The Real Internet Came from Spontaneous Order
From a 1998 article in The Freeman by Andrew Morris:
HT: John Stossel via Warren SmithThe Internet today bears little resemblance either to what the government wanted to build or to what it actually built. The innovations in networking that produced today’s Net occurred as much despite government funding as because of it. If anything, therefore, the Internet represents the success of spontaneous ordering over central planning, not the successful design of a new technology by the state.Today’s Internet is the embodiment of a spontaneous order in many ways. No agency or board controls it. No central planner decides how it will operate. It ignores national borders. It has changed the world.Yet a few years ago, little of what we know today as the Internet existed: no bookstores, no Web pages, little public access beyond academic institutions. Before the Internet, there was ARPANET—the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network—a U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) network that is often described as the forerunner of today’s Internet. The ARPANET connection is thus the source of the “we wouldn’t have it without the government” story.Unlike the mythical Internet that sprang forth from the ARPANET, the real Internet grew out of a spontaneous ordering process of the interactions of millions of individual users. The uses we make of the Internet were unimaginable to the researchers and scientists who created the networking protocols and hardware advances we rely on today. Far from being the result of the government’s “strategic” investment in the original Defense Department networks, today’s Internet developed at most accidentally from and often in spite of those investments. The explosive growth in commerce, for example, became possible only when the government’s ban on commercial use of the networks it financed was lifted.Moreover, the “strategic” nature of the early investment in networking is a myth. No one consciously created the Internet. While an international network of networks undoubtedly would look different today had ARPANET never existed, there is also little doubt that packet-switching and e-mail would have evolved anyway. Dedicated, motivated people with a need to communicate—for commercial and noncommercial purposes—would have surely seen to it.
71 Comments:
Morriss tells an interesting story which I think is mostly accurate for that time when all the facts that were known at that time were also generally available...
Morriss should not have ignored the contributions of one Leo Kleinrock though...
Statists always set up straw men to justify their desire for power. Nobody I know has ever argued that there is not a role for government in sponsoring research -- or funding roads and bridges, for that matter. If government stuck to these sort of functions there would be little if any opposition. But these activities represent less than 2% of current Federal spending. It is what the government does with the other 98% that we object to.
It's like being maxed out on your credit cards and having your spouse indignantly say, "Did you not want me to buy those school supplies for our kids?"
ROFLMAO Scott....
This comment has been removed by the author.
I do kind of have to chuckle that the government wants to take credit for a thing that provides the masses with abundant free pornography, stupid, time-wasting memes and picures with terrible spelling but cute animals.
By the way, I may or may not be a fan of the last two things on my list
Nobody I know has ever argued that there is not a role for government in sponsoring research -- or funding roads and bridges, for that matter...
You should get out more. Government has no money to sponsor research or fund roads or bridges. It has to extract taxes from productive individuals first and then have incompetent bureaucrats and politicians decide what to do with it. We would have better bridges and roads and more effective research
"Today’s Internet is the embodiment of a spontaneous order in many ways. No agency or board controls it. No central planner decides how it will operate. It ignores national borders. It has changed the world."
Yes, the worldwide web is the embodiment of spontaneous order.
On the sentence that no agency or board controls it:
Nope, the U.S Government has ceded almost all of the control of internet to ICANN.
From this Memorandum of Understanding:
"On July 1, 1997, as part of the Administration's Framework for Global Electronic Commerce, the President directed the Secretary of Commerce to privatize the management of the domain name system (DNS) in a manner that increases competition and facilitates international participation in its management".
So, who ultimately controls the worldwide web?
"At present, the governance of the internet is effectively done by multiple stakeholders. What is less well appreciated is that the final approval on much of what is decided by these organisations is formally within the gift of the United States Department of Commerce."
next thing you know... GPS Satellites and the Hubble, drones, etc will be re-historied also to "spontaneous order".
Iss the U.S. going to give up its position as the ultimate stakeholder of the internet to the United Nations?
