--- Kim Hyatt <kimharch@cut.net> wrote:
For example, the West learned of paper, gunpowder and moveable type by first exploring and then trading with the inhabitants of the Far East. I also don't believe that they should be used as justification for continuing NASA's present course of human space exploration.
My thought process is based in Keynes and Galbraith, not an "ET" style Marco Polo or Magellan. -:) But seriously, to move forward, society has to spend a certain percentage of the gross domestic product to do basic research that a stock-market-return constrained private sector will not do. Basic research is inherently inefficient. By definition, we ask government to do those things that should be done, but that will not be done by the private market. It's really immaterial where basic research dollars are spent - NASA, NIH, NSF - although the rate of gross domestic product economic activity generated by investment in non-military research is generally higher than research investment in military projects like DARPA or Star Wars. The point is - the social research investment gets made. Odds are well-funded bright minds will create something new, more efficient and useful. Like you, I have a citizen's preference for funding NASA and space telescopes. It's a good system that is one component in a economics philosophy that has kept us going - without catestrophic business cycles like the crashes of 1870, 1893 and 1929 - for about 60 years - in a relatively stable growth curve and with increasing standards of living and technology. It's true enough that industry probably would have eventually invented and deployed the Internet on its own - over about 200 years - instead of the 10 or 20 that is took with a DARPA seed money jump start. - Canopus56(Kurt) P.S. - I sure wish that ET would show up and sell us the plans to that clean fusion flying-boat-car, but I suspect that we'll have to invent it ourselves. __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com