The Gubmint Invents?

[Stuart Galbraith]

Tanks.

Invented privately, foisted on the military against great resistance. They would have happily sent wave after wave of young men into machinegun fire until one side ran out of men. So, sure, they are pure military technology and without a war and without governments we wouldn't see them, but it's not as if governments solicited the invention of protected mobile firepower in an open bid process. Or that governments said, "gee, I wish we could drop bombs on our enemy with precision, but without the need for forward observers" and then tasked the Wright broters to invent the bomber. Orville and Wilbur looked at birds and said, "I wish I could fly", and then were lucky enough to give it a try (like countless pioneers before them) at a point where other key technologies - mainly the internal combustion engine - just crossed the threshold to make it feasible at all.

 

Yes, your timeline is correct:

 

In 1903 we can just get the thing in the air. In 1909 we are just at the limits of getting to the ability to fly across the Channel.

 

But that's merely six years from 50 meters to 50 kilometers. Private venture would soon enough have allowed for 500 kilometers, and with it, real-world application cases. If you want long distance bombers and fighter planes you need a government. Fast passenger transportation and air mail do not require governmental involvement. Yes, at some point its involvement is inevitable because governments are about power, they want to meddle in everything. But that's not the same as a necessary ingredient.

Tanks were not developed privately. Little Willie was built under a military contract from a commitee what iirc, had Winston Chuchill and General Swinton in it. Landship commitee iirc. Even the Holt tractor was built with military applications in mind. I think the first military buys were prewar, but I won't swear to that.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holt_tractor

Edited February 13, 2020 by Stuart Galbraith

[Mobius]

 

 

That war accelerates the pushing of technological envelopes, and that companies producing war materiél seek ways to apply their know-how after a war to the civilian market, is indisputable. In other news: Water still wet. The state has enormous purchasing power, and that also gives him the ability to enforce standards (like "clutch left, brake in the middle, gas pedal to the right"). So when it comes to scaling up an invention to industrial production state investment provides the needed risk mitigating guarantees that help industrialists to make large scale investments. But that doesn't mean that the state is involved with the actual invention process, and this wasn't mentioned in your original question:

 

Can anyone think of an entirely new technology that was thought up, developed, and put into production by purely private investment?

 

Well, look at what I said. Can anyone think of an entirely new technology thought up, developed and put into production purely by private investment? I

LASIK eye surgery.

[Stuart Galbraith]

 

 

re Guvmint, I cannot think of a single great invention n the 20th Century that didn't have at least some Government involvement. Radar,Penicillin, the Cell phone, the internet, satellite communications, nuclear power,the microchip, spaceflight,compact computers (All computers for that matter) supersonic aircraft, high speed rail, hovercraft, the pot noodle... Ok, in stretching the point with the Pot Noodle. All of them had at least some Government involvement, usually military. And whilst I'm sure it was all badly developed and cost far more than private enterprise would have done,private enterprise was never willing to take the risk on these things till they are already developed.

If we are going to develop green energy, it's going to take Goverment investment, because private investment, time and again,only gets on dead certs.

 

How many new technologies were never developed because the government siphoned a very large chunk of GDP out of the economy every year for the last century (never mind the sea of regulations the private sector has to navigate, at a very high cost) and squandered it? We will never know.

 

Oh yes, but we did get Tang.

Sorry to chip in.

 

We do know: none. If something is so hot, a private entrepreneur elsewhere will pick it up and run with it: See Steve Jobs and the Xerox PARC

 

 

https://zurb.com/blog/steve-jobs-and-xerox-the-truth-about-inno

Agreed. But Jobs would not have developed the Mac, and Xerox the Alto if someone had not first invented the microship.

 

If you believe as I do that the microchip was the single greatest invention of the 20th century, it's development deserves some consideration.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_circuit

 

There are several points of contact there between the military and he development of the chip. Alright, I cannot assert there would be no microchip without the military. I do raise the question, would they have developed it if they didn't have a ready made market in the USAF to buy it? I think the least that can be said is that it accelerated development of something that would have eventually have been developed.