"The US has confirmed it would resist efforts to put the internet under the control of the United Nations."
jon-
or open themselves up to massive lawsuit, like this one:
http://www.texastravesty.com/2011/10/cats-discover-internet-file-massive-lawsuit/
Jon M:
"By the way, I may or may not be a fan of the last two things on my list"
But you are unquestionably a fan of the first? :)
My pet theory is that the fact, we are using government-funded-research protocols is simply because they were first. Why would you develop a different protocol if you already have one, that is reasonably working and tested?
Why were there first? Because they could throw enough (government) money on infrastructure that was back then really expensive.
What would happen had they not developed these protocols? Somebody else would do it, when the infrastructure got cheaper.
we are using government-funded-research protocols is simply because they were first.
time and money - most businesses can only devote limited resources to R&D before they risk having that cost embedded in the cost of their products that may be competing against other companies who spend nothing on R&D.
I guess to be fair - venture capitalists are in the mix also.
>>> Unlike the mythical Internet that sprang forth from the ARPANET, the real Internet grew out of a spontaneous ordering process of the interactions of millions of individual users.
Indeed. The process is, in biology, called "Evolution".
Yet people who have this blatant example of how exceedingly complex order can arise from chaos without any central directive authority still insist that ID is the only possible explanation.
This says nothing -- Nothing -- about God, mind you. God could still exist, could have used evolution or could have simply instilled the evidence of evolution in the creation He made.
Evolution is not at odds with God, or even the notion of Creation. It is simply an alternative which does not DEMAND He provide the impetus for Creation, and that is, in fact, As It Should Be. If evolution did not exist, if it could not explain Things As The Are, it would be evidence of God the Incompetent -- since He clearly does not wish for us to Know He exists, there can be no proof he exists (such as any requirement for ID would represent) in the world around us. All things must be possible without resorting to Him to explain them.
God and Creation are about Faith. Evolution is about Science. Any time they are in conflict is generally a sign of someone confusing the proper arena of application of one, the other, or both at once.
"time and money - most businesses can only devote limited resources to R&D before they risk having that cost embedded in the cost of their products that may be competing against other companies who spend nothing on R&D."
If you actually had a clue rather than just guessing at things, you would know that large technology companies spend on average almost 10% of their Revenue on R&D. The top three - MSFT, IBM, and INTC - spent $20Billion in 2007 according to a survey by CIOZone. I don't believe I would call that "limited resources".
You won't likely find a successful tech company that spends nothing on R&D. First-to-market and reputation provide a market lead that is hard to overcome.
Be sure to see the list on the 2nd page of the article.
"I guess to be fair - venture capitalists are in the mix also."
What could you possibly mean by that? Are you not aware that venture capitalists mostly involve themselves with start-ups, looking for big paydays.
BTW, the notion that any of this was inherently tied to any one person (or organization) is itself a presumption of arrogance of the individual ego.
Most of this stuff would have developed in the absence of any lone individual. I can state for myself that, faced with an almost identical problem, I developed in software the exact same central algorithm that Ethernet uses to identify "who gets to talk" on the network. If I could do it, others could, as well (I'm good but don't think I'm quite Edison or Tesla class material).
Someone would have come up with a similar protocol for effective networking at some point, sooner or later.
Two of the ARPAnet directors disagree that development was initially government or military driven. These guys just wanted to link computers together for time sharing. Government applications were contracted later.
There is no doubt taxpayer funded research has delivered amazing discoveries and innovation. However government laying claim to the Internet is akin to claiming the government invented airplanes. Government adoption and contracting was a result of the innovation not the cause.
The govt has an extensive role in R&D to include Academic efforts mostly to support the military-industrial complex but to disbelieve it exists or the role it has played in all manner of technology is just denying reality.
par for the course for the anti-govt types though.
