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It's also very unjust. Where were Douglas Engelbart's billions? Tim Berners-Lee, is he a billionaire? No, we have 17 year olds making quick millions gluing together the work of dozens of Ph.D's who will never see that kind of money in their lifetimes.

I'm not sure this is fair. Look at the number of entrepreneurs that actually succeed, then look at the positions that people with a CS Ph.D actually end up in. On average (using a median), I'm willing to bet those with a CS Ph.d do a lot better than your average startup founder. We just hear about success stories.

All of this is also ignoring the huge benefits that come with becoming a professor, if you are able to. The kind of pay, job security, and benefits that come with the MIT professorship that Berners-Lee has are enormously beneficial to ones peace of mind.

People don't really realize it, but the mid 1950's through mid 1970's, besides being the golden age of the American economy, was also the golden age of American innovation, and much of it was bankrolled by DOD money (SRI is, of course, a major defense contractor). Not only was the infrastructure around us mostly built during that time (the highways, power plants, etc) but most concepts in computing: programming languages, AI, GUIs, databases, etc.

Over time I become more and more convinced that the market doesn't produce (much) real innovation. If you look at the stuff that really matters, it's come from one of three sources:

1) Government research labs (NASA) or government funded defense contractors (Lockeed-Martin, SRI, BBN, etc)

2) Government funded universities (MIT and its $1 billion in defense contracts each year)

3) Private companies that have either monopolies (AT&T Bell Labs) or massive market power with entrenched cash-cow products (IBM, Xerox PARC).

Look at innovation that's happening now. Where is it happening? Self-driving cars got a big boost from DARPA in the early 2000's (DARPA Grand Challenge), and is now being funded by Google (which has a ton of cash from its deeply entrenched position in search).

I think that undervalues the innovation that goes into taking a new technology and turning it into a widely available, affordable product. That is not easy, and without that step, no invention is going to change the world very much.

I also think it undervalues the role of the market in creating the capital to fund these activities, and the many different companies and universities (many private) who compete to spend that money in innovative ways.

By comparison, the Soviet Union centrally funded their core research too, but were not able to keep up technologically with market economies like the U.S. or western Europe.

I'm not really disagreeing with you, at least in the sense that I do agree that market economies create wealth and wealth is a necessary pre-requisite for funding research. What I think I'm getting at is that I disagree with the common trope that market competition creates fundamental innovation. I think market competition makes companies slaves to the bottom line, fighting tooth and nail in the dirt just to survive. To the extent that the market creates innovation, it does so in companies well-insulated from market competition (monopolies, oligopolies, etc). The decline of Hewlett Packard is a great example. When they became just another hardware company, competing on price in printers, PC's, etc, they ceased to be innovative.

Interesting reading: http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/features.... You should really buy a copy of Tim Wu's book to appreciate Vail's line of thought.

> Over time I become more and more convinced that the market doesn't produce (much) real innovation.

This is something I've researched a bit in the past. It ends up being a case of semantics. The market produces plenty of innovation but not much basic research; whether it encourages invention is ambiguous.

These three terms (innovation, invention, discovery) are well-defined in the academic literature; typically innovation is the only act of progress that can be monetized. Innovation occurs both on a technical level (hey, this transistor doo-hickey can be put in microchips!) and procedural (hey, organizing in an assembly line increases the speed with which we can make model T's!). Invention is creating something new from known principles, innovation is applying an invention, and discovery is finding previously unknown principles.

If those PhD are really so smart, they should have had the foresight to be born to Morgan Stanley executives, like the Summly kid.

When I was about to start my PhD, a professor and good friend of mine (who already had one) told me: "The people who finish a PhD are not the most intelligent, but the most perseverant".

Some people don't live their lives to interact with high-power investors, but contribute vastly more value to society than people who do live their lives to do so.

Most of the people who don't succeed financially made a terrible choice of who there parents were. It's probably the single most important choice one can make.

Why should we be rewarding such poor decision making? What ever happened personal responsibility?

that's not really fair to the kid. All of us are born with advantages that others lack. Every person living in America has access to wealth and connections that the average African can only dream of. That shouldn't take away from anyone's success here or diminish any of our accomplishments

The "appeal to Africa" fallacy: comparing one's problems to problems that are worse does absolutely nothing to address either set of problems.

