7 ms·

Most of the serious research and development, the hard part of it, is funded by the public. In fact most of the economy comes out of public expenditures thro

• maxharris 16y ago
  the hard part of it This is absolutely false. I agree that discovery isn't easy, but you know what's even harder? The other 90% of the work needed to finish it and make it a reliable product. Chomsky trivializes the work of synthetic organic chemists, the engineers that set up and keep production lines going, researchers that test the drugs, and so on. In software terms, this is like saying that all the hard work is done because someone banged out a prototype over the weekend. It's full of bugs and doesn't have the features people want yet. If you believe that Chomsky's right, try running a startup while holding his idea. You'll fail, or you'll discover that it's not easy and reject his idea.
  • entangld 16y ago
    He's talking about research. You're talking about development. None of these things are exactly easy, but at least with development you're building toward something.
    • maxharris 16y ago
      Where does one stop and the other begin? Much of what we call research vs. what we call development is simply an artifact that stems from the way science is funded today. However, science can't (and won't) always be funded by giant government bodies. (To say that it will assumes that the way things are can go on forever, but history shows that civilizations have lifespans just like everything else.)
      • entangld 16y ago
        Pharmaceutical R&D companies have become just development companies because they stop looking for new drugs and are simply repackaging and reformulating existing drugs (e.g. Claritin/Clarinex). They're doing this because it costs too much to do research and development gives them quicker return on investment.
        • maxharris 16y ago
          They'll do their own research when the government stops competing with them in that arena. Until then, why duplicate it when they (and everyone else) has been forced to pay for it anyway? (I'm all for research, but I'm against forcing people to pay for it. The best scientific research is intricately tied into industry anyway. For example, where would biochemistry be without cyclotrons, radiolabeling, glassware and chemical reagents? All of that was possible because of private industrial work. Ever heard of Peter Mitchell?) Second, pharmas aren't free to develop whatever they think would be profitable. New drugs cost around a billion dollars to develop because of the FDA, which is ridiculous. There are many rare illnesses for which affected people don't want the "safety" the FDA imposes. As long as billion dollar development costs are imposed on every drug, there is no chance that any progress can be made for these people. So it's not the pharmas, it's the regulation.
          • wlievens 16y ago
            The other side of that argument is of course that most patients don't want "unsafe" drugs, so that regulation has a purpose. Is there any way to get a best of both worlds in this scenario? Quicker to-market times for drugs for rare and dangerous diseases, and the safe route for the more common drugs?
            • maxharris 16y ago
              Is there any way to get a best of both worlds in this scenario? Quicker to-market times for drugs for rare and dangerous diseases, and the safe route for the more common drugs? Of course there is. Regulations can be changed, freeing drug companies to research and develop these drugs. In fact, I'm sure that this change - this partial deregulation compromise - is going to happen, someday. But on what principle should we stop there? Where do you draw the line, and why? If the regulations say "freedom only for drug developers that treat diseases that affect 15,000 people with five years," on what principle do you cut freedom short for the 15,001th patient, or the one who is expected to live five years and a day?
  • hasenj 16y ago
    Try running a startup without Linux and the entire open source ecosystem.
    • maxharris 16y ago
      I'm a BSD fan myself, but startups are possible without open source. Stack Overflow runs on Windows, for example. The one thing that startups need is freedom to make what people want so that those people will freely choose to pay the startup (how many startups existed in the USSR in 1970?). OSS is just a nice-to-have once you look at it that way. If it was a necessity, you'd have to explain how there were startups before anything was open source. Edit: OSS would still exist in some form even if there were no government funding for it. You know how some people say they do it just for fun? I think that's true.
      • hasenj 16y ago
        SO is the exception that proves the rule. Also, another thing. Linux/BSD push the bar way high up and force Windows to try and catch up. So even if you use windows, you're still affected by Linux. In the same way that you're affected (positively) by Apple even if you use Ubuntu.
        • maxharris 16y ago
          The operating system is just one component. People had lives and did things before there were operating systems of any kind. Edit: For example, could you write CAD software without an OS as we know it today? It would be undoubtedly harder, but you could. People did this in the 60s.
          • hasenj 16y ago
            I'm not sure how this fits into the discussion, but what you're saying can be used as an argument against IP. Since people lived just fine before technology, we don't need technology all that much, therefore we don't need IP.
  • nickpinkston 16y ago
    If you're talking about keeping production lines going - this isn't really part of what no-IP would do. Someone would still need to operate and maintain production and distribution - however the competition to do this would drive costs down dramatically. Also, high margins and no competitive pressure make research and dev methods stagnant - no IP + public research funding and FDA subsidies seems like a more effective system to me.
