Burning off the useless eaters

[John Kelsey]

At 02:55 PM 5/2/03 -0700, Tim May wrote:
...
>Item: Research in astrophysics and cosmology is booming today. No 
>corporate interest in figuring out the role of dark matter, dark energy, 
>superstrings, anthropic reasons for the neutrino mass, inflation, and a 
>dozen other currently hot topics. Much of the work came from the fruits of 
>industrial development, just as much of the astronomy work of the past 150 
>years, even longer, has come from industrial methods and tools. In the 
>1930s, the ability to construct very large Pyrex mirrors...I lived in the 
>1950s within a pleasant Sunday drive to Mount Palomar, for a long time the 
>very largest telescope in the world.

Nitpick: You could argue that much of the research in physics wouldn't be 
happening without substantial government funding for research.  Certainly, 
it's hard to see who would be funding a lot of this stuff with any eye to 
practical applications within their lifetimes.

...
>I reject the claim that corporations and capitalism are either stifling 
>innovation or that innovation is not happening because corporations aren't 
>doing "enough" basic research.

This is obviously true.  In fact, hearing people say that capitalism 
stifles innovation, and offering the modern US as an example, is a bit 
mind-numbing.  The pace of innovation in almost every field is 
breathtaking.  Imagine taking a modern, Wal-Mart-available solar powered 
scientific calculator, and dropping it on Leslie Groves' desk in 
1943.  That whole group of brilliant scientists and engineers working on 
the first atomic bomb would have had a hell of a time distinguishing the 
result from space-alien technology, other than the convenient use of our 
numbering and lettering system.  (And they would have been scared s***less 
when they saw "made in Japan" on the back!)

Nor is this just true of this century.  Look at the rate of innovation in 
the US and UK in the 1800s, under more-or-less capitalistic 
rules.  Railroads and telegraphs and steam ships and radio and electricity 
and chemical fertilizers and pesticides and the germ theory of disease and 
the very beginning glimmers of modern physics and machine guns and barbed 
wire and streetcars and mass production factories and modern steel bridges 
and....

These two centuries have defined the modern world, and whatever the 
reasons, nearly all the real innovations have happened in mostly 
capitalistic countries with substantial personal freedom, and (probably 
more importantly) the ability to let new technology displace incumbents and 
to allow innovators to be rewarded for their innovation by the opportunity 
to do still more innovation.
...

>--Tim May

--John Kelsey, kelsey.j at ix.netcom.com
PGP: FA48 3237 9AD5 30AC EEDD  BBC8 2A80 6948 4CAA F259