The Gubmint Invents?

[Stuart Galbraith]

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?

 

I'm not saying you cannot have good products. But the evidence from the technological spin offs from the cold war, it seems unlikely to me you can have revolutionary technological change without Government at least paying for the technological break in. As you saw happen with AI vehicles. Yes, private enterprise can invest in those, make them better or more relevant for commercial development. But it strikes me the nature of modern technology is in many cases beyond that if single companies to conceive, develop and take to market themselves.

 

If you can think of such a change, post it up. I'm happy to be proven wrong.

Edited February 14, 2020 by Stuart Galbraith

[RETAC21]

 

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.

 

 

Actually, the biggest invention of WW2 didn't originate in gubmint. The origins of the A bomb can be traced to worried physicists convincing Einstein to write a letter to FDR.

[RETAC21]

 

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?

I'm not saying you cannot have good products. But the evidence from the technological spin offs from the cold war, it seems unlikely to me you can have revolutionary technological change without Government at least paying for the technological break in. As you saw happen with AI vehicles. Yes, private enterprise can invest in those, make them better or more relevant for commercial development. But it strikes me the nature of modern technology is in many cases beyond that if single companies to conceive, develop and take to market themselves.

 

If you can think of such a change, post it up. I'm happy to be proven wrong.

 

 

I think the smartphone probes you wrong. We were happy to use phones to talk and press buttons, and then came Apple with this weird idea that a phone can do more stuff.

[DKTanker]

 

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.

 

What military contract?

[Rick]

 

 

 

 

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.

 

Well, kind of. From a long time ago eyeball lecture, lasik uses an excimer laser which used prior for etching microchips for the Strategic Defense Initiative, aka Star Wars. Later, if was found to work very well on corneas -- that part of the eye which lasik is preformed on. Lasik, has replaced RK(radial keratotomy) in the U.S.

RK was accidentally "discovered" in the Soviet Union when a myopic (near-sighted) child, if I remember the lecture correctly, ran through a plate glass window and cut his cornea. When the cornea healed, the child could see somewhat better. A famous Russian cornea doc improved on it until the then current technique was perfected. Lasik is much better, safer, and easier than RK which is why I have not heard of anyone doing RK for about 20 years. Lasik has come down in price through the years and can now be done -- imo--safely by non-cornea general ophthalmolgists at this time.

Edited February 14, 2020 by Rick

[Ssnake]

Actually, the biggest invention of WW2 didn't originate in gubmint. The origins of the A bomb can be traced to worried physicists convincing Einstein to write a letter to FDR.

 

A concerned letter is not an invention. The development of nuclear weapons is the prime example of an invention that only a government can make because a. the investment volume is massive, b. there is no commercially viable market for nuclear bombs (and if it were, government would use regulation to destroy that market; arguably that's a government's job), and c. it requires a number of breakthrough innovations and research in many areas.

 

I have never disputed that there are cases where the government sets the pace for development. This is one such textbook case. I just don't happen to agree with the notion that for every major breakthrough since the Victorian age governmental involvement was the determining key ingredient. And in this discussion, we have indeed moved beyond that point, and are refining the conditions under which government involvement is needed, and where it is not.

[rmgill]

I'm not saying you cannot have good products. But the evidence from the technological spin offs from the cold war, it seems unlikely to me you can have revolutionary technological change without Government at least paying for the technological break in. As you saw happen with AI vehicles. Yes, private enterprise can invest in those, make them better or more relevant for commercial development. But it strikes me the nature of modern technology is in many cases beyond that if single companies to conceive, develop and take to market themselves.

 

If you can think of such a change, post it up. I'm happy to be proven wrong.

Video Tape recording. Audio tape recording was developed in Germany in the late 20s, kept secret and then post WWII, Bing Crosby of all people proposed the idea top an Engineer and it went on to the company AMPEX.

 

Other notable changes. Sony Walkman. Apple iPhone.

[JWB]

 

 

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.

 

What military contract?

 

I believe the laser guided bomb.

[DKTanker]

I believe the laser guided bomb.

The first US military contract for laser guided weapons was let in 1964 to Texas Instruments for laser guided SAMs, four years after the first demonstration of LASER by Hughes and Bell Laboratories. Paveway bombs, laser guided bombs, was an outgrowth of that.

[Ssnake]

 

 

For example, that link above on the laser. If Hughes had not built it under a military contract, it would probably remain theoretical.

What military contract?

I believe the laser guided bomb.

 

Sharks ... and cutting agents of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service in half, in expectation of their expedient death.

[Stuart Galbraith]

 

I believe the laser guided bomb.

The first US military contract for laser guided weapons was let in 1964 to Texas Instruments for laser guided SAMs, four years after the first demonstration of LASER by Hughes and Bell Laboratories. Paveway bombs, laser guided bombs, was an outgrowth of that.

 

No, as I linked above, the DOD or DARPA wsa involved before that.

 

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

 

'In 1961 a military contractor, the Hughes Aircraft Company, announced that Ted Maiman of its Malibu Research Laboratories had invented a device that could produced stimulated emission of Optical radiation. This was the laser, or 'optical maser'. So the military were supporting new research programs designed to proliferate the types and applications of lasers.'

 

In actual fact it seems to have happened in May 10th 1960, perhaps that is a typo or there was a delay in announcing it. But its clear from that, the military were in the loop from the start.

