Comment by confluence | Hacker News Reader

Comment by confluence | Hacker News Reader

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> incremental innovations in private industry are what has driven the massive global increase in economic efficiency over the last half-century, which in turn is what has allowed us the standard of living that we enjoy today

I agree. But this would not be possible without government investment at a loss to develop the very things the private sector incrementally innovates upon.

> Of course government innovations played a role in this process, but if necessity is the mother of all invention, then it seems obvious that had government not funded the creation of technology A, B, or C, and if there was truly a need for it

Now here is where we diverge. Companies will not seek these type of innovations because those that do die before they can reap any profit.

> Furthermore, had the dollars that have been spent on government innovations been instead allowed to remain in circulation in the economy, how many more innovations would private industry had come up with? Put more succinctly, what is the opportunity cost of government innovation?

Conversely, what is the opportunity cost of dipshit innovation? The answer is clear: lack of break through innovation. Hence why I advocate a split (40 long term government - 60 short term free market) in my above hypothesis. It's the best of both worlds; you don't short sell the future, whilst neither ignoring the present.

Conversely, what is the opportunity cost of dipshit innovation? The answer is clear: lack of break through innovation.

How did you arrive to that conclusion? That's not clear to me at all. In fact, it's not clear to me that break through innovation would even be possible without incremental innovation, and vice-versa.

Hence why I advocate for a reasonable resource split where both are part of a virtuous positive feedback cycle. You can't have one without the other.

But then how can you claim that one has the other as an opportunity cost?

And besides, that you need the two types of innovations doesn't mean you need the state to produce one of them. I mean, maybe we do, but it's an orthogonal issue.

Think of the state like a massive conglomerate corporation with huge pockets, many sub-divisions, and long investment timelines and you'll understand my point of view.

My distinction between government and non-government is basically pocket book size and investment timeline.

>Companies will not seek these type of innovations because those that do die before they can reap any profit.

Complete and utter politicized bullshit.

Both IBM and Xerox had developed their own internal protocols for network communications; they adopted TCP/IP because the government was already using it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Systems_Network_Architectur...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xerox_Network_Systems

History is replete with examples of non-governmental entities making ground-breaking advancements in technology. The most obvious ones off the top of my head are the automobile/assembly line, the television (both black and white and color), the integrated circuit, radio, the list goes on and on.

> Both IBM and Xerox had developed their own internal protocols for network communications.

Yeah in the 1970s, after the 1960s government-created ARPANET had already been developed. Way to not dipshit innovate.

/sarcasm

> History is replete with examples of non-governmental entities making ground-breaking advancements in technology

All your examples were government funded. Even the damn assembly line:

> The Terracotta Army commissioned by the first Chinese Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi is a collection of about 8000 life-sized ceramic soldiers and horses buried with the emperor, who died in 210 BCE. The figures had their separate body-parts manufactured by different workshops that were later assembled to completion. Notably, each workshop inscribed its name on the part they manufactured to add traceability for quality construction.

> At the peak of its efficiency in the early 16th century, the Venetian Arsenal employed some 16,000 people who could apparently produce nearly one ship each day, and could fit out, arm, and provision a newly built galley with standardized parts on an assembly-line basis not seen again until the Industrial Revolution.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assembly_line

Way to prove my point. Lack of knowledge tends to do that.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Wrong about the IC.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invention_of_the_integrated_cir...

Wrong about the television, both black/white and color.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_television#Electroni...

http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blcolortelevisi...

Wrong about radio.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_radio#Start_of_the_2...

And you're just being disingenuous about the assembly line. it's widely known that Henry Ford modernized the assembly line for manufacturing purposes. And while we're talking about inventions, let's not forget to mention the automobile, which, like most other inventions (including all of the ones in this post), was incrementally invented by many people with very little or no help or influence from the government.

Finally, for being disingenuous and outright lying as well as for insulting me unprovoked, I declare you to be a first-class asshole.

Can you make an IC without understanding quasiparticles? Who created the knowledge that lets you do this? What equations govern EM radiation transmission? Knowledge genesis is the primary domain of knowledge creators, not employees.

>Can you make an IC without understanding quasiparticles?

Yes you can, in the same way that you can build a telescope without understanding quantum mechanics. And you think we understand quasiparticles?

I do see your point though, however spurious it may be. His claim was that companies never come up with major innovations. My response was that they do, and that they do it so often that his claim was laughable on its face. "Knowledge genesis" occurs at the confluence of motivated individuals and funding, which can happen anywhere.

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