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Is that not an argument for socialism (perhaps not full socialism, but at least in more areas)?

In your analogy you needed 999 risk takers to fail, but if that one person succeeding will be so fantastic for humanity why don't we the taxpayers fund all 1000 (or 2000!) so that we're more confident of getting there and don't need 999 people to invest their life energy just to get pipped at the post?

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How do you know society can only produce 999 failures?

Well the hypothetical I was replying to presumably counted the hypothetical 1000 people at the end not the beginning of the hypothetical research.

But yes of course you can't start something complicated and know exactly how many people or how much budget will definitely be required, that's already true whether you're trying to develop groundbreaking nuclear technology, or building a bridge, or a computer game. That doesn't stop both capitalist and socialist initiatives being funded currently, it's just a complexity that needs to be dealt with as well as possible.

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