Edited February 13, 2020 by Stuart Galbraith

[rmgill]

 

That arms industry comes at the cost of all the domestic problems widespread availability of military style guns cause in the US. We don't want that here, and therefore are happy to purchase those small arms we need (other than sniper rifles) abroad. I would be interested to know how much the US small arms industry contributes to the US economy vs how much the weapons they produce detract from it through the harm they inflict, both directly and indirectly.

 

still moving the goal posts...

 

the argument is that government does better than the private sector and that nothing can happen without the gov’nor having his fingers in the pie...

 

What smashing bit of personal computing did the UK come up with? or, how did the British auto industry do with their cars vs what private industry made? compare to soviet cars, are those even better and more advanced?

[Stuart Galbraith]

 

 

That war accelerates the pushing of technological envelopes, and that companies producing war materiél seek ways to apply their know-how after a war to the civilian market, is indisputable. In other news: Water still wet. The state has enormous purchasing power, and that also gives him the ability to enforce standards (like "clutch left, brake in the middle, gas pedal to the right"). So when it comes to scaling up an invention to industrial production state investment provides the needed risk mitigating guarantees that help industrialists to make large scale investments. But that doesn't mean that the state is involved with the actual invention process, and this wasn't mentioned in your original question:

 

 

Can anyone think of an entirely new technology that was thought up, developed, and put into production by purely private investment?

 

Well, look at what I said. Can anyone think of an entirely new technology thought up, developed and put into production purely by private investment? I

LASIK eye surgery.

Ok you got me, the application is clearly commercial. But looking up who developed the first laser, it says Hughes research labs, which among other things had a hand in military projects.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser

The first laser was built in 1960 by Theodore H. Maiman at Hughes Research Laboratories, based on theoretical work by Charles Hard Townes and Arthur Leonard Schawlow.

 

No I don't know that is a military project, but thanks, I will look into that.

[rmgill]

Also, Stoner was building his prototypes in his spare time. I think the same goes for Browning. the inventions came first, the government customers came second. the latter had nothing without the inventive private enterprise first.

[rmgill]

LASIk is a progression of RK surgery for the same corrective eye surgery.

[Stuart Galbraith]

Yeah, seems the military were involved with the laser from the start.

 

https://hsns.ucpress.edu/content/18/1/111

 

There is an interesting item here about a 1970s project to develop a system to melt the human eyeball, but I don't suppose that is the starting point for lasik!

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/12/a-brief-history-of-militarized-lasers/453453/

Edited February 13, 2020 by Stuart Galbraith

[Stuart Galbraith]

Also, Stoner was building his prototypes in his spare time. I think the same goes for Browning. the inventions came first, the government customers came second. the latter had nothing without the inventive private enterprise first.

I don't see the the great innovation in the Browning ( is it really revolutionary compared to say, the mauser?). But I can see your point about stoner. The m63 was so revolutionary, there as still been nothing like it since.

Edited February 13, 2020 by Stuart Galbraith

[RETAC21]

 

 

 

re Guvmint, I cannot think of a single great invention n the 20th Century that didn't have at least some Government involvement. Radar,Penicillin, the Cell phone, the internet, satellite communications, nuclear power,the microchip, spaceflight,compact computers (All computers for that matter) supersonic aircraft, high speed rail, hovercraft, the pot noodle... Ok, in stretching the point with the Pot Noodle. All of them had at least some Government involvement, usually military. And whilst I'm sure it was all badly developed and cost far more than private enterprise would have done,private enterprise was never willing to take the risk on these things till they are already developed.

If we are going to develop green energy, it's going to take Goverment investment, because private investment, time and again,only gets on dead certs.