This is logically incoherent. The fact that a larger disparity exists between the ultra-wealthy in the West and impoverished people in the third world (though, to be fair, many parts of the West are beginning to resemble the third world) does not invalidate the point that inequality also exists within the first world.

Just because impoverished Africans can't get Ashton Kutcher to invest in their startup doesn't mean that you or I can.

Because I'm feeling a bit (just a tiny bit, I feel I'm almost beyond that) envious I almost want to celebrate your comment. Although there is a lot of true into this we have to admit that even kids born into riches are not that much more likely to be a world success. Because unless you have the will/desire to succeed you probably won't get that far. (Going to an ivy league school and working a nice cushy job is not enough in my book)

Granted, some people have been put closer to the finish line then most of us but I rather not take that as an excuse to explain away my lack of success.

p.s. I grew up in NYC to a working class poor immigrant family. The fact that I grew up in NYC is all the head start I needed. So far I've made to graduate school. There is still a long road ahead. No use complaining about which family I was born into.

Define "success." Being born into a rich family and going to an Ivy league school won't get you an instant $30m in the bank, but unless the apple really falls far from the tree, you won't have to try very hard to get into the top 5% in a country where even below-median people live pretty well. Not a bad ROI on simply choosing your parents well.

we have to admit that even kids born into riches are not that much more likely to be a world success.

They are MUCH less likely to wind up bleeding out on a streetcorner in the Tenderloin or creaking along on subsistence wages. It's rarely about "world success."

I don't think I have ever seen so many people on HN be so envious of someone.

When people complain about overpaid football players, or overpaid Wall Street executives, etc, is "envy" the first word that really comes to your mind?

How many financial executives are there in the U.S.? Should we assume that each of their children founded a company and exited profitably by the age of 17?

Let's not take too much away from what this person accomplished.

CHAIRMAN: Yes, and, and, and the wheel. What about this wheel thingy? Sounds a terribly interesting project to me.

MARKETING GIRL: Er, yeah, well we’re having a little, er, difficulty here…

FORD: Difficulty?! It’s the single simplest machine in the entire universe!

MARKETING GIRL: Well alright mister wise guy, if you’re so clever you tell us what colour it should be!

FORD: Oh Mighty Zarquon! Has no-one done anything?

For those who don’t recognize this, it is a quote from the Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxay [1]. The context is: Ford is an (intelligent) hitch-hiker and CHAIRMAN and MARKETING GIRL are parts of the "useless third" of the population of Golgafrincham (basically, middle managers and the like), who were exiled from the planet entirely. (Perceived sexism attributable to Douglas Adams and/or the fact this was a radio broadcast, so everyone has an assigned gender)

[1]: http://www.clivebanks.co.uk/THHGTTG/THHGTTGradio6.htm

I think you're being a little unfair. I work in quantum computing. I'll probably work in the public sector for most of my life. I have every incentive to plug government-funded research, and oh by the way, you guys all need to vote for politicians who will increase my puny grad student stipend.

Researchers in the private sector publish a healthy amount of papers in peer-reviewed journals. The elephant in the room is drug design. Many of the drugs on the market today were indeed developed and funded by pharmaceutical companies; yes, pharma companies do occasionally push bullshit products. But imatinib works. It's a trillion-dollar industry for a reason.

As an aside, academia probably shouldn't be lumped under the banner of "state" -- the independence of academia helps it succeed.

>This is a problem for today's generation of enthusiastic free-market proponents. Who is going to pay for the next generation of innovation?

Take a deep breath. The bottom line is this: scientific research is cheap.

The US spends a paltry portion of its budget on research. Hell, I think they even spend more on education. Funny, right? So in the context of the great economic circus, publically funding scientific research affects the "freeness" of the market about as much as publically funding, say, the police. Even Ron Paul wasn't looking to make very large cuts to research.

And that's another reason you should vote for whoever is going to increase my salary: it won't hardly cost you anything.

