Elizabeth Barrette (ysabetwordsmith) wrote,
Elizabeth Barrette
ysabetwordsmith
  • Mood: busy

The Importance of Government Spending

... is not just to boost the economy, but also to jumpstart technology.  When we don't do this, other countries that are willing to do it start getting ahead of us.  If you want to keep chanting "America is #1" -- and be talking honestly about something other than the prison population -- then you have to pay for it with government spending in education and the sciences.  There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. (Link courtesy of my partner Doug.)
Tags: economics, history, news, politics
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  • 17 comments
ford_prefect42

ford_prefect42

January 27 2011, 01:41:14 UTC 10 years ago

Well.... It hasn't worked that way in the past. See my reply above to see what I mean.

Here's the big question: How are you planning to pay for it? We are running 1.5 trillion dollar annual deficits, spending more might not be a serious option. If you'd like to talk about some major cuts to social services, the military, and the regulatory agencies and redirecting thise funds toward R+D, I'm for it, but I do not favor continuing fruitless spending binges.


Pretty much the only good bang for the buck I have seen in R+D government funding was the "x prize", model. It produces far greater R+D than the value of the prize, and does not lead as easily to the creation of large unwieldy burocracies.
wolfbrotherjoe

wolfbrotherjoe

January 27 2011, 19:38:11 UTC 10 years ago

The x-prize was from a private, not-for-profit organization... not government funding.

But we've gotten pretty good bang for our buck from government spending on technology and sciences through the military.

Anonymous

January 27 2011, 23:04:11 UTC 10 years ago

True, the X prize itself was private, but the model of "offering a reward for a successful invention of X" has produced several good results with minimal costs. Both for private funding and public.

Yeah, the military has produced some good results, but the prices were *high*, look at the costs and the outputs of the Strategic Defense Initiative, and I think that it's pretty clear that, yes, they can do the research, but the price will be much larger than leaving it to private development. With military technologies, it is frequently necessary to stay ahead of others as a matter of national security, so that one is a bit of an exception.

A more interesting case is NASA. JPL did some truly great and amazing things when they were first founded, but they have languished badly since the early 80s. I am hard pressed to think of anything really useful to come out of NASA in the last 20 years. This fits the pattern of many government activities. When founded, they are founded with a specific goal and accomplish great things. Then their original mandate goes away, but the organization remains, clawing for their next budget. It is an oft repeated dynamic. I find it rather shocking that we are still using 30 year old technology in our space program and that the *russian* soyuz capsul has a better safety record than our own.
ysabetwordsmith

Thoughts

ysabetwordsmith

January 27 2011, 23:18:44 UTC 10 years ago

>>True, the X prize itself was private, but the model of "offering a reward for a successful invention of X" has produced several good results with minimal costs. Both for private funding and public.<<

I agree. Offering a prize is a terrific way to boost development. It doesn't matter much whether the prize is privately or publicly funded.

One of the colonies in my main SF universe uses this approach regularly. Somebody picks a topic and sets a goal, then collects prize contributions; that can be either government or private, sometimes a mix of both. Often the winning person or team will get several years of access to a well-stocked lab to pursue their own research. Basically the idea is to get the best scientists to solve important challenges, then turn them loose to create exciting new discoveries of their own. It works.

>>Yeah, the military has produced some good results, but the prices were *high*, look at the costs and the outputs of the Strategic Defense Initiative, and I think that it's pretty clear that, yes, they can do the research, but the price will be much larger than leaving it to private development.<<

The government and military are often best used as icebreakers. They're good at making use of obscure bits of technology that are absurdly expensive at first -- which private industry won't touch unless there's an obvious short-term payoff -- and that can lead to breakthroughs that make something cheap and practical. Frex, microchips, which are now crucial to our modern way of life. We need that icebreaker effect because it does things that business just won't.

>>I find it rather shocking that we are still using 30 year old technology in our space program and that the *russian* soyuz capsul has a better safety record than our own.<<

*nodNODnod* We should have a friggin' colony on the Moon by now. It's a disgrace, the state of our space program. Yes, I love the discoveries made by the robotic probes, but that's not enough. We need to get some eggs out of this little blue basket already.
ford_prefect42

Re: Thoughts

ford_prefect42

January 28 2011, 02:47:11 UTC 10 years ago

Getting off this rock... I think that it's probably the most important thing in human endeavor.


In Babylon 5, Sinclair summed it up very well.

"No. We have to stay here. And there's a simple reason why. Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics, and you'll get ten different answers, but there's one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on. Whether it happens in a hundred years or a thousand years or a million years, eventually our Sun will grow cold and go out. When that happens, it won't just take us. It'll take Marilyn Monroe, and Lao-Tzu, and Einstein, and Morobuto, and Buddy Holly, and Aristophanes…[and] all of this…all of this…was for nothing. Unless we go to the stars."


I'd like to see a constitutional amendment creating provision for it, because as things stand, it isn't exactly an enumerated power, but I think that that amendment would be a pretty easy sell.
wolfbrotherjoe

wolfbrotherjoe

January 28 2011, 20:42:04 UTC 10 years ago

A very fair assessment. I agree.

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