OK Jed. If your opion is that you have theRIGHT opinion, then it is fruitless to discuss. The government always take over things , which can increase the government and then makes it disfuncti8nal. That might not be a viable opinion but it is mine. I am a Swede. Alfred Nobel was also av Swede - no other similarities.. He was an inventor. He made money but he had nothing to do with government. At that time governments were weak. He rather played the governents for his own benefits. John Eriksson another Swede invented the screw propeller he had no government funds if you excude a contract with the US governents for Montior. Gustav Dahlen was a8nother inventor "the solarvalve", the AGA cocker and many more. He built a business around his inventions. This is from my background, I am not as nationalistic as Nobel, so I use them as reference to how one person could make a difference. There was no government with any ambitions. There has never been. It will never be. Just that we have sold our right to make adifference to representatives. You think that is rogress. Well then I am fine with 0the WRONG opinion:) On Jun 20, 2015 6:28 PM, "Jed Rothwell" <jedrothw...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Lennart Thornros <lenn...@thornros.com> wrote: > > Jed I will not try to debate the issue as we stand so far away from each >> other. >> In my opinion there are very few times governmental control and >> management has been successful. >> > > I am sorry, but this is not a matter of opinion. Read the history of > technology from 1800 to the present and you will see that government in > Europe and the U.S. played absolutely essential roles either paying for or > directly developing nearly every major technology. Go through through the > list and you will see. Look at: > > Canals, modern roads, railroads, telegraphs, steam engines, steam ships, > artillery, steel ships, turbine engines, automobiles, highways, aviation > and air traffic control, computers, nuclear energy, the laser, space > exploration, the Internet, cold fusion . . . and just about all the others > were either invented by government scientists such as Fleischmann, Pons, > Storms and Miles, or paid for by government grants. > > Ocean going steamships, for example, were heavily subsidized by the > British government in particular for decades before they become > economically viable. The first telegraph between Baltimore and Washington > DC was built entirely with government funding. Only later, after huge sums > had been spent, did Western Union and other private ventures begin using > the technology. The same thing happened with the Internet. > > In the U.S., railroads were developed at first by private industry, but > the Transcontinental Railroad and other major leaps were heavily subsidized > by federal government, and could not possibly have been built without giant > subsidies and government guarantees. The railroads paid back all of these > subsidies with interest, usually around 20 years after completing the > lines, at a big profit to the government. > > > >> If DoE made some good investment in technology that is fine but it does >> not mean anything in the discussion about how one get the most bang for the >> buck in research >> > > Since this has been true for nearly every major industrial scale > technology for the last 215 years, I think we can draw conclusions. I think > it would be insane to ignore this history. > > > >> I will guarantee that eliminating the accountability will create no good >> results. >> > > Accountability should be relaxed for basic physics research, not > eliminated. Failure should not be punished. Most scientific research fails. > > > >> You talk about unfunded distrust in the government. You must be joking. >> You take the communication system as an example. While roads are in the >> somewhat OK I hope you can see the railroads are a big joke. >> > > Railroads in the U.S. have not been subsidized since the 1970s. Railroads > compete with highways, which are subsidized with gasoline taxes. That gives > an unfair advantage to trucks. If those taxes were allocate to railroads > per ton of freight moved, railroads would be far more competitive. > > - Jed > >
