[natedogg]

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I would put the microchip and dna technologies far above the ones you listed in terms of importance.

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I hope you are aware that a microchip is impossible without a transistor. I also hope you are aware that 99.9999999999999999% of DNA tech is also impossible without the aid of transistors. Also, the leap from vacuum tube to transistor took a lot more brainpower than simply printing multiple transistors on a sheet instead of just one.

Glad to see you are still avoiding my questions.

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Layer on top of that quantum transistors being developed in government sponsored labs promises to be the next big leap in computing. AC type arguments that the market will always allocate resources to society's maximum advantage are naive beyond belief.

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Let me repeat: I'm not an ACist. I have never argues that the market will allocate resources to "society's maximum advantage" (which is a normative statement anyway and therefore meaningless here, we're simply talking about the logic behind believing only federal research dollars can result in innovation)

regardless, I also do not care about *your* definition of society's maximum advantage whatever you think that means. It is coercion I care about. My definition of "society's maximum advantage" is the least amount of coercion.

All federal spending represents a loss of freedom, therefore I oppose it in most cases.

There is also no question that innovation occurs without govt spending, therefore it is only splitting hairs to argue about which innovations would or would not occur with the interfernce of the govt apparatchiks and the political battles that go into the allocation of the money.

And it is absurdly naive and woefully poor critical thinking to assume that since B follows A, B can only occur as a result of A. I.E> since the federal govt is spending money on quantum computing research only the federal govt can develop such innovations. To believe this is so utterly bereft of even elemental basic thinking skills that I have to wonder if i'm being trolled here.

natedogg

EDIT: let me clarify one thing. Arguing over 'maximum advantage to society' is a useless endeavor because it is a normative statement. Everyone has a different idea of what that means. This is the crux of the problem when you start ipmlementing public policy with "maximum advantage to society" in mind. Mao and Stalin also had that goal in mind do you see?