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But the internet you use. The roads you use. The courts you rely on for enforcing contracts the GPS network that makes location based business models even possi

But the internet you use. The roads you use. The courts you rely on for enforcing contracts the GPS network that makes location based business models even possible come from those grants and basic research. If we ever have self driving cars it will be because DARPA -a government agency— hosted competitions in the desert with million dollar cash prizes just for college students to compete to have fun building self driving humvees; at the time no one thought it would be commercially viable.

aww_dang 5y ago
Ah yes, the famous "who would build the roads" gambit. https://www.econlib.org/archives/2014/10/post_5.html https://www.econlib.org/archives/2014/10/post_5.html
- digitaltrees 5y ago
  Read about the early economic history of the US. How hard it was to conduct commerce when you couldn’t get goods to or from a market because there were bad roads. You can dismiss government all you want but when Roman government administration was good, roads were built. Not so much in the dark ages.
- digitaltrees 5y ago
  That article is ridiculous. Do you know how expensive it is to pave a road? I had to pave a small parking lot (15 spaces) for a building I own and it was $20k. It’s one think for a person to build a 400meter road it’s another for a person or company to build a network of roads. So this cute anecdote is entirely irrelevant especially when you consider that broadly over history there are no examples of road network built without governments leadership.
- opheliate 5y ago
  From the article: > Enter Mike Watts and his wife, who decided to build a road only 400 meters long to get around the landslide. They put a 2-pound toll on it. The road was built in 10 days. > And it’s working. People are using it and it’s bringing in substantial revenue. This is what people parody when they mock radical economic libertarianism. Roads are (arguably) a public good. They shouldn't bring in "substantial revenue", otherwise only the richest areas will get them. I appreciate the failure of bureaucracy to fix the detour here, but this just isn't a response to the problem of societal infrastructure without taxation.
  - aww_dang 5y ago
    People in remote areas would have an incentive to invest in their own roads or perhaps use the same funds to innovate with other modes of transport. If overall the costs are lower than taxation, it stands to reason that someone would invest time or money in solving the problem. I'm not necessarily an absolutist, but if we're discussing the principles involved, observing the increased costs and often lower quality of state infrastructure isn't enough. The problem and key distinction for proponents of liberty is being violently coerced into paying for these services. Even if you can make the argument that there might be potentially underserved areas, can you justify the use of force? If so, can you say that with a purely state run road system, there will be no underserved areas? Getting back to the rejection of absolutism, I'm not convinced either system will be perfect. Both have trade offs. We live in an imperfect world. Utopia isn't a practical comparison.
    - digitaltrees 5y ago
      But the costs aren’t lower than taxation if that tax base is hyper local as you imply. Part of the benefit of National infrastructure and national taxation is specifically because it spreads the cost over a much larger pool of payers so the individual cost is minimal while at the same time creating a massive national market that is more than the sum of the parts.
    - opheliate 5y ago
      If I'm living paycheck-to-paycheck in a generally poor area, I likely don't have the money to invest in roads near me, which means the roads near me are not maintained and deteriorate in quality, which means I have fewer opportunities to earn money, and so the cycle continues. I understand there's an incentive to invest in infrastructure, but if you're in a very poor area, you don't have that money to invest in the first place. If I have the money to invest in roads near me, surely I'm even more incentivised to use that money to move elsewhere, where people are already paying for the roads? The costs of building roads overall may work out lower than taxation, but if you're in an area where on average people are in the minimum tax bracket, it will likely work out higher for you. This comes at the expense of those who earn more ofc, and I guess that's where we differ in perspective. My personal perspective would entail that someone born into an impoverished area should have the opportunities to succeed, and (ideally) taxation can at least ensure they have the infrastructure around them to do so. It's difficult for me to consider a society as one that ensures everyone's liberty, if some people are massively disempowered by society by luck of birth.
- RhysU 5y ago
  My favorite example is the history of the NYC subway where many of the lines were initially private. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_New_York_City_Subway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_New_York_City_S...
fallingknife 5y ago
Basic research is very important, but you are overstating it's importance vs the development work to get it from there to market. That's the hard, and resource intensive, part, and is usually done by the private sector. For example, not much that SpaceX has done is new idea. They have just been the first to execute, and that is where almost all of the market value is.
- digitaltrees 5y ago
  I am pointing out that the free market won’t invest in the first foundational research specifically because it isn’t yet viable. Government is the only social actor that can fill the void. SpaceX is not the first to act. Government was. SpaceX wouldn’t be viable now without government contracts so that example is not persuasive.