I think you're being a little unfair. I work in quantum computing. I'll probably work in the public sector for most of my life. I have every incentive to plug government-funded research, and oh by the way, you guys all need to vote for politicians who will increase my puny grad student stipend.

Quantum computing is fucking cool. Very intellectually challenging stuff. Props for that.

I agree on public funding for basic research. Politicians who say "these guys aren't earning their keep" are idiots, and we're worse (as a populace) for not firing these assholes. The mechanism is right there, it's unambiguously legal. Let's fucking use it. Anyway, how is a PhD who makes $85,000 per year while advancing the state of science, who is giving all the work away for the public good, not earning her keep? It makes no damn sense.

Researchers in the private sector publish a healthy amount of papers in peer-reviewed journals. The elephant in the room is drug design. Many of the drugs on the market today were indeed developed and funded by pharmaceutical companies; yes, pharma companies do occasionally push bullshit products. But imatinib works. It's a trillion-dollar industry for a reason.

My issue with the drug industry is that the profit motive seems to be generating 20 variations on the same theme (e.g. statins) and underfunding a lot of greater advancements.

The US spends a paltry portion of its budget on research

Damn right. It's pathetic. We spend more on this "war on terror" in one year than on cancer research in 50. Yet cancer kills orders of magnitude more people than terrorism.

If you aren't satisfied with the way the government is being run, is it a failure of Representative Democracy? You can petition your representative. If you still aren't satisfied you can cast your vote for another representative.

If you aren't satisfied with the way your capital is being allocated, is it a failure of Capitalism? You can petition your board members. If still aren't satisfied you can vote for new board members in the next election. If you still aren't satisfied you can sell -- in Yahoo's case many shareholders have chosen this option since Microsoft's $31/share offer. If you want to allocate other people's capital, see previous paragraph.

Leaving aside the notion of justice, since it is a Difficult Philosophical Issue ♪, to me the only thing that this underscores is that Yahoo is a poor allocator of capital.

♪ http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/equality/#PriEquJus

>What this really underscores is that conventional capitalism provides little incentive for fundamental innovation.

No, what this really underscores is a fundamental change in thinking for equality that our civilizations seeks since centuries: taking people seriously, no matter of gender, race or in this case age. Many people have good reason to be jealous, being jealous this was not possible when they/we were so young.

When I was that age I hated the fact that only old people would be taken seriously when it comes to business. We can be happy this is possible and as a further sign that age discrimination is going to be eradicated. Besides, this is about discrimination of young people but old people are discriminated against too.

This tired bit again?

Military research may have made done early development on networking protocols, but it was capitalism and the free market principals that took if from "something that could have potential" to the "humanities greatest creation."

Saying that government created the internet would be like giving a government credit for creating cars because while making new weapons, they accidentally made wheel.

First: Je viens en paix. So, please, don't turn this into a mud-slinging competition.

Also, because of the ambiguity that exists in the English language I should clarify that this is addressed to the general HN audience rather than to api. In other words, when I use "you" it is generally meant as the plural "you".

I have a genuine problem understanding where anti-capitalism sentiment, particularly in HN, comes from. I also have a huge problem with pro-government sentiment bordering on socialism and even going as far as having a communist undertone. I keep seeing this come up again and again on HN and I just don't get it. I don't understand it.

So, this is me asking for help. Why do you (plural) think this way?

Again, please, I am looking for a respectful conversation. This is about you, not me. I want to understand you. I have lots of questions. Some might sound dumb and maybe even off-base. Go with me, if you will, humor me, and see if you can help me --and others-- understand where you are coming from.

How far back in human history do we have to go until you would concede we don't owe what existed at that point in time to state-funded research? Fire? Hunting? The wheel? Agriculture? Making clothes? Making boats? Domestication of animals? Medieval time? Industrial revolution?

And, when feudal lords enslaved the population, was that population to be thankful because of the developments that came from such "state-funded" efforts?

Communism funded lots of things. Not sure anything of use to the world at large came out of any communist country. Do you think communism is better than capitalism? Why? How about socialist ideas? Better than capitalism?

