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You posted this comment using a network whose fundamental tech was developed in a government project. You posted it using a device descended from an original which was built as part of a government project, based on theories developed with no immediate profit motive.

Would you like to re-think whether it's possible to invent and develop important new things without immediate profit motive?

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Government funding happens within an economy subject to market forces. DARPA, in particular, had an intimate cooperation with for-profit companies. BBN and RAND were instrumental to creation of the Internet. BBN won the contract to actually build ARPANet. Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf both went through the “revolving doors” between government and industry. Kahn was involved in the implementation of ARPANet at BBN, and then went to work for DARPA in 1973. Cerf was a program manager at DARPA then went to go work for MCI in 1972.

Government funding isn’t an alternative to the market; it’s a different kind of market partipant. Government funding competes with private investment, and government agencies compete with the private sector for talant, etc.

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