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Comment by akhatri_aus | Hacker News Reader

What's wrong with that? Most new technologies come about in that way anyway.

You wouldn't be on the internet today otherwise.

I dispute that most new technologies come about in that way. More often, government jumps on bandwagons that have already started in the private sector, if the government gets involved at all. And often, when the government goes first, there's a damned good reason the private sector avoided it.

The SST example is a good one. Back then, aircraft makers would only go ahead if it was a government program, because they knew the commercial case was deeply flawed. There was all sort of gnashing of teeth about money grubbing luddites in congress when funding was cut, but it turned out to have been the right thing to do.

Radical new technologies are generally based on scientific understanding that is the product of many decades of government-funded research.

Also many new technologies were first developed by the military, such as the internet, the jet engine, sonar, nuclear power, the computer, and space rockets.

Alas, the Republicans, who have an economic philosophy similar to yours, have been slashing government support of science, and so we can expect to fall behind the Chinese in it in the coming decades.

There's actually not good evidence that public funding of research has a positive economic impact (private R&D is another matter).

https://lemire.me/blog/2013/02/26/does-academic-research-cau...

>What's wrong with that? Most new technologies come about in that way anyway.

Nothing wrong with that, if it's a good idea. But as the comments above make clear, this idea makes no economic sense.

Yeah, that's how progress happens.

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