6 ms·

Why are all of these examples of successful government tech investment so old? ARPANET, moon landing etc. are all 50+ years old - before most HN readers were ev

by zeteo 3y ago

Why are all of these examples of successful government tech investment so old? ARPANET, moon landing etc. are all 50+ years old - before most HN readers were even born. How many billions/trillions have been spent since then without achieving anything nearly as spectacular?

edmundsauto 3y ago
The internet didn’t become the central piece of society and commerce until around 20 years ago, so partially it is explained by needing time to mature and adopt. Investments from the 90s onward have been more public-private partnerships, but things like the human genome project or a number of cancer treatments and pharmaceuticals have been developed in this manner. Third, I’m not sure I would regularly expect something as big as the internet to be invented every decade. Not necessarily disagreeing with you because I feel similar to your comment, but I wanted to dig in a little to see if it’s more truthful or more biased.
- nvm0n2 3y ago
  By 2000 the military involvement in the internet was long since history. If you want to talk about the time when government investment was what mattered you have to go back ~35 years or more.
  - edmundsauto 3y ago
    My point was that large investments, especially in infrastructure, need decades of time to bake. So investments made this century could just be cooking. I also suspect the push by the uS right wing have impacted the number of great government innovations. The federal role nowadays seems to be to do the core research that is not directly profitable, then transfer control to companies to reap the rewards. (Because of the often incorrect “the government can’t do anything right” narrative pushed in the states)
    - musicale 3y ago
      This really seems to have worked out kind of OK on one hand, although sometimes I wish that the public had more ownership of the technology that we funded.
1auralynn 3y ago
Because we've been gutting scientific grant spending since like 2005, leading to a cutthroat environment where for the most part only the most well-connected and well known get the big grants?
dataking 3y ago
> Why are all of these examples of successful government tech investment so old? There are indeed newer examples such as GPS, RF-CMOS, Lidar, Siri, mRNA vaccines that DARPA invested in one way or another. Not saying they are as spectacular as the internet.
- chii 3y ago
  Not to mention that perhaps the low-hanging fruits are all reaped in the earlier years. The newer tech might just not be as impactful as the yester-decade's, because those impact is already felt, and creating more impact in the face of today is getting harder and harder. Exponential growth is not possible to achieve in practise.
antupis 3y ago
Rna vaccines might be that but it is still too early to tell.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
speedgoose 3y ago
Investing in something not successful is not specific to governments though. You can find recent examples too. Also take into account the survivor bias. The latest technology that got appreciated on HN I could think of it the Mistral LLM, trained on a government funded EuroHPC. It’s a few weeks old.
musicale 3y ago
NSF has funded all sorts of major advancements and inventions we depend on: cloud computing, multicore processors, wireless networks, fiber optics, computer graphics, bar codes, MRI, PCR, CRISPR, improved LASIK, doppler radar, modern internet and web, cryptography, AI/ML, etc. Also: Google (pageRank, data centers), Nvidia (CUDA), VMware (virtualization), Qualcomm (CDMA) - many tech companies have leveraged research (and people) funded by NSF. On the NIH funded/medical side we can look at things like mRNA vaccines, which may be transformative in fighting many diseases. On the DOE-funded side we seem to be seeing major advancements in nuclear fusion. On the DARPA side modern self-driving cars (and associated businesses) seem to derive from DARPA's grand challenge in the 2000s.

by zeteo 3y ago

edmundsauto 3y ago

The internet didn’t become the central piece of society and commerce until around 20 years ago, so partially it is explained by needing time to mature and adopt. Investments from the 90s onward have been more public-private partnerships, but things like the human genome project or a number of cancer treatments and pharmaceuticals have been developed in this manner. Third, I’m not sure I would regularly expect something as big as the internet to be invented every decade. Not necessarily disagreeing with you because I feel similar to your comment, but I wanted to dig in a little to see if it’s more truthful or more biased.

nvm0n2 3y ago
By 2000 the military involvement in the internet was long since history. If you want to talk about the time when government investment was what mattered you have to go back ~35 years or more.
- edmundsauto 3y ago
  My point was that large investments, especially in infrastructure, need decades of time to bake. So investments made this century could just be cooking. I also suspect the push by the uS right wing have impacted the number of great government innovations. The federal role nowadays seems to be to do the core research that is not directly profitable, then transfer control to companies to reap the rewards. (Because of the often incorrect “the government can’t do anything right” narrative pushed in the states)
  - musicale 3y ago
    This really seems to have worked out kind of OK on one hand, although sometimes I wish that the public had more ownership of the technology that we funded.

1auralynn 3y ago

Because we've been gutting scientific grant spending since like 2005, leading to a cutthroat environment where for the most part only the most well-connected and well known get the big grants?

dataking 3y ago

> Why are all of these examples of successful government tech investment so old? There are indeed newer examples such as GPS, RF-CMOS, Lidar, Siri, mRNA vaccines that DARPA invested in one way or another. Not saying they are as spectacular as the internet.

chii 3y ago
Not to mention that perhaps the low-hanging fruits are all reaped in the earlier years. The newer tech might just not be as impactful as the yester-decade's, because those impact is already felt, and creating more impact in the face of today is getting harder and harder. Exponential growth is not possible to achieve in practise.

antupis 3y ago

Rna vaccines might be that but it is still too early to tell.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

speedgoose 3y ago

Investing in something not successful is not specific to governments though. You can find recent examples too. Also take into account the survivor bias. The latest technology that got appreciated on HN I could think of it the Mistral LLM, trained on a government funded EuroHPC. It’s a few weeks old.

musicale 3y ago

NSF has funded all sorts of major advancements and inventions we depend on: cloud computing, multicore processors, wireless networks, fiber optics, computer graphics, bar codes, MRI, PCR, CRISPR, improved LASIK, doppler radar, modern internet and web, cryptography, AI/ML, etc. Also: Google (pageRank, data centers), Nvidia (CUDA), VMware (virtualization), Qualcomm (CDMA) - many tech companies have leveraged research (and people) funded by NSF. On the NIH funded/medical side we can look at things like mRNA vaccines, which may be transformative in fighting many diseases. On the DOE-funded side we seem to be seeing major advancements in nuclear fusion. On the DARPA side modern self-driving cars (and associated businesses) seem to derive from DARPA's grand challenge in the 2000s.