"The federal government, through the operation of government-owned research facilities, research grants to universities and procurement contracts with private industry, funds almost 50% of the national R&D effort. Because of this enormous funding, the federal government has the most United States patent rights. It is estimated that the government has title to over 30,000 patents and annually files several thousand new applications. The government also has rights to nonexclusive, irrevocable, royalty-free licenses in thousands of patents. In addition, the government has a myriad of other patent rights. Examples include march-in rights, rights to require the owner to license others, rights to require licensing of background patents, rights to approve assignments, rights to limit terms of license agreements and reversionary ownership rights.
"One of the most complicated problems associated with government funding of R&D is the allocation of patent rights among the government, government employees, universities, university employees and government contractors and subcontractors. This allocation is a complex determination that is controlled by federal laws, executive orders, federal acquisition regulations, and the regulations and policies of over 25 government agencies."
http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/matters/matters-9004.html
Would there not be two spontaneous orders at work?
One would be the spontaneous order that created the internet. The second spontaneous order, designated as “someone else”, would be the actual spontaneous order that created the internet, as we all know, the original spontaneous order…. didn't get there on its own… you've got an internet -- you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen.
Ah, the evil of it all!
OK So the end result was not what was planned.
Same goes for Christopher Columbus.
He had state funding, too.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Spontaneous order sounds like a violation of the laws of entropy.
Hydra, That didn't turn out so well from an indian's point of view.
Larry G, if you knew anything about TCP/IP, you would know that it is _not_ rocket science. Any IT pro can design working stream protocol in a few days; it takes some more time to get the performance of TCP/IP, but hey, they were already building on some knowledge they had. TCP/IP is a neatly designed protocol, but it seems that anyone saying 'without government there wouldn't be stream-oriented routable protocol' is just manifesting cluelessnes regarding IT technologies.
re: " if you knew anything about TCP/IP, you would know that it is _not_ rocket science."
when it was FIRST invented, it was much more than ANY "IT pro" had accomplish to that date.
When ya'll anti-govt revisionist-history Luddites get done with re-writing history will you also be claiming that GPSs were created from "Spontaneous Order"?
the govt owns about one-half the patents - what does that mean?
bonus question: why does the govt not charge royalties for more/all of it's patents?
All I know is whoever takes credit for inventing the Internet has to answer for this!
Thanks for the GRINs this morning Jon!
:-)
I do my best, Larry
There were many online service companies long before the internet, like Compuserve.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CompuServe
There were many online service companies long before the internet, like Compuserve.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CompuServe
" The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was the world's first operational packet switching network and the core network of a set that came to compose the global Internet. The network was funded by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) which later evolved into the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) of the United States Department of Defense for use by its projects at universities and research laboratories in the US. The packet switching of the ARPANET was based on designs by Lawrence Roberts of the Lincoln Laboratory.[1]"
"By mid-1968, Taylor had prepared a complete plan for a computer network, and, after ARPA’s approval, a Request for Quotation (RFQ) was sent to 140 potential bidders. Most computer science companies regarded the ARPA–Taylor proposal as outlandish, and only twelve submitted bids to build the network; of the twelve, ARPA regarded only four as top-rank contractors. At year’s end, ARPA considered only two contractors, and awarded the contract to build the network to BBN Technologies on 7 April 1969. The initial, seven-man BBN team were much aided by the technical specificity of their response to the ARPA RFQ – and thus quickly produced the first working computers. This team was led by Frank Heart. The BBN-proposed network closely followed Taylor’s ARPA plan: a network composed of small computers called Interface Message Processors (IMPs), that functioned as gateways (today called routers) interconnecting local resources. At each site, the IMPs performed store-and-forward packet switching functions, and were interconnected with modems that were connected to leased lines, initially running at 50kbit/second. The host computers were connected to the IMPs via custom serial communication interfaces. The system, including the hardware and the packet switching software, was designed and installed in nine months."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARPANET
note the date.
also know that CERN - a European govt consortium then created the world wide web.
http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/about/web-en.html
beyond this - we have by far the most powerful military in the world and it's not because it's "big", it's because it's the most technologically advanced.