How many new technologies were never developed because the government siphoned a very large chunk of GDP out of the economy every year for the last century (never mind the sea of regulations the private sector has to navigate, at a very high cost) and squandered it? We will never know.

 

Oh yes, but we did get Tang.

Sorry to chip in.

 

We do know: none. If something is so hot, a private entrepreneur elsewhere will pick it up and run with it: See Steve Jobs and the Xerox PARC

 

 

https://zurb.com/blog/steve-jobs-and-xerox-the-truth-about-inno

Agreed. But Jobs would not have developed the Mac, and Xerox the Alto if someone had not first invented the microship.

 

If you believe as I do that the microchip was the single greatest invention of the 20th century, it's development deserves some consideration.

 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_circuit

 

There are several points of contact there between the military and he development of the chip. Alright, I cannot assert there would be no microchip without the military. I do raise the question, would they have developed it if they didn't have a ready made market in the USAF to buy it? I think the least that can be said is that it accelerated development of something that would have eventually have been developed.

 

 

I see your point, but the microchip wouldn't exist if fire hadn't been discovered, way before any government investment...

[Stuart Galbraith]

[DKTanker]

The USSR didn't innovate new technology though did it? Other than Sputnik, everything it developed in large part was from nicking it and buying it from the west. When the west discovered what the USSRneeded, and cut it off, the Soviets economy, such as it was, collapsed.

 

Did you purposely miss the point? You have been breathlessly advocating that all technology of the 20th C through today is derived solely through government initiative, support, investment, and production. What greater example of government control of technology innovation, support, investment, and production is there than the former Soviet Union? If, as you suggest, government holds the promise for ever greater technological advancements, why did the greatest 20 C example of big government utterly fail to live up to your proposition?

[rmgill]

I don't see the the great innovation in the Browning ( is it really revolutionary compared to say, the mauser?). But I can see your point about stoner. The m63 was so revolutionary, there as still been nothing like it since.

 

Which Browning? You know there is more than one right?

 

Edited February 14, 2020 by rmgill

[rmgill]

 

I see your point, but the microchip wouldn't exist if fire hadn't been discovered, way before any government investment...

Prometheus was involved, so really big government right?

[Stuart Galbraith]

 

The USSR didn't innovate new technology though did it? Other than Sputnik, everything it developed in large part was from nicking it and buying it from the west. When the west discovered what the USSRneeded, and cut it off, the Soviets economy, such as it was, collapsed.

 

Did you purposely miss the point? You have been breathlessly advocating that all technology of the 20th C through today is derived solely through government initiative, support, investment, and production. What greater example of government control of technology innovation, support, investment, and production is there than the former Soviet Union? If, as you suggest, government holds the promise for ever greater technological advancements, why did the greatest 20 C example of big government utterly fail to live up to your proposition?

 

I did not. I said,

 

'Can anyone think of an entirely new technology that was thought up, developed, and put into production by purely private investment?'

 

I did not say that all the technology of the 20th century was by Government initiative. I was saying that what there was (rail, the Motorcar, air travel) were derivations of existing technologies from the Edwardian and Victorian period, when technology, and development and finance worked differently than today. Any new ones that have arisen since (miniturized computers, internet, AI) were by Government funded developments, usually as part of the cold war. They had to be, they were simply too large and too complex for a guy in his garage and private finance to build on their own.

 

Hey, if you can think of an entirely new technology in that period that didnt have Government taking the lead, stop throwing rocks and post it up. Unlike others, im perfectly happy to concede im wrong, when people can demonstrate it and make a realistic argument and dont resort to petulantism and browbeating to make their point.

 

This isnt about my ego, I didnt even create this thread. I made a point expressing a view into response to a comment Chris made and which has been taken wholly out of context, and its put into a thread for people to throw rocks at, with a title I didnt even approve of. I imagine if that was done to any of you, you would also feel a little pissed.

