Bob Willard wrote:
>> Grumpy AuC>>>> Right, but the question is how to best deliver people where they want
>>>> to go with the least harmful impact on the environment. Is that a bad >>>> goal?
>>>
>>> Nope, not a bad goal at all but... Any big advance in technology will
>>> come from innovation from the private sector, not guv'ment mandate.
>>> It always has and always will. Guv'ment is nothing but a giant
>>> interference entity.
>>
>> It is OK to be grumpy, Grumpy, but the above is a half-truth. While
>> most of the big advances in technology do, as you say, come from the
>> private sector, many of those biggies were the result, direct or
>> indirect, of gov't funding. Networking and semiconductors and
>> computers come to mind. And, since this is a car-focused NG, let
>> me add that many of the advances under the hood are based on
>> computers or semiconductors; technologies that were, in turn,
>> greatly pushed by gov't funding.
>
> Really???
>
> Seems to me that the transistor came out of Bell Labs.
To be totally correct about it, Bell labs invented the transistor, Geophysical Systems Inc. bought the rights to manufacture it from Bell labs and renamed the company from GSI to Texas Instruments. Now, whether or not Bell labs did the research with Govt. investment is a whole other question.
> Seems to me that the IC came out of Texas Instruments.
>
True. Jack Kilby has a Nobel prize for it.
>> Now it is my turn to be grumpy, by opining that -- at least in
>> the US -- the private non-pharma sector is so intently focused
>> on short-term ROI, that it is incapable of adequately funding
>> the long-term R&D needed to achieve those great leaps forward.
>> And that is why gov't funding, to the private sector and to
>> universities, can lead to real technological progress.
>
> Yes, I'll agree to this and in fact it is my point. Guv'ment has become
> to great provider of corporate welfare and it is more important to
> analyze why this became so.
>
>
>> Admittedly, it is easy to find examples of gov't funding that
>> is wasteful and weird. But, in the large-cap end of the
>> private sector, spending that is wasteful and/or political is
>> also pretty common. Gov't folks do not have exclusive rights
>> to insanity or inanity.
>
> Well, if you look at California, there's a perfect example on guv'ment > running amuck.
>
>
>> {Caveat: in the first few and in the last few years of my
>> four-decade career in computer engineering, my paycheck was
>> dependent upon gov't contracts. Yes, *that* gov't.}
>
> Ah... OK, you were/are a beneficiary!
>
> JT