Whether we're talking about GPS, or drones, or nuclear ship reactors, or hundreds of other technologies - the vast majority of it was conceptualized, research and developed by DARPA and the military laboratory network.
http://www.arl.army.mil/www/default.cfm?page=11
http://www.onr.navy.mil/
http://www.wpafb.af.mil/shared/media/document/AFD-090803-021.pdf
"When ya'll anti-govt revisionist-history Luddites get done with re-writing history will you also be claiming that GPSs were created from "Spontaneous Order"?"....
Yet another unsprising but silly comment courtesy of larry g...
The technological triumph known as the Global Positioning System of satellite based navigation-was incubated in the mind of Ivan Getting...
Yeah larry g maybe there's no doubt that tax dollars in DOD budgets paid for the implementation of a system but it wasn't a collection of government bureaucrats that had the technical know how to invent and implement the system...
"when it was FIRST invented, it was much more than ANY "IT pro" had accomplish to that date."
That's right - because nobody had computers/net infrastructure where it would make sense to use it. When it got cheaper, you got a host of protocols (IPX/SPX, AppleTalk...) working on smaller scale. When bigger scale got cheaper, they just converged to what was there (TCP/IP) instead of creating yet-another-routable protocol).
I just wonder if you can come up with something that would persuade you that designing X is quite a simple task. You won't persuade me by repeating 'they were first' though...
Just to explain, how dead simple it is: Lookup IPv4 on wikipedia. The IP protocol basically contains 'source address', 'destination address', 'protocol identifier'. That's all you need.
UDP contains additionally source/ destionation port fields.
TCP contains additionally sequence number and acknowledgment number (you need that for stream protocol) and window size (you need that for good performance on high-latency links) and 'flag' field, so that you can add some logic for creating/tearing down 'connections'.
Do you seriously claim something like this wouldn't be propmptly invented by somebody in private sector, as soon as the network infrastructure got cheap enough to use it?
" Turning Getting's concept into reality required massive financial commitment from the government, but the resulting technology makes possible wide range of military and civilian uses"
"ideas" are like cockroaches...
taking the ones that really are possible and turning them into great things such as GPS systems takes government.
I realize that's a "silly" concept to the anti-govt types but it is, in fact, the reality.
Do you seriously claim something like this wouldn't be propmptly invented by somebody in private sector, as soon as the network infrastructure got cheap enough to use it?
yes. some things take years and years and billions of dollars to develop and some don't make it but others do.
the packet-switching network was envisioned by a number of people but the govt is the one that too it forward - using two side-by-side PDP computers.
The govt does not do this with bureaucratic. They do it with govt-employed scientists and engineers and govt grants to academia.
Some very large companies like IBM and GE also do basic research - true.
but I did supply a fairly large list of govt laboratory facilities that are extensive, have been around since WWII AND are VERY EXPENSIVE AND they have invented hundreds of DOD weapon system technologies, only some of which, have made into into the civilian world - but many of them - now invaluable.
GPS is an easy one to talk about - it took govt to pay for it - plain and simple - and it was done initially for a military purpose - but now look at it.
virtually every new smartphone in the country now uses GPS.
what is the US got royalties for that investment?
would it and things like it not only pay for all of our R&D but actually have some left over to pay for the budget?
Yes, Larry, you're right.
Because many of us don't care for our money being thrown around to the point that we are in severe debt (while trying to claim a few victories along the way) we are "anti-government".
That paints us with a nice, emergency-pantry, weapons cache sort of brush.
Just to be fair, since you appear to have an authoritarian governmental hierarchy point of view, I will now refer to you as "fascist".
"yes. some things take years and years and billions of dollars to develop and some don't make it but others do."
Sure, some things do. I just claim that a streaming protocol resembling TCP/IP is not one of them. You didn't present any argument that would refute my claim.
"the packet-switching network was envisioned by a number of people but the govt is the one that too it forward - using two side-by-side PDP computers."
