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0 sats \ 6 replies \ @Cje95 OP 9h \ parent \ on: U.S. Government Shutdown Upcoming Pain Points Politics_And_Law
Centralization for the economy in what way? The big tech companies or what? Cause if you look at the most valuable companies now and go back 10 years they were not big at all. Go back 20 and they were struggling ideas so the economy while it seems centralized the big players seem to cycle through over and over as innovation happens.
Centralization primarily through federal agencies, I would say.
Secondarily through companies holding onto monopoly power, to the extent that this power is propped up by anticompetitive rules and practices
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Hmm.... I havent really though of it from that way before. I would say though there is good and bad centralization using the federal agencies. For instance with the FDA making sure that food being sold isnt poisoned or tainted like we dealt with in the late 1800s early 1900s. Same thing with the Department of Energy and the National Lab system which spurred everything from computers to nuclear power to understanding human genes etc.
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Yeah I'm very much a minimalist when it comes to governmental powers, but I do recognize the need for some areas of authority. Military, national defense, court system, policing are included in those. I don't buy the libertarian idea at all that peace can be kept with a system of private law enforcers. To me that's just tribal chieftains by another name.
After basic law & order / enforcement of life & property rights type stuff, I do see a positive role for setting standards (FDA, DOE, etc), though preferably not stringent quality standards except in the case of extreme danger, but rather informational standards so people can make informed choices.
Not sure what else I consider a legitimate government role. I'm not a huge fan of the externalities argument, since externalities can often be dealt with privately, and in any case it's not obvious that government intervention necessarily makes things better.
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One thing I think the DOE does a really good job on is the Basic Science research. More often than not basic science discoveries themselves have no value at all but what we learn from them unlock things that can then be commercialized like nuclear and early on computational discoveries.
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I'm a bit more on the fence with regard to basic scientific research.
For one, it's more free ridable. Why should our tax money pay for it, why not let another society discover it? If it's truly "basic research", it shouldn't be easily excluded from use by others.
For another, I'm not convinced that government funded system is better than private patronage. Maybe there is empirical evidence out there about this, but I'm not sure.
I mean, I can definitely see the argument. But just not fully convinced. BTW, the examples you cited (nuclear and computational), would have fallen under the umbrella of national security, which I already cede is a legitimate role.
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If I run across it again I will be sure to send you the link but a huge issue with basic research vs private patronage is the sheer cost. I mean these first of their kind machines critical to projects easily cost $500 million plus. Its hard to gather that type of money from private patronage and then when you factor in salaries, supporting expenses, etc. its not something you see people or companies pull off it tends to be governments.
Nokia Bell Labs, commonly known as Bell Labs, was a private lab that did much more applied research though it also did basic and its researchers have been credited with the development of radio astronomy, the transistor, the laser, the photovoltaic cell, the charge-coupled device (CCD) among a ton of other things. However, the reason that this lab was so successful was because it was part of the Bell Systems corp and had an unlimited budget. Once Bell was broken up for being a monopoly in the 80s the lab has fallen off considerably.
On August 28, 2008, Alcatel-Lucent announced it was pulling out of basic science, material physics, and semiconductor research, and it will instead focus on more immediately marketable areas, including networking, high-speed electronics, wireless networks, nanotechnology and software.
Basic science just doesnt make money.... NIF (National Ignition Facility) is the only device that has achieved a net positive fusion reaction and more importantly a self-sustaining state called burning plasma. Fusion has the ability to the be the power source to address all our electricity needs. Something like that snowballs from just being an energy source to a national security thing. Same with CRISPER.... Now with the ability to edit DNA on one had new novel treatments to heal people but also ya have the negative side drawback with natural security as well.
The more and more I think about it a lot of basic research does end up playing a national security issue angle even if I didnt think it did at first lol
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