in ad tech that Orwellian Google emerged and they created something nefarious.

vtange 9y ago

It's funny you end your comment with that remark on war... The Internet you mentioned at the top of your comment saw its roots as a DARPA project called "ARPANET". That's right, it was a Department of Defense project. During the Cold War and the Space Race, the military was heavily tied with "general science and technology research". Aerospace, materials, you name it, if it had some sort of military application it was looked into. So yeah, war sucks and the military might waste money in some projects but it's unwise the look at military and science in black-and-white, this-or-the-other terms.

burkaman 9y ago
DARPA just funds research. There's no reason that has to be done through the military, that's just the way it is right now. If DARPA had the same funds but was part of the department of transportation or something, we still would have gotten the internet. We still need defense research, but the fact that a lot of our advancements have come through the military doesn't mean that's the only way it can happen.
- whiskers08xmt 9y ago
  Wasn't ARPANET started as a project where individual communication nodes could fail, and the message could still arrive? Military technology generally needs to be reliable, which makes it a good fit for civilian use as well. Of course, there are plenty of aspects of military technology that isn't as necessary in civilian life.
  - burkaman 9y ago
    It was originally an internal tool for ARPA researchers to collaborate. It had very little to do with the military, and ARPA scientists were not the only ones working on something like this. It absolutely would have happened somewhere else around the same time if the defense department wasn't interested.
wgyn 9y ago
You're overlooking the counterfactual here. The fact that ARPANET was a Department of Defense project doesn't mean that defense spending itself caused it to come to fruition, and similarly it doesn't mean that without war (and defense spending), something like the ARPANET would never have been invented. Separately, it seems far more significant that the early ARPANET was composed of networked computers based at universities.
apatters 9y ago
This is very true, however DARPA was not prosecuting wars -- it was doing, well, general science and technology research intended to assist us in prosecuting wars. Ultimately we reaped benefits far greater than those intended. So maybe if the military merely shifted more of its budget from actually dropping bombs over to R&D, we would at least be making progress.

specialist 9y ago

What's the (right wing) libertarian strategy for mitigating our winner takes all economy?

snomad 9y ago
Having actually read some Adam Smith (not the whole book), he goes on and on about asymmetric access / advantages granted through government and how it must be prevented. The free-market strategy is to recognize that the winner take all capitalist frequently uses the government as the vehicle for winning, and thus limit government. That is not the same as no regulation / de-regulation! Adam Smith was basically saying we need regulation, to keep the government and business apart. IMO, government regulation works when it is structural (e.g. Glass-Steagall worked because it was a simple structural rule) and when it is at the right level (DMVs works because they are state based) and it is easily understood.
- specialist 9y ago
  I want to believe that governance (such as market regulations) can work when there are checks & balances, transparency, accountability.
mac01021 9y ago
Who says they need one? Define a "libertarian" as someone who advocates for the state to play a minimal role in the lives of people. There are a few different reasons I could be libertarian: 1> I believe that I will be better off if the scope of the state's activity is minimized. 2> I believe that most people will be better off if the scope of the state's activity is minimized. 3> I believe the world will be more just if the scope of the state's activity is minimized, whether or not that leads to anyone being better off. Libertarians in groups [1] & [3] need not offer a strategy for mitigating any economic phenomenon, even if that phenomenon is to the detriment of the majority. I've heard people argue the validity of belief [2], saying that the amount of value in the economy will grow faster than than it is absorbed by the "winners" who are amassing it. I'm not convinced, though.
fivestar 9y ago

ikeyany 9y ago

> Even though I'm a small government, pro-markets kind of guy There's something at the root of the American psyche that makes us deathly afraid to admit otherwise. Is it a fear of appearing weak, relying on institutions? Is it a fear of being compared to those who are on welfare? I believe this fear is holding back many of us from discussing solutions in earnest. Social services, and the pervasive hand of the government, has a place in a healthy technologically oriented society in the 21st century. But it must be a place of transparency and low-corruption in order for our institutions to be trusted. Or we can continue to fervently worship short-term profits over long-term pursuits, and continue to insultingly underfund research.

vtange 9y ago
Your last line pretty much answered your own question. Most small-government guys (myself included) distrust anything controlled by flawed humans with the power to target and totally ruin an individual at a whim. I personally hate the idea that I could build myself up from nothing and someone could conjure up a story to take my work away from me. We are just pessimistic when it comes to institutions... yes it can bring great benefit, but you can also lose a great amount. History has shown us many examples of people striving towards utopia and ending up causing unspeakable loss.
- ikeyany 9y ago
  And proselytizing our current system isn't setting up a dystopia of its own?
  - vtange 9y ago
    Your question makes the assumption that our current system qualifies as "small government". The filibuster is gone.. Trump is able to by executive order deport people and change America's course on the world stage.. Net Neutrality is being destroyed and new laws are being made to promote the big players in the market... That's not small government. That's big government.
    - 9y ago