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Comment by AlexandrB | Hacker News Reader

Also penicillin and the smallpox vaccine, the internet - but you know, whatever...

Amazing how people simply make up facts to support their ideology. Both penicillin and smallpox vaccine were discovered with little if any government support. But you know, whatever...

Not being a historian, I actually read Wikipedia before posting that. I guess I was confused on the smallpox vaccines creation which seems to involve a lot of actors. What's certain however, is that the vaccine's dissemination and the eventual eradication of smallpox was pushed by the World Health Organization (part of the UN) and so was a government initiative. [1]

Penicillin was discovered by Alexander Fleming as part of research in a public institution (St. Mary's Hospital). [2]

I guess my larger point (which you deftly avoided addressing) is that the government is not a boogeyman creating evil technologies nor does it have a monopoly on evil shit. I also have a hard time imagining a motive for a for-profit organization to eradicate a disease world-wide. Something that government organizations have achieved almost twice (polio is nearly wiped out).

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox#Eradication [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennicilin#Discovery

St Mary's Hospital was not government controlled or funded when Fleming was working there. It was one of the 'voluntary hospitals' supported by philanthropy and private donors. Furthermore, if you read the history of penicillin [1] you can see a long history of tinkering (meaning the discovery was somewhat inevitable) and that Pfizer, Inc. worked out how to mass produce it.

But you know, whatever...

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_penicillin

Yeah, in the process of killing millions and all imaginable crimes against humanity, they did a few good things, no one denies that. But if you use those good things as your argument, that's known as the broken window fallacy.

This has to be the most bizarre interpretation of the broken window fallacy I've read.

Actually it's very common. Try arguing with a soldier. Those guys are brainwashed into believing that the military helped humanity move forward technologically, as if spending that money directly in research (without the bombings, the deaths of millions, etc.) couldn't possibly have achieved the same, let alone much more (which is in fact more likely).

So? What's your argument?

Don't know what his argument was.

Mine is: You're probably a troll and nobody should feed you.

I gave my opinion and labelled it as such.

Could you provide some data to support your opinion?

Every WMD program in existence? The apparatus of our surveillance states? Private companies and wealthy individuals would not pusure these things because it would be illegal and also pointless. Only governments want and pursue stuff like this. Of course, plenty of government directed research and government funded research is positive, but the private sector is intertwined with all that (funding and execution) and it's not true to say just because the government funded something it wouldn't have happened otherwise. At the extreme you have states like USSR and North Korea that spend almost everything on ghastly projects.

"Government research leads to all things WMD"

How does your post support this opinion?

I don't now what you mean. Do you deny that WMD programs exist?

No, and I never said or hinted that they don't exist. We are trying to establish how much of the research budget is spend on them.

It's not about the money that is wasted in developing them, it is about the consequences of their existence.

Again, that's not what we're discussing.

Did you think my argument was that when the government directs and funds research, they disproportionately waste it on WMDs? No, my argument was that big government research spending leads to monstrosities that would otherwise not even exist.

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