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There is a word for this sort of viewpoint: Luddite fallacy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite_fallacy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite_fallacy) It amaz

There is a word for this sort of viewpoint: Luddite fallacy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite_fallacy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite_fallacy) It amazes me how people fail to see their own Luddite-ism. Look, here's the deal: The Luddites protested the mechanization of the textile industry during the industrial revolution. Their reasoning was that if one person maintaining one machine could do the same work as 100 individual laborers, then that would mean 99 people out of work. It turns out, what businesses actually did was keep all 100 workers employed and instead turned out 100 times the product. The U.S. (and the rest of the developed world) is only in trouble if we cannot continue to grow our economy exponentially (and keep in mind that an exponential increase in efficiency or an exponential decrease in material costs is just as good as an exponential increase in gross product). What really _kills_ me, though, is that the very thing that we need to achieve sustained growth is the very same thing that people are trying to cut out: funding for science and technology research. Every time I hear some Republican's campaign add talk about: "Can you believe we spend money digging up dinosaur bones in China? Shouldn't we spend that money at home?", I die a little inside. If China overtakes the U.S. as a world power, it will be due, in part, to the rapid increase in Ph.D.s and research funding that they are currently undertaking. In the history of the world, there has never been a time when the most powerful nation was not also the most technologically advanced.

ataggart 16y ago
"This sort of viewpoint" is fundamentally different from the luddite fallacy. The crux of the fallacy is misapprehending the results of productive increase, thus mistaking a Good Thing for a Bad Thing. That's not what's going on in the article (unless you have a very different perspective on intergenerational debt). Now it is certainly true that we'll be in less trouble if the economy grows faster than the hole being dug, but a hole is still being dug. If things improve it would be in spite of, not because of, the indebtedness being incurred. Again, the luddite fallacy is not applicable. It is also certainly true (and proven over the centuries) that investment of capital accumulated through deferred consumption can, when applied toward improvements in technology, yield productivity gains, thereby improving the balance sheet of the inventor and the living standards of the common man. Such gains will emerge from the market, revealing what works and what doesn't, and in not working will free that capital to be put to more productive ends. It's not at all clear to me that a debt-funded, politically-allocated system will yield better outcomes.
- Experimentalist 16y ago
  I think "Ludic fallacy" might be a more accurate fallacy to cite. The Ludic fallacy refers to making predictions based on past events, even though the probability of future outcomes includes variables not contained in the past dataset.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
- jballanc 16y ago
  I specifically mentioned the Luddite Fallacy with respect to the expressed concerns about healthcare. The notion that the cost to provide healthcare will not change relative to the ability of people to pay for healthcare is a fallacy of not understanding that technology can and does improve, become more efficient, and come down in price. This is, in a sense, the modern form of the Luddite Fallacy (since we've mostly gotten over the fear of having our jobs replaced by machines...the machines have already won). I think this attitude of "healthcare is expensive, deal" is particularly dangerous because of how insidiously defeatist it is. You start thinking nothing can ever improve healthcare, so why bother paying for research into improving healthcare, so healthcare doesn't improve. Universal healthcare is socialist and evil and doesn't work, and nobody ever solved problems by increasing the size of the public sector and funding research through the public sector... To which I say: BULLSHIT! This is the very fundamental problem that we face. The private sector has no reason to decrease the cost of healthcare when they can just pump up their profits instead. Or, at least, they'll have no incentive to do so until healthcare is rationed. Or they'll start to have an incentive to be cheaper when people can no longer afford insurance. Either of those scenarios is not pretty, and will have a nasty transition period where people cannot get the care they need while the private sector figures out how to do things cheaper. The public funds fire departments because structures burning, even private homes, is bad for society. If your house burns you become a burden on your neighbors or on the community, you can't be productive in the economy, etc. Why is it so hard, then, to see the parallels with healthcare? Healthy people are as or more beneficial to society as people with homes! If we can protect people's homes, why can't we protect their health?!?
stretchwithme 16y ago
I don't think public spending on research is the ultimate determinant of a nation's technological edge. After all, it was not government research that gave us the ability to manufacture Germany into submission. That came from people like Henry Ford. Even the airplane came from a private endeavor, while a government effort failed to get off the ground. And if you look to the decline of the last great empire, Great Britain, in came in the wake of an expansion of the public sector. New technologies developed by government funding did not save the day.
- loewenskind 16y ago
  >And if you look to the decline of the last great empire, Great Britain, in came in the wake of an expansion of the public sector Talk about oversimplifications that fit ones own viewpoint! A lot of things changed in the UK since they were at their peak. Correlation, Causation and all that jazz.
  - _delirium 16y ago
    Also, it's not even correct: there's been a massive decline in the public sector in the UK since its peak as an empire. It was a state-centered monarchy with strong mercantilist policies, not some kind of libertarian paradise.
    - stretchwithme 16y ago
      and how did it manage to become so powerful? The countries it dominated didn't quake in fear of its mercantilist policies. It was the guns. And it was the trade that their manufacturing made possible and the rule of law that made it successful entrepreneurship possible. And yes, it all eroded away. It wasn't the loss of the colonies, but the loss of the things that gave it the ability to project its power in the first place.
      - loewenskind 16y ago
        You mean they became less relevant because they became less evil?
thomas11 16y ago
But how does digging up dinosaur bones in China contribute to technological advancement or productivity increases? Mind you, I'm all for science, but there are certain kinds of science that could be put on the back burner for a while in a financially tight situation.
- rflrob 16y ago
  Nobody knows whether it will or not---the most revolutionary discoveries tend to come from unexpected places. As far as I'm concerned, an atmosphere where science has to justify itself as practical is just asking for all the really revolutionary discoveries to be made elsewhere. Conflict of interest statement: I am a pure science graduate student, so take my opinions on science funding with an aliquot of NaCl.
  - dionidium 16y ago
    It's also possible that the general acceptance and promotion of intellectual curiosity results in a culture in which more scientific discoveries are made.
- copper 16y ago
  In general, you wouldn't know what a new discovery would contribute to technological advancement or productivity increases :) If you did, it's arguably because the research you're doing is an incremental improvement over something already existing, rather than something entirely new (not that there's anything bad with doing either of those things.) Putting these kinds of things on the back burner may be a good thing only if you're sure that the money being spent on it will be used for something more necessary/efficient/whatever.