Edited February 14, 2020 by Stuart Galbraith

[Stuart Galbraith]

 

I don't see the the great innovation in the Browning ( is it really revolutionary compared to say, the mauser?). But I can see your point about stoner. The m63 was so revolutionary, there as still been nothing like it since.

 

Which Browning? You know there is more than one right?

 

 

I assumed you were talking of the M1911?

[DougRichards]

The aircraft 'Black Box' was basically contrived to work by a government organisation working the thr private sector

 

Australian designs

Play media

Video clip of 1985 ABC news report interviewing David Warren about his invention

In 1953, while working at the Aeronautical Research Laboratories (ARL) of the Defence Science and Technology Organisation, in Melbourne,^[6] Australian research scientist David Warren conceived a device that would record not only the instrument readings, but also the voices in the cockpit.^[7] In 1954 he published a report entitled "A Device for Assisting Investigation into Aircraft Accidents".^[8]

Warren built a prototype FDR called "The ARL Flight Memory Unit" in 1956,^[8] and in 1958 he built the first combined FDR/CVR prototype.^[7][9] It was designed with civilian aircraft in mind, explicitly for post-crash examination purposes.^[10]Aviation authorities from around the world were largely uninterested at first, but this changed in 1958 when Sir Robert Hardingham, the Secretary of the British Air Registration Board, visited the ARL and was introduced to David Warren.^[6] Hardingham realised the significance of the invention and arranged for Warren to demonstrate the prototype in the UK.^[8]

The ARL assigned an engineering team to help Warren develop the prototype to airborne stage. The team, consisting of electronics engineers Lane Sear, Wally Boswell and Ken Fraser, developed a working design that incorporated a fire-resistant and shockproof case, a reliable system for encoding and recording aircraft instrument readings and voice on one wire, and a ground-based decoding device. The ARL system, made by the British firm of S. Davall & Sons Ltd, in Middlesex, was named the "Red Egg" because of its shape and bright red colour.^[8]

The units were redesigned in 1965 and relocated at the rear of aircraft to increase the probability of successful data retrieval after a crash.^[11]

Carriage of data recording equipment became mandatory in UK-registered aircraft in two phases, the first for new turbine-engined public transport category aeroplanes over 12,000 lb (5,400 kg) in weight was mandated in 1965, with a further requirement in 1966 for piston-engined transports over 60,000 lb (27,000 kg), with the earlier requirement further extended to all jet transports. One of the first UK uses of the data recovered from an aircraft accident was that recovered from the Roystan "Midas" data recorder that was onboard the British Midland Argonaut involved in the Stockport Air Disaster in 1967.^[12]

[Stuart Galbraith]

The aircraft 'Black Box' was basically contrived to work by a government organisation working the thr private sector

 

Australian designs

Play media

Video clip of 1985 ABC news report interviewing David Warren about his invention

In 1953, while working at the Aeronautical Research Laboratories (ARL) of the Defence Science and Technology Organisation, in Melbourne,^[6] Australian research scientist David Warren conceived a device that would record not only the instrument readings, but also the voices in the cockpit.^[7] In 1954 he published a report entitled "A Device for Assisting Investigation into Aircraft Accidents".^[8]

Warren built a prototype FDR called "The ARL Flight Memory Unit" in 1956,^[8] and in 1958 he built the first combined FDR/CVR prototype.^[7][9] It was designed with civilian aircraft in mind, explicitly for post-crash examination purposes.^[10]Aviation authorities from around the world were largely uninterested at first, but this changed in 1958 when Sir Robert Hardingham, the Secretary of the British Air Registration Board, visited the ARL and was introduced to David Warren.^[6] Hardingham realised the significance of the invention and arranged for Warren to demonstrate the prototype in the UK.^[8]

The ARL assigned an engineering team to help Warren develop the prototype to airborne stage. The team, consisting of electronics engineers Lane Sear, Wally Boswell and Ken Fraser, developed a working design that incorporated a fire-resistant and shockproof case, a reliable system for encoding and recording aircraft instrument readings and voice on one wire, and a ground-based decoding device. The ARL system, made by the British firm of S. Davall & Sons Ltd, in Middlesex, was named the "Red Egg" because of its shape and bright red colour.^[8]

