re: #626 Jimmah

There are certain advantages that can only be won with the resources of nations. Even the most individualist nation has to act collectively in certain cases to achieve them, unless they are happy to see others take the lead. If we had not publicly funded the space race, for example, Russia would have won hands down.

When it comes to grand pure research projects, Quixote is right - there are considerable payoffs but not on a time scale that would attract enough private investment to get going.

There is something to that, but I think the method of reasoning is flawed in how it only accounts for immediate results, and not for what “could have been.”

Yes, had the U.S. government not directly funded space research, the first flight on the Moon would have probably been carried out by the Soviets. And to them would have belonged the glory…

But what tangible benefit did we get from the flight to the Moon? And what could have been achieved with the money that went to NASA for that mission, had it been employed in the private section? Getting steps closer to the cure for cancer — we’ll never know — Building advanced weaponry that would have defeated the USSR in much more practical terms —we’ll never know — advancing robotics, computer technology — we’ll never know.

What is some risk-averse legislator had managed to slip in a provision into a megabill, back in 2000, requiring airplanes to have locks on their cockpit doors, and 9/11 had been averted? Would this legislator be a national hero? No. No one would have known that a terrorist attach was averted.

Our minds quickly break down when comparing alternate universes full of unknown unknowns having folded differently. There is no central authority to know better than others what could have, should have, would have happened, had resources been collectively funneled into any specific area… Which is why individuals ought to be left free to make such decisions privately, without governmental coercion.