Yep, that's right. Are you claiming that the idea to split a message into smaller blocks and transfer them is such complex, that unless there was government funding, nobody would have come with it?
Come on, what do you know about Computer science? Is "nothing: the right word?
Come on, what do you know about Computer science? Is "nothing: the right word?
I guess it would depend on one's degree and whether or not they worked in a military lab, at about the time the work was ongoing, eh?
Because many of us don't care for our money being thrown around to the point that we are in severe debt (while trying to claim a few victories along the way) we are "anti-government".
That paints us with a nice, emergency-pantry, weapons cache sort of brush.
Just to be fair, since you appear to have an authoritarian governmental hierarchy point of view, I will now refer to you as "fascist".
your old buddy Ronald Reagan is the one who really amped up military research spending..
right?
was RR your favorite "fascist"?
No, Larry, you're my favorite fascist.
even more than Ronald?
GAWD, I'm FLATTERED!
but you are evading my friend,
Was RR a fascist in the sense of how you are using the word?
fess up guy. he WAS, wasn't he?
No, Larry, I'm not evading. The point of my post was that I don't believe it to be helpful to call "limited government" philosophy, "anti-government".
With apologies to Juandos, we don't live in bunkers and plan to blow up federal buildings.
No, Larry, I'm not evading. The point of my post was that I don't believe it to be helpful to call "limited government" philosophy, "anti-government".
With apologies to Juandos, we don't live in bunkers and plan to blow up federal buildings.
did you have this philosophy under Ronald Reagan or did you "acquire" it after his Presidency?
when did you become a "true believer"?
the thing about Ronald Reagan was he was a big believer in the Military Industrial complex - AND he believed in taxing enough to actually pay for it rather than drive the country into debt to pay for it.
Give the man top marks for his principles!
Now my question is - did you support RR's approach to military spending and paying taxes for it?
Larry, I knew you wouldn't let any off-topic change of subject go after someone outed you for lack of knowledge like ondra did.
Reagan spent a lot of money trying to win the cold war, that made him a spender on something he felt was important to our way of life and freedom in the world, not a fascist. You believe the government can do no wrong and defend the craziest of policy and action every time it's discussed. You believe in the authority, the power and the hierarchy. That would make you a fascist.
I know that nuance and specifics aren't your thing, but give it a try.
actually RR, helped to fund things I worked on.!!!!
Reagan spent a lot of money trying to win the cold war, that made him a spender on something he felt was important to our way of life and freedom in the world, not a fascist.
wow! SO... if a Prez wants to spend money on something he believes is important for our way of life, he's NOT a fascist? Fascinating!
See the difference between Reagan and Bush is that Reagan was man enough to PAY for the spending - i.e. TAX you and me to pay for it whereas Bush was a weasel and spent money he did not have and did not have the spine to make you and me pay for it.
So NOW... you blame Obama!
fascinating!
you are correct.
It is off-topic - but I believe you are the one who diverged...
so if I do not hear back from you, I'll AGREE that it is off-topic and we should both behave.
:-)
"virtually every new smartphone in the country now uses GPS.
what is the US got royalties for that investment?"
"That investment" was your money and my money. Why should we be forced to pay again for something we've already paid for once?
"would it and things like it not only pay for all of our R&D but actually have some left over to pay for the budget?"
No, because the market for smartphones with GPS and other GPS devices would be smaller or nonexistent due to the additional cost. You misunderstand the role of government.
Monopolies granted by patent protection retard innovation.
"I guess it would depend on one's degree and whether or not they worked in a military lab, at about the time the work was ongoing, eh?"
So what do you know about computer science?
Just to clarify: I do have a CS degree, coincidentally exactly the Operating Systems specialization (which includes networking protocols), and I lived through the 90's in a post-communist country; we had FidoNet, I was implementing AppleTalk and IPX/SPX networks, friends were experimenting with networks using some hobby computers. TCP/IP was out of the question because fixed transmission lines were prohibitevly expensive.