The Nazi's funded a lot of medical research in the context of killing millions of Jews. Are you suggesting that we all benefit from that today? Are there a few million people somewhere in the world you would be willing to kill today in order to do some state-funded research that would benefit us all?

I know this is a ridiculous and grotesque question to ask, but it is a valid question. If you are deriving any benefit whatsoever from what the Nazi's did then you either have to reject all technology derived from that research --even if it costs your own life or that of your loved ones-- or be willing to do the same in the name of progress. I am not proposing, for even an instant, that what they did was acceptable.

Where do you stop singing the praises of state-funded research? How many people did ARPANET help kill? If we owe the modern Internet to all the military programs between 1960 and 199x or so and you recognize this as good; what's the difference between that and the various Nazi programs. Killing is killing, isn't it?

Well, virtually all state-funded research is motivated by war. War means killing people. Sometimes by the millions. Certainly by the thousands. And, in that regard --in terms of the mass killings-- it is no different from genocide.

How about nuclear power? A great result of state-funded research? Killed millions.

So, in embracing your belief system, do we ever fault governments or do we always look at the rosy side of state-funded research and ignore the ugly parts. As I asked before, how many people did ARPANET help kill? Is that ever a consideration? I am not sure Compuserve and other civilian BBS's helped kill nearly as many people --if any-- as the various means of communication resulting from state-funded research.

When I was younger the realities of war never really hit my radar. As I got older it really started to turn my stomach. And that's why I developed this idea that we should limit our government to throwing fancy dinners for visiting dignitaries and pull ALL non essential funding from their hands. All they do is kill people, one way or the other. The research would be done far better, cheaper, faster and with less violent purposes in the private sector.

I prefer capitalism and profit-driven entrepreneurship than war-driven state-sponsored research who's aim is to kill millions. Do you see the difference? How does that align with your pro-state belief system?

That aside, on the assumption a rare state-funded project produces something of note, for how many decades or centuries should we be thankful?

Do advancements ever become part of human culture and intellectual property upon which we can build without being labeled as having taken advantage of those before us?

Are you of this opinion because you have studied the subject or because you were indoctrinated into this manner of thinking at school or at home?

It's an honest question. Please don't be offended by it.

As an example, most religions folks were indoctrinated into their religion. I don't know anyone who grew up without any kind of religion shoveled at them as a kid, only to choose one independently as an adult.

It is a fair question: Are you pro state/government/communism/socialism because you chose to believe this way or because the thoughts were shoveled into your head? Can you remove yourself from your mind far enough to even make that evaluation?

All forms of governments, from democratic to communist seem to be great at devising ways to kill people. If WW1 and WW2 --with over a hundred million people dead-- did not prove that, I don't know what would.

It is also interesting to note that governments seem to need war as a motivator to invent anything. Why? Is that the only goal they understand?

Can you reconcile your "more government is good" view of the world with the fact that governments --not people-- have started all known wars and that they have caused the death of hundreds of millions of people throughout history? People don't start wars. Governments do.

I sincerely reject the idea that "All this stuff we're gluing together is the product of state-funded research". There are countless innovations that originated far, far away from government. Too many examples to list, but such things as flying machines, the telegraph and the light bulb come to mind.

Now, it is natural for entrepreneurs to look for markets for their inventions. Governments are flush with cash. In the US, if you can mold your idea or invention into something that can be of benefit to our mighty armed forces you can get tons of money for further development and even hugely profitable contracts through programs such as SBIR.

Entrepreneurs look for markets where they can make money. This means that while I am sure someone is going to claim that aviation was funded by government, I will propose the opposite: Aviation entrepreneurs went where the money was: Military contracts.

I could go on, but it is time to listen. There are a lot of questions above. I ask you to think, really think about them and then give me your perspective. And, again, I mean this with the utmost respect. I truly want to understand. I have seen enough pro socialist/communist/government/state posts on HN to cause me pause. I don't know if these are coming from outside the US (or outside democratic/capitalistic cultures) or from within. Don't know. Please, help me understand you.

I think you took his comment a bit too far: the point is that the government is an institution that is meant to mitigate risks that cannot efficiently be dealt with otherwise.

