flying car: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-57651843
davew On Thu, Jul 1, 2021, at 10:43 AM, uǝlƃ ☤>$ wrote: > Your Book Review: Where's My Flying Car? > https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/your-book-review-wheres-my-flying > > Is the following claim made by the author of the book (Hall - seemingly > accepted by the author of the review) largely accurate? I ask because > it's a common liberal talking point that publicly funded R&D has > resulted in the majority of the tech we rely on in *modern* life. I'm > terrible at history. > > > Hall blames public funding for science. Not just for nanotech, but for > > actually hurting progress in general. (I’ve never heard anyone before say > > government-funded science was bad for science!) “[The] great innovations > > that made the major quality-of-life improvements came largely before 1960: > > refrigerators, freezers, vacuum cleaners, gas and electric stoves, and > > washing machines; indoor plumbing, detergent, and deodorants; electric > > lights; cars, trucks, and buses; tractors and combines; fertilizer; air > > travel, containerized freight, the vacuum tube and the transistor; the > > telegraph, telephone, phonograph, movies, radio, and television—and they > > were all developed privately.” “A survey and analysis performed by the OECD > > in 2005 found, to their surprise, that while private R&D had a positive > > 0.26 correlation with economic growth, government funded R&D had a negative > > 0.37 correlation!” “Centralized funding of an intellectual elite makes it > > easier for cadres, cliques, and the politically skilled to gain control of > > a field, and they by their nature are resistant to new, outside, > > non-Ptolemaic ideas.” This is what happened to nanotech; there was a huge > > amount of buzz, culminating in $500 million dollars of funding under > > Clinton in 1990. This huge prize kicked off an academic civil war, and the > > fledgling field of nanotech lost hard to the more established field of > > material science. Material science rebranded as “nanotech”, trashed the > > reputation of actual nanotech (to make sure they won the competition for > > the grant money), and took all the funding for themselves. Nanotech never > > recovered. > > > > -- > ☤>$ uǝlƃ > - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ > archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/