The units were redesigned in 1965 and relocated at the rear of aircraft to increase the probability of successful data retrieval after a crash.^[11]

Carriage of data recording equipment became mandatory in UK-registered aircraft in two phases, the first for new turbine-engined public transport category aeroplanes over 12,000 lb (5,400 kg) in weight was mandated in 1965, with a further requirement in 1966 for piston-engined transports over 60,000 lb (27,000 kg), with the earlier requirement further extended to all jet transports. One of the first UK uses of the data recovered from an aircraft accident was that recovered from the Roystan "Midas" data recorder that was onboard the British Midland Argonaut involved in the Stockport Air Disaster in 1967.^[12]

Thanks Doug thats interesting.

 

The requirement to fit the first blind autoland system in an airliner was also very likely a Government requirement. The first to carry it was the DH121 Trident, of which the specifications were written by the British Department of Transport if I remember rightly, for BEA, then a British Government owned subsidiary. They first demonstrated that in 1958 IIRC.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawker_Siddeley_Trident

Edited February 14, 2020 by Stuart Galbraith

[rmgill]

So is the contention that because the government gets involved as a buyer, then it's involved and thus you cannot have any good products without the government involvement? Seems like a self licking ice cream cone proposition then Stuart.

It doesn't matter that someone privately designs and develops the product and then takes it to various possible buyers, including the government, that the government wants to buy some of that, it's by default involved and you'd not have had the product in the first place?

Edited February 14, 2020 by rmgill

[EchoFiveMike]

Have you walked up and down upon the earth lately? I have; and I have examined Man's wonderful inventions. And I tell you that in the arts of life man invents nothing; but in the arts of death he outdoes Nature herself, and produces by chemistry and machinery all the slaughter of plague, pestilence, and famine. The peasant I tempt today eats and drinks what was eaten and drunk by the peasants of ten thousand years ago; and the house he lives in has not altered as much in a thousand centuries as the fashion of a lady's bonnet in a score of weeks. But when he goes out to slay, he carries a marvel of mechanism that lets loose at the touch of his finger all the hidden molecular energies, and leaves the javelin, the arrow, the blowpipe of his fathers far behind. In the arts of peace Man is a bungler. I have seen his cotton factories and the like, with machinery that a greedy dog could have invented if it had wanted money instead of food. I know his clumsy typewriters and bungling locomotives and tedious bicycles: they are toys compared to the Maxim gun, the submarine torpedo boat. There is nothing in Man's industrial machinery but his greed and sloth: his heart is in his weapons. This marvellous force of Life of which you boast is a force of Death: Man measures his strength by his destructiveness. What is his religion? An excuse for hating me. What is his law? An excuse for hanging you. What is his morality? Gentility! An excuse for consuming without producing. What is his art? An excuse for gloating over pictures of slaughter. What are his politics? Either the worship of a despot because a despot can kill, or parliamentary cockfighting. I spent an evening lately in a certain celebrated legislature, and heard the pot lecturing the kettle for its blackness, and ministers answering questions. When I left I chalked up on the door the old nursery saying "Ask no questions and you will be told no lies." I bought a sixpenny family magazine, and found it full of pictures of young men shooting and stabbing one another. I saw a man die: he was a London bricklayer's laborer with seven children. He left seventeen pounds club money; and his wife spent it all on his funeral and went into the workhouse with the children next day. She would not have spent sevenpence on her children's schooling: the law had to force her to let them be taught gratuitously; but on death she spent all she had. Their imagination glows, their energies rise up at the idea of death, these people: they love it; and the more horrible it is the more they enjoy it.

