This is a political topic which, as Robert pointed out, should be moved to vortexb-l. However I would like to make some apolitical comments which I hope will not be considered controversial.
I am a big fan of capitalism. I think I made that clear in my book. It is not perfect, but no system is. It must be regulated. Some things, such as building roads and health care are best handled were paid for by the government because of the nature of the technology. it just happens that was early 21th first century healthcare costs are very high for various reasons. One of these reasons is that the technology of healthcare is changing rapidly. The pace of change will slow down in the future and medical equipment cost will fall. Anyway, people cannot afford to pay for catastrophic healthcare themselves. This was not true 100 years ago and it may not be true 100 years in the future. Perhaps I am the proverbial man with a hammer who sees all problems as a nail, but from my point of view technology is both the source of many of our problems and the cure. Many problems which politicians and opinion makers assume must be solved with social policy or tax policy should actually be solved by inventing new technology, or by forcibly abandoning old technologies such as coal-burning generators. Obviously cold fusion is most dramatic example of a solution that will obviate the need for sacrifice, difficult choices, wars for oil and so on. People are seldom aware of how important technology is or how much we have benefited from it. They take things for granted. When personal computers first appeared they seemed miraculous to most people. The ability to type a document without retyping seemed wonderful to people who were used to typewriters or pen and paper. nowadays we take them for granted and we complain about their shortcomings more than we appreciate their benefits Even though I appreciate what capitalists have done, I believe engineers and scientists have contributed more. Steve Jobs was a great businessman, but we can thank Woz for the Apple. Woz and the people at Xerox Parc. If cold fusion succeeds, I predict that in the long view of history, Fleischmann and Pons will have contributed more to our happiness and to the survival of the human race and the ecosystem than all 20th century capitalists combined. Fleischmann, Pons, Mizuno and most other cold fusion researchers are not motivated by capitalism. They are driven mainly by curiosity, an instinct far more ancient and fundamental than acquisitiveness. Curiosity is exhibited by animals as small and simple as the guppy, a creature which certainly cannot conceive of ownership and probably has no sentience or sense of self. (A cricket cannot distinguish other individual crickets from one another, or even from a plastic cricket held by a biologist.) - Jed
