Comment by j1z0 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by j1z0 | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Don't forget it was the Government that INVENTED the internet. They also heavily funded or helped to invent cellphones technology and micro-chips not to mention the research that brought us touch screens and GPS as well. So perhaps the government isn't all bad and for things like the Hyperloop they should get involved.

I think the real issue that is being talked about in the article is that long term, large scale "moon-shot" type projects are extremely difficult to launch in the private market, but history has shown us that the government is actually much better at such long term "moon-shot" things.

Sure SpaceX is cool and makes rockets for far cheaper than the government ever did, but with out a few decades of NASA spending a ton of money trying to figure out how to get into space in the first place there would be no SpaceX.

So I think what really needs to be looked at for projects like the Hyperloop is Government / Private partnership. Maybe even let the government take a stake in the company and earn revenue in the future to offset / repay all the tax dollars invested. Because unlike private equity, cash-flow is actually quite important to the government and they they are well suited to help out in situations like this.

Did a government bureaucrat invent the internet? Or was it a person or persons who were simply financed by said bureaucrats (and not even directly by them, but rather by taxpayers' money those bureaucrats redistributed)? This is an important difference because nothing really stops private individuals finance things that may potentially be unprofitable (think Ubuntu, for instance).

When you say "but without government important initial research which is costly and unprofitable can't be done" I want you to think about many brilliant scientists from the 19th and even 20th century who did groundbreaking work entirely on their own or with the help of some private money. And also think that when government finances things, it simply says to other people "give us your money because we know better how to spend them - if you disagree, we're still gonna take your money, so you have no choice". Government doesn't convince and treat people as individuals, it commands and treats them as livestock.

> I want you to think about many brilliant scientists from the 19th and even 20th century who did groundbreaking work entirely on their own or with the help of some private money.

Keep in mind that groundbreaking research took orders of magnitude less resources back then.

>When you say "but without government important initial >research which is costly and unprofitable can't be done"

No that is not what I said at all. If your going to quote somebody quote them correctly. What I did say is that SpaceX wouldn't be possible without NASA. And not to short change SpaceX cause it's an amazing company and they do really cool stuff, it is true that they are building on-top of the tech developed by NASA, and that NASA, in the form of a very large contract to shoot rockets into space also funds (to an large extent) SpaceX. So I don't think you can really argue that point.

To your more general point... You obviously don't like the government, and honestly I don't really either, I agree with you that they are a bunch of bureaucrats and mess up a lot of stuff. But don't let you feelings about the government cloud your vision. As said in the original article for the vast majority of cases Industry does not have the appetite to fund Huge project, i.e. large capital expenditures with very long timelines to pay back the money.

Yes you could come up with cases where industry has, but the majority of these type of project have been funded by the government, and unless we change the rules by which our entire economy operates the government is likely to be the only one to continue to fund them. So rather than just hate the man (if we really want to get these type of things done) we would be better served figuring out how to work with him, or change the quick profit driven model which drives our economy... To me working with the government, as bad as it may sound, is probably an easier task.

The fundamental question is, do we want those big projects done? If we really wanted them, everyone would simply donate money voluntarily when asked, so you would have no problem financing NASA or other big things. If, however, people don't want those things or would rather prefer their money spent differently, NASA becomes an organization financed by theft. People don't want to give it money, yet you take it away from them because you think it's a good idea to go to space. It's not an economical problem, it's a moral one.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com