I am not trying to argue 'ad autoritatem' - it's that the complexity of CS, the genius of people like e.g. Turing is on a completely different level than designing a stream protocol. You can do it well or bad (the guys who designed it did it very well), but basically anyone with at least basic skills would be able to come up with something that would work.
The reason we are using TCP/IP is because they were first and they did it well. If they didn't do it, somebody else would; as somebody else came up with HTTP, SMTP, PPP, FC, WiFi, Gzip, HTML, CSS....
ondra:
Come on, what do you know about Computer science? Is "nothing: the right word?"
That would be my guess.
Larry replies:"I guess it would depend on one's degree and whether or not they worked in a military lab, at about the time the work was ongoing, eh?"
Is that a great non-answer or what?
TCP/IP was out of the question because fixed transmission lines were prohibitevly expensive.
not for govt R&D.
I'm not going to reveal my level of background in CS nor where I worked because in CD that info gets rolled into Ad Hominem attacks.
We were using dial-up early on to connect with other military installations.
the thing I noticed was that if there was some "promise" with a technology, it would often find money especially for existing strategic weapon systems.
And the top levels would have govt labs compete against each other to see what they could accomplish independently ...
think FORTRAN when computer science grads did not know what it was or why it was important in scientific applications.
"the thing I noticed was that if there was some "promise" with a technology, it would often find money especially for existing strategic weapon systems."
Yes, government can afford to throw money on things, the private sector wouldn't. That's why government was first to develop it.
I don't dispute government was first - which is something you try to support with your arguments. I dispute, that TCP/IP is such an extremely complex thing that private sector wouldn't develop it when it became financially interesting to use fixed lines.
BTW: just wondering how did you use TCP/IP over dial-up lines, SLIP is 1988 invention....aren't you mixing up things?
I don't dispute government was first - which is something you try to support with your arguments. I dispute, that TCP/IP is such an extremely complex thing that private sector wouldn't develop it when it became financially interesting to use fixed lines.
BTW: just wondering how did you use TCP/IP over dial-up lines, SLIP is 1988 invention....aren't you mixing up things?
govt pushing promising technologies forward when private industry cannot justify it because the payoff term is too far off or it's feasibility in civilian use is still not known to be profitable.
the earliest computers, for instance, were analog computers and the early thinking was that they were superior to digital computers!
in terms of dates - it was a while ago. we were connecting on land-lines to other computers and moving data probably not on TCP/IP initially but we were well aware of the ARPANET work that was ongoing and the significance of it to networked computers.
if not mistaken, UDP is part of TCP/IP, no?
"govt pushing promising technologies forward when private industry cannot justify it because the payoff term is too far off or it's feasibility in civilian use is still not known to be profitable."
Not sure what you mean, but it seems to me you are still conflating 'being first' with 'without government, it wouldn't exist (or would exist significantly later then "optimal").
UDP is part of the IP protocol family, you were probably not using TCP/IP over dial-up, you were likely using some terminal access; probably the same thousands of people used to play and share files with Builtin Board Systems....
The govt has an large and extensive network of R&D Labs usually military - and grants and funding for academic efforts and contracts with the private sector.
Whether or not the govt was "first" or not with TCP/IP (or any other technology) misses the bigger point that many, many technologies were advanced by the govt usually in support of military purposes.
We worked with an IBM 7090 for analysis and with embedded fire control systems that started out as stand-alone systems with card/tape input and evolved to connected networks and terminals in the office spaces.
I'll leave the TCP/IP expertise and timeline to you but will continue to assert that at a facility with 3000-5000 STEM employees that everything from computational technology to acoustics to radar to fire control seriously advanced those technologies judging just from the patents awarded.
this was one facility of more than 100 across the country that does primary R&D as well as system engineering and all that military hardware you see flying, sailing and on the ground - is there because of these facilities.
whether you're talking about night vision, radar, communications satellites, or countless other technologies these govt facilities have made huge contributions that have driven the position of the US as a leader in technology around the world.
