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by louloulou
1541 days ago
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> we should be in a heavy transition period towards getting the most out of what we already know That's what a free market is for. Developing technology from what we already know is profitable and self sustaining. I can't think of anything worse than governments directing technology development. Science is the process of uncovering and understanding things about the world that we don't already know. Who exactly is in a position to know what counts as luxury? By your logic the discovery of the electron 125 years ago was luxury research, and the fact that our civilization is based on electricity and electronics today is irrelevant. General relativity didn't have practical applications for almost a hundred years, now we all rely on it indirectly everyday for GPS. |
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Paying money to shoot in the dark for miracle theories is a luxury. If you dont have enough food, and you are paying to research how to get more food - it's not luxury research. If you are paying to study string theory instead of importing more food because "you never know what we might learn, maybe world hunger will be solved" then I consider that a luxury. If we disagree on that it's okay and we can move on to other points as that is a fringe point.
No one funded general relativity, they funded Einstein. And the government did not fund Einsteins early theoretical papers AFAIK. To use him as an example is disingenuous. He had already made significant and applicable contributions (which is an understatement). He was definitely funded by a government (as part of a team) to create new technologies which in turn won WWII for that government.
I am not aware of any scientific evidence that government funding is necessary to produce groundbreaking theories. In other words, it's possible that genius happens and self-motivates without prior good-faith funding. I do see historical precedent for huge technological advancement through paying theoretical physicists to stop working on theory and start working on application though.
>I can't think of anything worse than governments directing technology development.
Why? Governments historically have funded an incredible amount of successful bleeding edge technologies. Especially in the defense sector. The atom bomb is one of them.
Part of my point here is that we need to take the effectiveness of what our government is capable of with technology in terms of defense and apply that level of competency to other areas - incentivizing the relevant researchers to be hands-on with application development