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> I would personally prefer it to have those be government funded (like with CERN or NASA) and patent free as opposed to what’s happening with medicine <cut> I

> I would personally prefer it to have those be government funded (like with CERN or NASA) and patent free as opposed to what’s happening with medicine <cut> I have to vehemently disagree with this. Copying ideas and making incremental improvements on existing inventions is the core of what makes technological progress possible. Even just plain 'ape-ing' ideas is vitally important to getting improvements available to the public. This works best in a decentralized environment. Fundamentally it is my contention that a 'wild west' scenario will yield faster and more meaningful human progress then a carefully regulated and regimented system. Assuming this is true: Then the patent system, as flawed as it is, is still superior to what was popular before it... which was official government academies were scientists and inventors were effectively wards of the state. This is uncomfortably close to what you are advocating. In that sort of system internal bureaucratic politics and 'administrative law' (which is a term meant to indicate rules-decided-by-committee) dictates the distribution of resources and activities of scientists rather then merit or actual need. I do not think that is a effective environment for the creation of innovation. I say that it's more freedom that is needed, not less.

lukifer 14y ago
Innovation can and does bounce back and forth between the public and private sectors. The Internet started life as a government-funded project before blossoming into the ultimate decentralized infrastructure.
- natermer 14y ago
  public sector vs private sector metaphors are mostly nonsense. It's nice to say 'public sector' or 'publicly owned', but in reality the words and definitions are a creation of orwellian-style double speak. It's propaganda. Institutions like NASA or any other government institution is owned and controlled just as much as IBM or Microsoft. They are all a for-profit institution simply because the people working and running them are in it for themselves. Democracy seems like it would allow another means of control for the 'public' over the 'public institutions', but was easily nullified by the bi-partisan system. Effectively this country is controlled through two major political dynasties since just about the beginning. And these political dynasties are not driven by ideological differences, they exist for using political means to provide economic benefit for themselves. Democracy can only work on small scales; in city-states were they cannot control population movement. At the small scale governments are easily controlled by their tax base. On a large scale they cannot. That is to say nobody works for free. Everybody works for profit, otherwise there is no point in working and no point in participating in the institutions in the first place. And a organization is nothing but a body of participating individuals. The major difference is that government institutions are able to use the political means, that is violence, to get the funding and resources they desire. Where as a 'private' corporation either has to go through the government to get access to the political means or obtain what they want through economic means in the market place. Ultimately when you say 'public sector' versus 'private sector' you are saying 'people that work for profit that you are required to pay by law' versus 'people that work for profit that can only obtain funding through the market'. Unfortunately the government is intertwined very very deeply into the economic system of this country. When you get to the large corporations the distinction between government and private corporations is _very_ blurred.
  - lukifer 14y ago
    I'm aware that public/private "sectors" are leaky abstractions, and that corporations and the federal government are deeply intertwined in practice. My core point was that tax-funded entities like NASA and DARPA can sometimes set the stage for later independent innovation in the marketplace. I dislike ideological, knee-jerk reactions of [governments/corporations] are [always/never] [good/bad]. If there is a distinction to be made, it is between large orgs, small orgs, and individuals, and even then, those distinctions should be seen in the light of trading off strengths and weaknesses, with the possibility of statistical outliers.

lukifer 14y ago

Innovation can and does bounce back and forth between the public and private sectors. The Internet started life as a government-funded project before blossoming into the ultimate decentralized infrastructure.

natermer 14y ago
public sector vs private sector metaphors are mostly nonsense. It's nice to say 'public sector' or 'publicly owned', but in reality the words and definitions are a creation of orwellian-style double speak. It's propaganda. Institutions like NASA or any other government institution is owned and controlled just as much as IBM or Microsoft. They are all a for-profit institution simply because the people working and running them are in it for themselves. Democracy seems like it would allow another means of control for the 'public' over the 'public institutions', but was easily nullified by the bi-partisan system. Effectively this country is controlled through two major political dynasties since just about the beginning. And these political dynasties are not driven by ideological differences, they exist for using political means to provide economic benefit for themselves. Democracy can only work on small scales; in city-states were they cannot control population movement. At the small scale governments are easily controlled by their tax base. On a large scale they cannot. That is to say nobody works for free. Everybody works for profit, otherwise there is no point in working and no point in participating in the institutions in the first place. And a organization is nothing but a body of participating individuals. The major difference is that government institutions are able to use the political means, that is violence, to get the funding and resources they desire. Where as a 'private' corporation either has to go through the government to get access to the political means or obtain what they want through economic means in the market place. Ultimately when you say 'public sector' versus 'private sector' you are saying 'people that work for profit that you are required to pay by law' versus 'people that work for profit that can only obtain funding through the market'. Unfortunately the government is intertwined very very deeply into the economic system of this country. When you get to the large corporations the distinction between government and private corporations is _very_ blurred.
- lukifer 14y ago
  I'm aware that public/private "sectors" are leaky abstractions, and that corporations and the federal government are deeply intertwined in practice. My core point was that tax-funded entities like NASA and DARPA can sometimes set the stage for later independent innovation in the marketplace. I dislike ideological, knee-jerk reactions of [governments/corporations] are [always/never] [good/bad]. If there is a distinction to be made, it is between large orgs, small orgs, and individuals, and even then, those distinctions should be seen in the light of trading off strengths and weaknesses, with the possibility of statistical outliers.