Anyone who believes that the private sector could have accomplished this without govt needs to look at the other 200 countries in the world to find those companies that did it without govt.
Larry, this is a crew that thinks when business succeeds it is entirely through the heroic efforts and extreme risk taking. But when business fails it is entirely the fault of government.
There is no point in arguing with them.
Not only that, but they are right. Private enterprise will go to Mars as soon as it becomes profitable.In other words never. One reason we have government is to do the things private companies cannot or wl'll not do. At least unless the government pays them to.
The early days of the Internet seem to have been advanced by the private sector contractors in conjuction with private university researchers all funded with taxpayer money. It was the government contracts that provided scale to the application of network technology development.
ondra is correct, a streaming protocol resembling top/ iPhone would have eventually come along.
Now we are arguing about the time value of money and the millions of people who had something to work with in the meantime.
Given that it or something like it would eventually happen anyway, what was the government acceleration worth?
What is your point? No one could have predicted all the ramifications of Columbus' vvoyage. It took hundreds of years, but some tribes are now wealthy in spite of what we stole.
Also, Columbus was financed out of the queens private purse, not that it make any difference.
It wasn't a collection of government bureaucrats that had the technical know how .....
Juandos, now your ignorance is showing. I have worked with many technically competent government employees. Some of them, even brilliant. It takes a lot to succeed in the government system..
"Juandos, now your ignorance is showing. I have worked with many technically competent government employees. Some of them, even brilliant. It takes a lot to succeed in the government system"...
LMAO hydra...
Apparently your bar for success is so low you have to dig a deep ditch for it...
Those who can do, those who can't work for the government...
"whether you're talking about night vision, radar, communications satellites, or countless other technologies these govt facilities have made huge contributions that have driven the position of the US as a leader in technology around the world"...
Oh my larry g, you're really thrashing around in delusion land now pal...
The government let out contracts to private industry to develop all those items you mention in your rant...
"Hydra said...
Larry, this is a crew that thinks when business succeeds it is entirely through the heroic efforts and extreme risk taking. But when business fails it is entirely the fault of government.
There is no point in arguing with them."
But yet you keep coming onto this blog, knowing that Carpe Diem attracts this type of "crew" who believe in limited government and free market capitalism and argue with us is all that you do.
Makes me wonder Hydra why you bother. You and your "crew" can easily find a blog that matches your beliefs. The posters here who support the ideas presented on Carpe Diem know what we believe and I doubt that any of us spend any time on blogs that promote more government and less free markets. We leave those to your "crew".
givemefreedom
But yet you keep coming onto this blog, knowing that Carpe Diem attracts this type of "crew" who believe in limited government and free market capitalism and argue with us is all that you do.
"Makes me wonder Hydra why you bother. You and your "crew" can easily find a blog that matches your beliefs. The posters here who support the ideas presented on Carpe Diem know what we believe and I doubt that any of us spend any time on blogs that promote more government and less free markets. We leave those to your "crew"."
*like*
Keep in mind, however that those clowns provide a measure of comic relief on threads that otherwise might be only boring discussions of numbers and charts.
That is true Ron H., they sometimes do provide comic relief.
But they also quite often get very tedious.
re: comic relief and "the crew".
Spontaneous Order
limited government
free markets
roger that!
:-)
givemefreedom
"But they also quite often get very tedious."
Yes, nothing ever changes, but responding to their nonsense could help casual readers who might otherwise think they know what they're talking about.
Why would I want to talk to people who agree with me?
That wold probably be a party of one.
Economics cannot violate the rules of physics. The idea of spontaneous order violates the rules of physics.
It is kind of a desperate situation: blogging only with those who validate your beliefs.
Also a waste of time. In order to advances the causes you believe in, you need to proselytize.
Try telling that to the folks at jpl.
"Economics cannot violate the rules of physics. The idea of spontaneous order violates the rules of physics."
This is spontaneous order. As is this, and this.
No rules of physics were harmed in the making of this comment.
Post a Comment
<< Home