aww_dang 5y ago

Ah yes, the famous "who would build the roads" gambit. https://www.econlib.org/archives/2014/10/post_5.html https://www.econlib.org/archives/2014/10/post_5.html

digitaltrees 5y ago
Read about the early economic history of the US. How hard it was to conduct commerce when you couldn’t get goods to or from a market because there were bad roads. You can dismiss government all you want but when Roman government administration was good, roads were built. Not so much in the dark ages.
digitaltrees 5y ago
That article is ridiculous. Do you know how expensive it is to pave a road? I had to pave a small parking lot (15 spaces) for a building I own and it was $20k. It’s one think for a person to build a 400meter road it’s another for a person or company to build a network of roads. So this cute anecdote is entirely irrelevant especially when you consider that broadly over history there are no examples of road network built without governments leadership.
opheliate 5y ago
From the article: > Enter Mike Watts and his wife, who decided to build a road only 400 meters long to get around the landslide. They put a 2-pound toll on it. The road was built in 10 days. > And it’s working. People are using it and it’s bringing in substantial revenue. This is what people parody when they mock radical economic libertarianism. Roads are (arguably) a public good. They shouldn't bring in "substantial revenue", otherwise only the richest areas will get them. I appreciate the failure of bureaucracy to fix the detour here, but this just isn't a response to the problem of societal infrastructure without taxation.
- aww_dang 5y ago
  People in remote areas would have an incentive to invest in their own roads or perhaps use the same funds to innovate with other modes of transport. If overall the costs are lower than taxation, it stands to reason that someone would invest time or money in solving the problem. I'm not necessarily an absolutist, but if we're discussing the principles involved, observing the increased costs and often lower quality of state infrastructure isn't enough. The problem and key distinction for proponents of liberty is being violently coerced into paying for these services. Even if you can make the argument that there might be potentially underserved areas, can you justify the use of force? If so, can you say that with a purely state run road system, there will be no underserved areas? Getting back to the rejection of absolutism, I'm not convinced either system will be perfect. Both have trade offs. We live in an imperfect world. Utopia isn't a practical comparison.
  - digitaltrees 5y ago
    But the costs aren’t lower than taxation if that tax base is hyper local as you imply. Part of the benefit of National infrastructure and national taxation is specifically because it spreads the cost over a much larger pool of payers so the individual cost is minimal while at the same time creating a massive national market that is more than the sum of the parts.
  - opheliate 5y ago
    If I'm living paycheck-to-paycheck in a generally poor area, I likely don't have the money to invest in roads near me, which means the roads near me are not maintained and deteriorate in quality, which means I have fewer opportunities to earn money, and so the cycle continues. I understand there's an incentive to invest in infrastructure, but if you're in a very poor area, you don't have that money to invest in the first place. If I have the money to invest in roads near me, surely I'm even more incentivised to use that money to move elsewhere, where people are already paying for the roads? The costs of building roads overall may work out lower than taxation, but if you're in an area where on average people are in the minimum tax bracket, it will likely work out higher for you. This comes at the expense of those who earn more ofc, and I guess that's where we differ in perspective. My personal perspective would entail that someone born into an impoverished area should have the opportunities to succeed, and (ideally) taxation can at least ensure they have the infrastructure around them to do so. It's difficult for me to consider a society as one that ensures everyone's liberty, if some people are massively disempowered by society by luck of birth.
RhysU 5y ago
My favorite example is the history of the NYC subway where many of the lines were initially private. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_New_York_City_Subway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_New_York_City_S...

fallingknife 5y ago

Basic research is very important, but you are overstating it's importance vs the development work to get it from there to market. That's the hard, and resource intensive, part, and is usually done by the private sector. For example, not much that SpaceX has done is new idea. They have just been the first to execute, and that is where almost all of the market value is.

digitaltrees 5y ago
I am pointing out that the free market won’t invest in the first foundational research specifically because it isn’t yet viable. Government is the only social actor that can fill the void. SpaceX is not the first to act. Government was. SpaceX wouldn’t be viable now without government contracts so that example is not persuasive.