From George Bernard Shaw's Don Juan in Hell. S/F....Ken M

[Mobius]

 

 

 

That war accelerates the pushing of technological envelopes, and that companies producing war materiél seek ways to apply their know-how after a war to the civilian market, is indisputable. In other news: Water still wet. The state has enormous purchasing power, and that also gives him the ability to enforce standards (like "clutch left, brake in the middle, gas pedal to the right"). So when it comes to scaling up an invention to industrial production state investment provides the needed risk mitigating guarantees that help industrialists to make large scale investments. But that doesn't mean that the state is involved with the actual invention process, and this wasn't mentioned in your original question:

 

Can anyone think of an entirely new technology that was thought up, developed, and put into production by purely private investment?

Well, look at what I said. Can anyone think of an entirely new technology thought up, developed and put into production purely by private investment? I

LASIK eye surgery.

Ok you got me, the application is clearly commercial. But looking up who developed the first laser, it says Hughes research labs, which among other things had a hand in military projects.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser

The first laser was built in 1960 by Theodore H. Maiman at Hughes Research Laboratories, based on theoretical work by Charles Hard Townes and Arthur Leonard Schawlow.

 

No I don't know that is a military project, but thanks, I will look into that.

 

Lasik was a refinement of radial cartonomy which used blade surgery that was invented by a Russian surgeon. And like all things in the former Soviet Union it was under government control. So different guvment.

[Chris Werb]

Ryan, I completely agree with you that government input is generally not required in designing and producing something, given that a commercially viable market for that thing exists. However, I really don't think there is a clear cut distinction between things government makes and designs being bad and those designed by private firms being good and I think you could come up with as many examples as I could that cut both ways. As you point out, where commercial design and production score is typically in variety of products and speed of innovation.

[RETAC21]

 

 

I see your point, but the microchip wouldn't exist if fire hadn't been discovered, way before any government investment...

Prometheus was involved, so really big government right?

 

 

A mere conspiracy theory...

[Stuart Galbraith]

Ryan, I completely agree with you that government input is generally not required in designing and producing something, given that a commercially viable market for that thing exists. However, I really don't think there is a clear cut distinction between things government makes and designs being bad and those designed by private firms being good and I think you could come up with as many examples as I could that cut both ways. As you point out, where commercial design and production score is typically in variety of products and speed of innovation.

But what happens when innovation has no clear commercial application until after its built?

 

There were plenty of those all through WW2 and the cold war. For example, that link above on the laser. They said it was an invention in search of an application for years. If Hughes had not built it under a military contract, it would probably remain theoretical.

[Stuart Galbraith]

 

 

 

 

That war accelerates the pushing of technological envelopes, and that companies producing war materiél seek ways to apply their know-how after a war to the civilian market, is indisputable. In other news: Water still wet. The state has enormous purchasing power, and that also gives him the ability to enforce standards (like "clutch left, brake in the middle, gas pedal to the right"). So when it comes to scaling up an invention to industrial production state investment provides the needed risk mitigating guarantees that help industrialists to make large scale investments. But that doesn't mean that the state is involved with the actual invention process, and this wasn't mentioned in your original question:

 

 

Can anyone think of an entirely new technology that was thought up, developed, and put into production by purely private investment?

 

Well, look at what I said. Can anyone think of an entirely new technology thought up, developed and put into production purely by private investment? I

LASIK eye surgery.

Ok you got me, the application is clearly commercial. But looking up who developed the first laser, it says Hughes research labs, which among other things had a hand in military projects.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser

The first laser was built in 1960 by Theodore H. Maiman at Hughes Research Laboratories, based on theoretical work by Charles Hard Townes and Arthur Leonard Schawlow.

No I don't know that is a military project, but thanks, I will look into that.

Lasik was a refinement of radial cartonomy which used blade surgery that was invented by a Russian surgeon. And like all things in the former Soviet Union it was under government control. So different guvment.

Fair enough. What was the date of the invention of that as a matter of interest?