5 ms·

What is a "future PayPal or debit card"? Are you trying to say that publicly-funded research cannot lead to any technological advancement?

elefanten 5y ago
Publicly-funded (basic) research doesn’t result in innovative, competitive and successful businesses forming to serve various needs. In other words, society needs more than just basic research and bureaucratic administration of basic government services.
- badRNG 5y ago
  The goal here wouldn't be to form a successful business, but to serve needs directly. Creative, innovative people will continue to create and innovate as long as they are employed specifically to those ends.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - z2 5y ago
    There are probably business journals that put this better, but the issue may not be that these creative people will vanish if we directed them to serve a need. Rather, the issue may involve willingness to take risks to try crazy new ideas because the potential reward is great. Ownership in the results may be much more powerful than a static unchanging government salary. I'm not sure how this may translate to an organization level, but suspect similar dynamics at play, along with a good amount of competition to move things along (edit: that is, when there are multiple private entities vs a single state entity doing the directing).
    - badRNG 5y ago
      I don't really see how an engineer at Blue Origin is more willing to take risks or has more ownership in the results than say an engineer at NASA JPL. If anything the engineer at NASA has more ownership since their work is in the public interest, rather than making some billionaire marginally richer.
      - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
        > I don't really see how an engineer at Blue Origin is more willing to take risks or has more ownership in the results than say an engineer at NASA JPL An engineer at SpaceX or Blue Origin is incentivized differently from one at JPL. SpaceX isn't designing rovers for a Titan mission or exploring novel theoretical propulsion systems. And NASA wasn't able to turn its decades of work on propulsive landing into a competitor to the Space Shuttle, Atlas or the SLS. Note, too, that engineers at NASA are at the whim of Congress. I know several whose life work was cut in a budget negotiation thousands of miles away. I know several more who left aerospace for better pay in other industries.
        badRNG 5y ago
        >Note, too, that engineers at NASA are at the whim of Congress. I know several whose life work was cut in a budget negotiation thousands of miles away. I know several more who left aerospace for better pay in other industries. Fair point, it does require the state to be willing to sufficiently and consistently invest in the effort for it to succeed.
- RandomLensman 5y ago
  Really depends how you look at it, but there is at very least disagreement who really has been taking the actual big innovation risks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Entrepreneurial_State https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Entrepreneurial_State That is not to say that then companies don't need to form around it, but not as black and white.
  - imtringued 5y ago
    The Japanese managed to grow their economy quickly because they did window guidance. People will complain about central planning yet there are countless of examples of governments that "macromanaged" their economy into success.
PeterisP 5y ago
IIRC EU has tried for decades to facilitate launching a competitive international card system as alternative to US-run Visa & Mastercard, but failed. It definitely can lead to technological advancement, however, it often can not build an organization that's competitive enough that people would actually choose use it unless forced or motivated by subsidies.
acchow 5y ago
Profit-driven enterprises automatically fail when the product is not desired by the market, or the firm is not operating sufficiently efficiently. Ideas are abundant and worthless - how would publicly funded research even figure out which idea is worth implementing into a running business? So many business ventures fail. Even a decade into Uber there is still great debate into whether or not it is viable. How would publicly funded research make an Uber?

elefanten 5y ago

Publicly-funded (basic) research doesn’t result in innovative, competitive and successful businesses forming to serve various needs. In other words, society needs more than just basic research and bureaucratic administration of basic government services.

badRNG 5y ago
The goal here wouldn't be to form a successful business, but to serve needs directly. Creative, innovative people will continue to create and innovate as long as they are employed specifically to those ends.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- z2 5y ago
  There are probably business journals that put this better, but the issue may not be that these creative people will vanish if we directed them to serve a need. Rather, the issue may involve willingness to take risks to try crazy new ideas because the potential reward is great. Ownership in the results may be much more powerful than a static unchanging government salary. I'm not sure how this may translate to an organization level, but suspect similar dynamics at play, along with a good amount of competition to move things along (edit: that is, when there are multiple private entities vs a single state entity doing the directing).
  - badRNG 5y ago
    I don't really see how an engineer at Blue Origin is more willing to take risks or has more ownership in the results than say an engineer at NASA JPL. If anything the engineer at NASA has more ownership since their work is in the public interest, rather than making some billionaire marginally richer.
    - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
      > I don't really see how an engineer at Blue Origin is more willing to take risks or has more ownership in the results than say an engineer at NASA JPL An engineer at SpaceX or Blue Origin is incentivized differently from one at JPL. SpaceX isn't designing rovers for a Titan mission or exploring novel theoretical propulsion systems. And NASA wasn't able to turn its decades of work on propulsive landing into a competitor to the Space Shuttle, Atlas or the SLS. Note, too, that engineers at NASA are at the whim of Congress. I know several whose life work was cut in a budget negotiation thousands of miles away. I know several more who left aerospace for better pay in other industries.
      - badRNG 5y ago
        >Note, too, that engineers at NASA are at the whim of Congress. I know several whose life work was cut in a budget negotiation thousands of miles away. I know several more who left aerospace for better pay in other industries. Fair point, it does require the state to be willing to sufficiently and consistently invest in the effort for it to succeed.
RandomLensman 5y ago
Really depends how you look at it, but there is at very least disagreement who really has been taking the actual big innovation risks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Entrepreneurial_State https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Entrepreneurial_State That is not to say that then companies don't need to form around it, but not as black and white.
- imtringued 5y ago
  The Japanese managed to grow their economy quickly because they did window guidance. People will complain about central planning yet there are countless of examples of governments that "macromanaged" their economy into success.

PeterisP 5y ago

IIRC EU has tried for decades to facilitate launching a competitive international card system as alternative to US-run Visa & Mastercard, but failed. It definitely can lead to technological advancement, however, it often can not build an organization that's competitive enough that people would actually choose use it unless forced or motivated by subsidies.

acchow 5y ago

Profit-driven enterprises automatically fail when the product is not desired by the market, or the firm is not operating sufficiently efficiently. Ideas are abundant and worthless - how would publicly funded research even figure out which idea is worth implementing into a running business? So many business ventures fail. Even a decade into Uber there is still great debate into whether or not it is viable. How would publicly funded research make an Uber?