Posted on 03/11/2004 4:45:23 AM PST by Momaw Nadon
Why is it libertarians are so willing to use technology developed up to this point and forego the rest? Honestly, what would an island (or Rand's hidden valley) full of libertarians consist of, if they had to start from scratch?
You Libertarian haters conveniently ignore the fact that the most expensive and the lowest quality way to get anything done is to do it through government. If the untold billions of dollars wasted by the government fed hogs at the scientific research trough had been available to private industry we'd have a whole lot more to show for it.*
Or are you one of these people who believe that without the NEA there is no art and without NIH, NASA, etc. there is no science.
Read Bastiat
*Look at the difference in government schools and private schools, the post office and UPS etc.
I'm pretty sure (just a guess, mind you, but an educated one) that the first spear point was developed without a government grant, and was actually the product of private industry.
It was a case of using private technological innovation to bring supply to a pent-up market.
When it's energy... but then massless isn't a particularly helpful concept since energy has relativistic mass... but then trying to completely separate the concepts of mass and energy is sort of... misleading ...nevermind.
*Now before you go on a rant concerning technologies that were invented and realized 50+ years ago, I'll advise you to stick to modern times - we don't live 50 years ago.
Cool. Is it jewish, christian, muslim or buddhist?
Just not true. Real scientific leaps don't require government funding. The transistor was NOT government funded but developed at Bell labs. The training of scientists does not require government funding. Anyone with the smarts and the grades can get into graduate school and get a PhD as long as they are willing to do the work and pay the tuition.
Do you think Intel isn't doing any research? Government funding distorts the research marketplace just like it distorts everything else. Money is spent on useless, but communist "politically correct" things, like electric vehicles.
Do you hate all science?
After the end of World War II, Kelly put together a team of scientists to develop a solid-state semiconductor switch to replace the problematic vacuum tube.The team would use some of the advances in semiconductor research during the war that had made radar possible.
Hrm. Odd, they specifically cite government funded vacuum-tube computing devices as the basis for their improvement, as well as preliminary semiconductor research. They basically improved upon a design already developed by (gasp) our government! But let's read on:
In the 1950s and 1960s, most U.S. companies chose to focus their attentions on the military market in producing transistor products.
It appears that the companies that developed the transistor needed government resources to maintain profitability. Interesting, no?
But, before you quote mine me AGAIN, I didn't say individual scientists didn't make leaps, I said the vast majority of leaps made REQUIRE government resources to develop AND realize. They are two very distinct and difficult things to achieve.The vast majority of private companies cannot maintain profitability while researching cutting edge techonolgies. The companies you site spend the majority of their budgets improving on established designs.
Anyone with the smarts and the grades can get into graduate school and get a PhD as long as they are willing to do the work and pay the tuition.
You're right, however, let's take a look at where the funding comes from for all those schools. Is it tuition? Don't be daft. Is it corporate funding? A little bit. The majority? You guessed it: government grants. Are you for pulling state/federal funding to universities?
No
Do you hate everyone who is not a reciever of looted wealth?
You're lucky. I caught a bad case of Greens once, and it took a visit to the doctor's office, a delousing bath, and three weeks of a nasty blue-colored ointment to get rid of them.
Oh, the drama. Shall we eliminate ALL taxes then?
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