ataggart 16y ago

"This sort of viewpoint" is fundamentally different from the luddite fallacy. The crux of the fallacy is misapprehending the results of productive increase, thus mistaking a Good Thing for a Bad Thing. That's not what's going on in the article (unless you have a very different perspective on intergenerational debt). Now it is certainly true that we'll be in less trouble if the economy grows faster than the hole being dug, but a hole is still being dug. If things improve it would be in spite of, not because of, the indebtedness being incurred. Again, the luddite fallacy is not applicable. It is also certainly true (and proven over the centuries) that investment of capital accumulated through deferred consumption can, when applied toward improvements in technology, yield productivity gains, thereby improving the balance sheet of the inventor and the living standards of the common man. Such gains will emerge from the market, revealing what works and what doesn't, and in not working will free that capital to be put to more productive ends. It's not at all clear to me that a debt-funded, politically-allocated system will yield better outcomes.

Experimentalist 16y ago
I think "Ludic fallacy" might be a more accurate fallacy to cite. The Ludic fallacy refers to making predictions based on past events, even though the probability of future outcomes includes variables not contained in the past dataset.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
jballanc 16y ago
I specifically mentioned the Luddite Fallacy with respect to the expressed concerns about healthcare. The notion that the cost to provide healthcare will not change relative to the ability of people to pay for healthcare is a fallacy of not understanding that technology can and does improve, become more efficient, and come down in price. This is, in a sense, the modern form of the Luddite Fallacy (since we've mostly gotten over the fear of having our jobs replaced by machines...the machines have already won). I think this attitude of "healthcare is expensive, deal" is particularly dangerous because of how insidiously defeatist it is. You start thinking nothing can ever improve healthcare, so why bother paying for research into improving healthcare, so healthcare doesn't improve. Universal healthcare is socialist and evil and doesn't work, and nobody ever solved problems by increasing the size of the public sector and funding research through the public sector... To which I say: BULLSHIT! This is the very fundamental problem that we face. The private sector has no reason to decrease the cost of healthcare when they can just pump up their profits instead. Or, at least, they'll have no incentive to do so until healthcare is rationed. Or they'll start to have an incentive to be cheaper when people can no longer afford insurance. Either of those scenarios is not pretty, and will have a nasty transition period where people cannot get the care they need while the private sector figures out how to do things cheaper. The public funds fire departments because structures burning, even private homes, is bad for society. If your house burns you become a burden on your neighbors or on the community, you can't be productive in the economy, etc. Why is it so hard, then, to see the parallels with healthcare? Healthy people are as or more beneficial to society as people with homes! If we can protect people's homes, why can't we protect their health?!?

stretchwithme 16y ago

I don't think public spending on research is the ultimate determinant of a nation's technological edge. After all, it was not government research that gave us the ability to manufacture Germany into submission. That came from people like Henry Ford. Even the airplane came from a private endeavor, while a government effort failed to get off the ground. And if you look to the decline of the last great empire, Great Britain, in came in the wake of an expansion of the public sector. New technologies developed by government funding did not save the day.

loewenskind 16y ago
>And if you look to the decline of the last great empire, Great Britain, in came in the wake of an expansion of the public sector Talk about oversimplifications that fit ones own viewpoint! A lot of things changed in the UK since they were at their peak. Correlation, Causation and all that jazz.
- _delirium 16y ago
  Also, it's not even correct: there's been a massive decline in the public sector in the UK since its peak as an empire. It was a state-centered monarchy with strong mercantilist policies, not some kind of libertarian paradise.
  - stretchwithme 16y ago
    and how did it manage to become so powerful? The countries it dominated didn't quake in fear of its mercantilist policies. It was the guns. And it was the trade that their manufacturing made possible and the rule of law that made it successful entrepreneurship possible. And yes, it all eroded away. It wasn't the loss of the colonies, but the loss of the things that gave it the ability to project its power in the first place.
    - loewenskind 16y ago
      You mean they became less relevant because they became less evil?

thomas11 16y ago

But how does digging up dinosaur bones in China contribute to technological advancement or productivity increases? Mind you, I'm all for science, but there are certain kinds of science that could be put on the back burner for a while in a financially tight situation.

rflrob 16y ago
Nobody knows whether it will or not---the most revolutionary discoveries tend to come from unexpected places. As far as I'm concerned, an atmosphere where science has to justify itself as practical is just asking for all the really revolutionary discoveries to be made elsewhere. Conflict of interest statement: I am a pure science graduate student, so take my opinions on science funding with an aliquot of NaCl.
- dionidium 16y ago
  It's also possible that the general acceptance and promotion of intellectual curiosity results in a culture in which more scientific discoveries are made.
copper 16y ago
In general, you wouldn't know what a new discovery would contribute to technological advancement or productivity increases :) If you did, it's arguably because the research you're doing is an incremental improvement over something already existing, rather than something entirely new (not that there's anything bad with doing either of those things.) Putting these kinds of things on the back burner may be a good thing only if you're sure that the money being spent on it will be used for something more necessary/efficient/whatever.