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Governments cannot invent or develop technology, they only hinder it.


.. said literally in reply to a comment about the Manhattan project.


GP's post is oversimplistic, but I think there's something there. Maybe it's better stated as, "Governments tend toward invention of things that, in the long term, are destructive and divisive rather than peaceful and collaborative."

If "technology" is defined (or construed) to more closely follow successful human evolution (which I think is reasonable), then weapons of mass destructive are a differently (albeit obviously related) phenomenon and not "technology."

It depends on how you view the age-old political question of means and ends. If the latter grows out of the former, and if governments, as monopoly-holders on initiation of violence, use force as their means, then naturally we can expect things that come from government to grow toward those ends.


A comment made on the Internet...


.. and yet here you are using the internet.


Some entrepreneur or company in silicon valley would have invented stg better and cheaper.


Silicon Valley itself wouldn't have existed in the form it does without the huge government investments in the area, so even if that happened - and you can speculate all you want but facts remain they didn't -, it'd still be a win for government R&D funding.


Actually, you could not be more wrong. If you read The Entrepreneurial State from Mariana Mazzucato[1]. It argues that most inventions are coming from public funding. Companies are the ones that customize to the users need and then monetize it.

[1] https://www.demos.co.uk/files/Entrepreneurial_State_-_web.pd...




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