  • calibraxis 16y ago
    Blue-sky research is much higher risk. Without the shorter term payoff that corporations seek. It's reasonable to call an endeavor "harder" when it's less certain of success. Particularly when we're talking about real innovations like computers and the internet, versus a company hiring a couple guys to toss together a "minimal viable product" with PHP. (If that description of corporate productization sounds unfair, I think it's closer to the mark than saying basic research is analogous to "someone banged out a prototype over the weekend".) When it's able to be productized, that's when corporations come along. This is well known. (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/02/technology/02darpa.html http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/02/technology/02darpa.html)
    • maxharris 16y ago
      Blue-sky research is much higher risk. That wouldn't stop people from doing it privately. For example, biochemist Peter Mitchell (https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Peter_D._Mitchell https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Peter_D._Mitc...) won a Nobel in Chemistry in 1978 for work he did entirely without government funding, out of a house he owned. (It's not some little thing he discovered, either - if you take an undergraduate course in biochemistry, you'll run across his chemiosmotic hypothesis directly, and it's taught in less detail in a lot of other biology courses.)
      • danielsoneg 16y ago
        You're right, he was an exceptional individual.
      • loup-vaillant 16y ago
        Conversely, the impossibility to exclude (copyright and patents) didn't stop the industry from funding the Linux kernel. But both cases are probably marginal. In a world where one has to earn money to survive, innovation is slowed down, either because of copyright and patents, or the lack of funding. The trick is to get a world where one doesn't need to earn money.
        • intended 16y ago
  • ashconnor 16y ago
    Chomsky trivializes the work of synthetic organic chemists, the engineers that set up and keep production lines going, researchers that test the drugs, and so on. Because private companies would be willing to throw money into the wind to fund research. The concept's been proven, the risky part is over; although not necessarily the difficult part.
  • dexen 16y ago
    > In software terms, this is like saying that all the hard work is done because someone banged out a prototype over the weekend. It's full of bugs and doesn't have the features people want yet. That's the early Google, Facebook etc. for you. Of course most of such ventures fail, but sometimes they get it done and gain traction. I guess his argument is based on the premise it takes organization on scale of a state (country) to be able to organize broad-sweeping long-term research in areas that don't look promising at first. Without the sight of immediately sellable product or service. Businesses seem to be more oriented towards research that improves incrementally something that's already somewhat known. I was going to write Bell Labs were one of notable exceptions, but then I realized they got much state funding for research related to military.
    • calibraxis 16y ago
      Yes, and Chomsky also offered his view on Bell Labs. An off-the-cuff interview: (http://tech.mit.edu/V128/N51/chomsky.html http://tech.mit.edu/V128/N51/chomsky.html). A bit more detail, if you search for the word "transistor": (http://www.chomsky.info/talks/199805--.htm http://www.chomsky.info/talks/199805--.htm).
• davidw 16y ago
  I think there is a [citation needed] there, but I also think he's willfully ignoring that productizing stuff is difficult. Here's a great example of "public goods" that's near and dear to my heart: I love Linux, and there's no way in hell I'd use anything else. However, it's hard to argue that it sets the pace in terms of usability. Commercial operations produced easier systems for the end user well before Linux got there. Why? Because they got paid for their results, and they got paid because of intellectual property. And as they got paid, they sunk part of that money back into research and development into improving the experience. There is a comparatively tiny amount of money going into the Linux Desktop.
  • DuncanIdaho 16y ago
    The fact that producing stuff is difficult is enough to create an opportunity. If you produce better stuff (price,quality,marketing) you get to sell more and earn more. This gives you an opportunity to invest more in to the system. So you get to be ahead of your competitors. And everybody gets to be ahead as side result with time as well, thus you need to keep investing and keep on trying. The problem is that some industries feel entitled to retire on mohito island while humanity gets to drag them along. Also most of people using and developing Linux live off it - one way or another. I'm certain that professional/user ratio is in strong favour of Linux. Idea that companies put money into R&D solely due to intellectual property, or that they only make enough to put something into R&D because of IP is wrong. Look at some of the most successful businesses in the world. Selling sugared water, selling grilled pieces of meat, selling washing machines and various appliances, selling pieces of wood that fit together,... Taking whatever IP from them wouldn't change their R&D and other forward looking spending activities much. And don't come back to me with low tech/high tech argument. High tech production is even harder, that's why those who know how to do it and keep successfully investing into getting beter, get to run the show. Those who don't know how to improve and those who want to collect tax on everybody forever should just roll over and die.
    • davidw 16y ago
      > producing stuff is difficult is enough to create an opportunity Producing "information stuff" is difficult, but copying it is extremely easy. You can pay a team of 100 guys to work for a year creating a program, a movie, or whatever, and then have it copied around the internet in a few hours, for free. Leaving you zero income, and a large loss on your sunk costs. That's why IP exists. There is ample scope for arguing about whether the present rules and regulations are ideal (I don't think so), but the idea behind the system makes sense for many situations.
• bostonscott 16y ago
  There's false premises in that argument. If Chomsky wants to argue that government funded research is the source of innovation, then he should also ask, what is the source of government funds? Government takes dollars from those who earn it, and spends it according to collective values at best, or in favor of corrupt interests at worst. Who is to say that if those dollars were left in the hands of those who earned them, they wouldn't be spent more wisely?
• 6ren 16y ago
  He doesn't cite many examples/sources, but the PARC lab and spin-offs seem to be a huge exception: laser printer, mouse, windows, postscript, ethernet. Granted, they're not fundamental science, but they were, at least, innovations.