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Comment by whatshisface | Hacker News Reader

You think you could fundraise billions of dollars for science from private sources? You're talking about a $100B (spread out over the next decade) bill on the sidewalk. I don't think there's anything less realistic than the idea that there would be that amount of money available for the asking but unclaimed...

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Well, historically, we used to have a robust industrial R&D that even did basic research: Bell Labs (astrophysics, semiconductor physics), IBM, Xerox, RCA, Kodak and many other; even Ford had an R&D lab with physicists. Their record was quite impressive, as we all know. The weird trick that made that work was a tax policy that supported that. IIRC, R&D was expense as opposed to amortization, together with a laxer trust regime that allowed large profits that could pay for all that.

Those are postwar examples, which occurred in unison with the academic funding boom, the space race, etc. The way it worked was you'd have public funding for basic facts ("aluminum is 2.7 times denser than water"), and then scientists would be hired by companies to apply those facts. The revenue model doesn't work out for monetizing basic facts, so to have an advanced industry you need both systems of funding.

Xerox was when the US was on the up-trend, not committing economic suicide at the whim of a mad king.

Well all those companies are dead now... so... clearly spending all that money on research didn't really pan out for them.

I don't agree with the GP either, but I'm pretty sure there are more than 100 B of private capital which are, on the big scheme of things, being spent on quite frivolous things.. if at all. Which reinforces your point: some things good for society as a whole need to be funded by taxes.

The key is that they are investing in frivolous things rather than fundamental medical research because the latter is higher risk and lower reward in money terms. As you say, its precisely the opposite when the metric is future human health.

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