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

In 1956 Maiman started work with the Atomic Physics Department of the Hughes Aircraft Company (later Hughes Research Laboratories or HRL Laboratories) in California where he led the ruby maser redesign project for the U.S. Army Signal Corps, reducing it from a 2.5-ton cryogenic device to 4 pounds (1.8 kg) while improving its performance.^[5]:88[19] As a result of this success Maiman persuaded Hughes management to use company funds to support his laser project beginning in mid-1959. On a total budget of $50,000, Maiman turned to the development of a laser based on his own design with a synthetic ruby crystal, which other scientists seeking to make a laser felt would not work.

 

Ive read elsewhere the first development of a military application started in 1962. The ultimate application of that was Pave Knife as carried by the Phantom in USAF service. I think the first operational use of that was 1972 (possibly the Long Bien Bridge Strike of May 10th), but there was reference in one source I found online to a hand held device before that, which seems more akin to a laser pointer than a laser designation unit.

 

So its clear, the military were deeply involved in funding the first prototype lasers, and almost immediately were working to develop designation systems with them. Commercial applications for it lagged for some time.

Edited February 15, 2020 by Stuart Galbraith

[Stuart Galbraith]

 

I'm not saying you cannot have good products. But the evidence from the technological spin offs from the cold war, it seems unlikely to me you can have revolutionary technological change without Government at least paying for the technological break in. As you saw happen with AI vehicles. Yes, private enterprise can invest in those, make them better or more relevant for commercial development. But it strikes me the nature of modern technology is in many cases beyond that if single companies to conceive, develop and take to market themselves.

 

If you can think of such a change, post it up. I'm happy to be proven wrong.

Video Tape recording. Audio tape recording was developed in Germany in the late 20s, kept secret and then post WWII, Bing Crosby of all people proposed the idea top an Engineer and it went on to the company AMPEX.

 

Other notable changes. Sony Walkman. Apple iPhone.

 

That sounds plausible, till you realise that video recording tape was a development of German recording tape as you say, which was in itself a development of other recording media from way back to the latter end of the 19th Century (even earlier if you consider wax cylinders, which are a stretch).

Be that as it may, if you accept the 1930s in Germany as a starting point, you will notice that the company that did it was a holding of IG Farben, a major Nazi military contractor. Just like television, I have to wonder if it was a development part funded by Government to allow easier transmission of propaganda. You would doubtless agree Nazi Germany was not free enterprise as we would understand it.

 

All those developments clearly date from capture of the equipment in WW2. If you consider the rocket as war loot, then you have to take magnetic recording tape the same way.

 

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

During World War II, the Allies noticed that certain German officials were making radio broadcasts from multiple time zones almost simultaneously.^[16] Analysts such as Richard H. Ranger believed that the broadcasts had to be transcriptions, but their audio quality was indistinguishable from that of a live broadcast^[16] and their duration was far longer than was possible even with 16 rpm transcription discs. (The Allies were aware of the existence of the pre-war Magnetophon recorders, but not of the introduction of high-frequency bias and PVC-backed tape.)^[17] In the final stages of the war in Europe, the Allied capture of a number of German Magnetophon recorders from Radio Luxembourg aroused great interest. These recorders incorporated all the key technological features of modern analog magnetic recording and were the basis for future developments in the field.

 

You will note from that link another earlier development of steel recorders was by the BBC, again, another Government funded company.

[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.

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.

Re-read what I wrote. Especially the bit in Italics

[Chris Werb]

I've just been reading Hitler's u-boat war and Blair mentions Doenitz' opinion that all weapon system development should be undertaken by Private industry given the colossal fuck ups made by German naval weapon design agencies.

 

You also have situations (particularly in the US and UK) where private industry came up with failed r severely compromised designs because the objectives they were given by government were unattainable, mutually exclusive or downright idiotic.

[Stuart Galbraith]

I've just been reading Hitler's u-boat war and Blair mentions Doenitz' opinion that all weapon system development should be undertaken by Private industry given the colossal fuck ups made by German naval weapon design agencies.

 

You also have situations (particularly in the US and UK) where private industry came up with failed r severely compromised designs because the objectives they were given by government were unattainable, mutually exclusive or downright idiotic.

Well the Trident is an example of that. I gather because it had engines that were rather smaller than they should have been, the only way they could stretch it and still get it off the ground was to fit a booster engine. Which of course made Trident the worlds only 5 engined jet (3 speys, an APU and a booster engine).

 

So private enterprise is teh only way to go, right? The problem is aircraft like Concorde would never have been built relying just on private enterprise, because there were too many risks involved. The cynic would then say, well just as well. Except that project was the nucleus of Airbus and featured, among other innovations, one of the worlds first fly by wire systems. Not as sophisticated as later on the airbus, but you have to start somewhere.

 

I think, Government intervention and private enterprise are both needed, and both have their place. But I still think, for projects where massive innovation is required, private investment is just not going to take the risk. Particularly in the modern era where quick returns on investment are demanded.

 

 

 

 

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.

Re-read what I wrote. Especially the bit in Italics

 

I did, it was my round about way of agreeing with you.

Edited February 16, 2020 by Stuart Galbraith

[rmgill]

Developed in a garage. On his own dime. Fun. Plus military applications with more than just the US Military.

Edited February 25, 2020 by rmgill