<ny....@aol.com> wrote: Liberal Journalist wannabes seem to abound > in vertex. Experienced adults know that governments lie.
So do corporations, universities, physicists, bankers and stockbrokers. So do farmers, housewives, doctors, bakers, and candlestick makers. It is the human condition. It is not clear whether governments tend to lie more or less than other institutions. However, it is clear that for the past 300 years, most big-ticket high technology has been invented either by governments or with government help. There may be a better way to invent things, but I do not know of one, and neither do you. Industry and investors simply have no incentive and no ability to build things like the GPS system, or the highway system, or the first computers, or to research cold fusion for that matter. The latest example of that is the Human Genome, by the way. That may turn out to be very useful. The government spent hundreds of millions getting the first genomes. Nowadays you can get one done for $1000. The pace of progress is even faster than it was when the government was building the first big computers during the cold war, from 1945 to 1965. - Jed