The risk of going to the moon before anyone else is such a risk (political motivations aside).

Stating that the government can be an effective tool for mitigating risks associated with research is not an endorsement of everything the government does. This is not an endorsement of everything governments have done in the past. This isn't even an endorsement of government at all in its current form.

It is a statement of what our government ought to be doing more of. It is a statement that our current system has disproportionately distributed rewards -- aren't we supposed to reward those who create the most value?

OK, I grant you that. I did say I wasn't aiming my post at him though. I've just seen a --in my eyes at least-- seemingly blind pro-government, pro public-sector bend in HN that always seems to float to the surface and I simply don't understand it. I'm not fighting it at this point because I clearly don't understand it. I have to understand it first before I can go past that. Not a molecule in my body thinks this way, so I need help.

As far as the distribution of rewards. The market decides that. Obviously the market --the average consumer-- does not think government is producing enough value or they would be flush with cash. If government produced real value we would be throwing money at them, me included.

With regards to the question of risky or very, very long term research.

Do we really believe government is good at this at all? I don't really see it that way. If you compare the evolution of technologies in private hands vs. that of publicly funded programs, what are the results?

Perhaps the best comparison is to compare efforts in the old Soviet Union with efforts in similar industries in the US. For all their might, the Soviets couldn't make a car worth a damn. During the same period in the US a multitude of private companies produced design after design and evolved solutions that were ages better than anything coming out of the Soviets.

Even Igor Sikorsky ultimately had to emigrate to the US in order to have his helicopter designs grow out of private efforts and evolve as they have. Little known fact: Composer Sergei Rachmaninov funded Sikorsky to the tune of $5,000 to help him launch his company.

Now, of course, as any good entrepreneur would do, you look for where you can sell your products. If government wants to buy you are not going to say "no". And, if government wants to throw more money at you to build other products for them you are going to follow suit. A lot had to happen before government could shovel money at Sikorsky. Other similar stories abound.

Then there's the question of whether or not government is actually equipped to truly make long reaching decision. Few decisions are really made with a clear view of what the future outcome might be. Why did we go to the moon? It was part of an arms race with the Soviets. Not much more than that. Again, war. I have a very fundamental problem with this idea of doing all of these things and spending all of this money to be better at war-making. It really stinks.

Was the lunar program truly worth the investment? Could we have produced similar or better results through other programs?

I am watching companies like SpaceX with great interest. The drive, focus and priorities private enterprise has, when combined with people hell-bent to make it happen, cannot be paralleled by any organization assembled by government. The mindset is massively different.

We could point at side benefits of technologies like GPS. Great stuff, right? Again, what was the motivator? Military. War. More efficient killing. Yuk! The civilian use of GPS was never a part of the program or the driving motivators.

And so, nearly all "good" technology that has come out of any government effort is almost always linked to military needs. If there are no military needs government either does not do it or they fail miserably.

This is the aspect of the whole pro-government, pro-public sector, pro-state-funded mentality I am not getting. You can't point at ARPANET as a state-funded research success without pointing at the thousand or millions (who knows) of people it was surely responsible for helping kill. One goes with the other. There is not dividing line. The state did not initiate these programs to help milk cows or to help us buy books online. They launched and funded these programs to create better killing systems for the wars they need to conduct.

I know I am harping on the military connection. I am eager to have someone provide me with a list of state-funded technologies that DO NOT have their genesis in a fundamental military need. I really can't think of one off the top of my head. Not one.

And so, being pro government/public sector/state and singing the praises of all this wonderful technology we should be so thankful for is tantamount to being thankful for, and supporting, all of the military programs and wars that inspire them. If you elevate what we have received from these government programs and ignore the wars and killing that brought the technologies in to existence you are being a hypocrite. I sincerely doubt that most of the folks who express pro-state views on HN are war-mongers.

And that's when my brain short circuits and I just don't get it.

I'd love to understand.

> I'd love to understand.

In my biased opinion I'd suggest you study western and northern European democracies. The government provides essential services (decentralized up to the district level) like education, water, streets, police, health care, social security for it's citizens.

