Braineack

iTrader: (62)

sucess:

St. Clair Shores considering $5 rat bounty program - Fox 2 News Headlines

Scrappy Jack

iTrader: (2)

JasonC SBB

Can you say that without bureaucrat directed taxpayer R&D money, this invention, and others, wouldn't have been invented?

fooger03

iTrader: (2)

Without bureaucrat directed taxpayer R&D money, cost effective manufacturing methods for this invention, and others, would not be available yet.

Scrappy Jack

iTrader: (2)

Can you say that it would have?

That's a silly game that I think is worthless to play.

For what it's worth, I can say that the basic aerogel actually was created without NASA. Although, bureaucrats in academia were involved.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

Seeing as how this thread has been resurrected, I'll posit another example of linear vs. binary thinking:

OR:

Space Shuttle - We're going to create the concept of reusable spacecraft. In order to do this, we'll need to invent a lot of new materials and technology. It's going to cost money, but it's worth it in order to advance the state of the art in general.

Rutan / Virgin - Well, now that the pure science has all been done by NASA and the stuff they invented 30 years ago has become cheap and commonly available, we can build a flying machine too!



OR:



Europe / US: Let us invent assembly-line production, automobiles, home appliances, videocameras, semiconductors, microprocessors, the computing industry, cell phones, Li-ion batteries, and a whole host of other things, and then build industries around them.

Asia: Due to our poverty wages and disregard for intellectual-property rights, we can copy these things, manufacture them very cheaply, and then sell them back to the people we stole them from!



This paradigm works for a lot of things.

JasonC SBB

The point is this. Without gov't directing R&D money, private investment in R&D would be mostly directed towards that which has a closer-in-time payoff. Private companies make profits by giving customers what they want. E.g. Data communications research that enables phones to download data at 10 Mbps without draining the battery in 30 minutes.

"What about more basic research?", you may ask. Consortiums of companies do it. There is a lot of private money going to basic research. 3M and IBM are big on it, and lots of private donations have gone to basic and theoretical physics.

In contrast, gov't-directed taxpayer money is subject to special interest groups and politics, thus much of the money is wasted. (e.g. "the mating habits of the green 3-toed speckled toad and the impact of global warming", or "Promicsuity of male Chinese homosexual prostitutes")

Nuclear power is another good example. Governments funded nuclear research because they were hellbent on making enriched Uranium for weaponry. Had government not spent the money on nuclear power, private industry may have not developed it for another 10-15 years, but probably would have spent the money on research on Thorium as fuel, instead of Uranium, because Thorium reactors would have inherent advantages of less radioactive waste products. And then we'd probably have Thorium instead of Uranium fueled reactors now.

Of course one can't definitively say "this would've been invented absent gov't money". That's alternative-history speculation. But the argument of "see what gov't research has achieved?", is arguing for The Seen, and missing The Unseen. It is arguing that small group of wise individuals can make the world better by choosing where some R&D money is spent. It is a form of social engineering.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

Oh.

My.

God.


Jason and I agree on something.




Ah, ok. We're back to disagreeing again.



Oh, obviously! Because, after all, who better to judge whether research in any given field (eg: speckled toads) is wasted that someone like you or I who has no qualifications or training whatsoever in evolutionary biology, zoology, ecology or climatology?






CALLS FOR SPECULATION!

(You see what I did there?)

Ok, but seriously.

On the one hand, I do agree that despite their drawbacks (eg: molten salts react explosively if exposed to moisture) Thorium-fueled reactors, especially externally-excited reactors, have great potential.

On the other hand, you seem to be implying that the US government did not fund research into thorium reactors early on, because they were interested in weapons production.

In fact, thorium reactors are HIGHLY useful in weapons production (ALL LFTR reactors are, by definition, breeder reactors), and the US government did in fact fund their development.

And Oak Ridge National Laboratories (the Govt-operated birthplace of the nuclear industry) did in fact do some pioneering work in thorium-fueled reactors. Two in particular are notable, the 1946-61 NEPA / ARE project, and the 1964-69 MSRE project.

Sadly, research into thorium-fueled reactors as a whole was killed thanks to the political incompetence of their greatest proponent, then-director Alvin M. Weinberg. His refusal to not be a dick to Richard Nixon lead to his firing from the lab, which tainted all thorium-related research with a political black cloud, and doomed the technology.



Of course, private industry, which is principally focused on profitability, would have obviously been much more willing to embrace thorium-based reactors over pure uranium reactors, despite the much higher costs and more dramatic operational safety concerns.

JasonC SBB

Ah interesting.

While we're speculating... what if we decided as a nation we didn't need bureaucrats like Weinberg to make R&D decisions for us?

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

So that I understand correctly, the question being asked here, from one engineer to another, it "What would happen if we allowed a whole bunch of scientists and engineers to run amok in a well-funded playground without any kind of management or direction?"


Well, a lot of cool **** would be talked about, a lot of toys would be constructed, and absolutely nothing of any commercial or military value would be built.

Scrappy Jack

iTrader: (2)

Honest question:

Have you ever read about or attempted to understand the public-private sector relationship that NASA, in particular, has?

Or, are you only able to think in binary terms such that, if government is involved, it must be - and can only be - bad?


This thermal barrier aerogel is a great example of the NASA public-private sector relationship. They took a part that was created in academia (probably at Stanford, a private university) that had little commercial application at the time. However, they saw it had potential for their given needs. They improved it and, et voila, it is now useful in other applications: like keeping heat out of the interior of a Corvette.

I have listed tons of other examples before - like the lens created by a private company for NASA to be used to study solar flares. That lens was then used to improve MRIs and other medical scanning devices. The primary (private sector) engineer involved in creating the lens was able to start his own (private sector) company when he figured out the medical application.



I feel like you are trying to say that, "in a parrallel but non-existant world in which the sociopaths that run corporations have a lot more direct power than the sociopaths that run governments, things would be better."

I am very much not interested in that line of questioning at this time. If I ever sit down and try to write a novel, maybe it would make a great premise for a compelling fiction.

In the meantime, I am very much interested in observing the actual. And, the reality is that some times the private and public sectors come together and great things happen.

Scrappy Jack

iTrader: (2)

I thought some of that I just typed seemed familiar, so I will just quote my earlier response to JasonC.

Scrappy Jack

iTrader: (2)

Demonstration of electron acceleration in a laser-driven dielectric microstructure - Nature (original article)


Researchers Build A Particle Accelerator On A Chip - Forbes

SLAC Overview:SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory -

Note that Stanford is a private university.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

**** particle accelerators; im personally helping save the gov't 1million in shipping annually on the project im working on.

you're welcome, america.

JasonC SBB

And the reason you support it is the belief that you can make society better through central control and technocracy, i.e. you put smart people at the top and they will make better decisions for everyone (through coercion), than if society is left alone (which generally means through voluntary interaction).

sixshooter

iTrader: (12)

I'm working on vehicle accelerators. Where are my grants?

Scrappy Jack

iTrader: (2)

You are this >< close to going on my ignore list.

sixshooter

iTrader: (12)

Hahaha!