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The Internet exists because of massive and very long-term spending on scientific research. This was a massively successful public works program, which led to a
by tessierashpool 12y ago
The Internet exists because of massive and very long-term spending on scientific research. This was a massively successful public works program, which led to a colossal boom in entrepreneurship.
Likewise, I'm no fan of the Department of Defense in this country (the US), but the research they're currently funding in robotics has similar potential.
"Americans embrace risk," as you say, partly because our government creates incredible opportunities through public research which can easily be transformed into private profit. Also, the article repeatedly demonstrated that Americans embrace risk more when they have a social safety net.
You can't hand-wave away research with a generalization, especially not when the research you're hand-waving away has gone into great depth examining the detailed workings of the underlying truth which made your generalization possible in the first place.
- dataker 12y agoOne certainly cannot axiomatically assert the internet wouldn't be here without the U.S government. Although it has definitely helped, the community programmers and engineers were the `fathers of the internet`. If the government hadn't invested, there would certainly be analogous technologies and initiatives built on top of scientific developments. It's just too hard to say how it'd be like
- api 12y agoWithout the government it would be a hodgepodge of walled gardens based on different protocols and standards with everyone trying to make a 'platform play' to lock it down... exactly like what you see today with OSes. You'd also have complicated fee structures with every little service charged differently since telcos would want to charge a la carte for access to individual protocols and endpoints. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_gauge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_gauge