I'd rather have clean water and unbiased police and justice and free education. Every private company needs to maximize their own profit. The government does not need to do this. They can subsidize important but nonprofitable projects. This can be and has been made efficient.

There is no interest in a private prison company to reduce crime. There is also not much reason for a private rail company to invest in infrastructure that not profitable. But as a citizen I have an interest to use a efficient train.

It's not black and white. Private sector is very good at a lot of things. But there are certain other things that are natural monopolies or important for the functioning of the society that in my opinion can be best served by an efficient government.

The private sector and capitalism do not also not always work in your interest - Adam Curtis from the BBC (also government :) did a great documentation about certain effects of free market radicalism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mayfair_Set

> The government provides essential services (decentralized up to the district level) like education, water, streets, police, health care, social security for it's citizens.

I wonder if herein lies the fundamental difference. I would never put it the way you have.

The people form the government and pay them to administer infrastructure and services for them. That is massively different than the "government does for it's people" view. One is almost a royals-and-subjects view while the other says, well, government of the people, by the people and for the people.

In my model we hire the government to serve us. They are nothing more than our employees.

The other data point I have is that as a youngster my family spent quite a number of years in Argentina. Monkeys would govern that country better than nearly any administration they have had to endure. I have followed their politics on and off over the years. To this day they continue to be raped and pillaged by their government. The only way you can characterize them is thugs, thieves and gangsters. It is quite possible that seeing some of the things I saw there planted the seeds for not seeing government as part of the solution as an adult. I mean, look at Cyprus.

If you really want to understand, do some reading. Different (conflicting) economic theories, history, philosophy..

It's quite easy to broaden ones perspective, if that's actually the goal.

I wouldn't look to a private prison company to reduce crime because that's not the need they are pursuing. The commercial war on crime tends to be waged by associations that roughly map to where/how crimes are committed and chambers of commerce. These organizations are the pooled efforts of businesses to fight common problems.

A private rail company might decide to lay down unprofitable track to massively grow demand and habitual preference for rail travel. Or, it might stick to more profitable tracks and in exchange not have to pass on the costs of disparate routes to the customers in the high-density areas.

I don't believe he went too far, I think he is just trolling. As someone who lost a close friend in a war and who had grandparents who lose relatives because of the Soviets and the Nazis, I think he's just talking bullshit in trying to advance the old Randian Gospel and its false dilemmas of calling everyone Socialists.

I was to answer him, but I could not believe he's doing this to listen,as he claim. I also would not hold my anger.

Well, considering that my family lost quote a few members to genocide I think I am entitled to detest war. And, no, I am not trolling. You shouldn't be angry at all. This is just a conversation.

Pointing out that the vast majority of the technology stemming from state-funded research came from military programs is nothing less than the truth.

Ok, I'll give you the benefit of doubt, I'm not angry anymore and realized it was stupid to be in the first place.

I'll not enter in a discussion with you here and now, politically I'm very pragmatic, although I'm pretty Conservative (As a Tory used to be some years ago). This post brought some memories (of my friend) which are uncomfortable in certain situations and with the due respect to my grandparents I'll also pass this one.

> As an example, most religions folks were indoctrinated into their religion. I don't know anyone who grew up without any kind of religion shoveled at them as a kid, only to choose one independently as an adult. It is a fair question: Are you pro state/government/communism/socialism because you chose to believe this way or because the thoughts were shoveled into your head? Can you remove yourself from your mind far enough to even make that evaluation?

So what is your background?

Attended private and public schools (nearly a 50/50 split). Private school was not quite religious but had a Christian church next as part of the campus and some of our teachers were the priests. Became an atheist somewhere in college. Highly entrepreneurial family. Have been an entrepreneur myself since probably high school. Started and ran half a dozen businesses with my own money. Also worked in industry (employee) at various levels (Junior Engineer to CTO) for about twenty years.

Is that what you needed to know?

I was more refering to where you grew up, or other things that might be correlated to setting the groundstones for a persons political outlook/philosophy. Sorry for not being specific.

Why should we care whether you understand, especially when you attempt to hijack a thread, demanding that people satisfy your curiosity?