The Navy of God against Charis naval superiority

As a source for funding, government is paramount. However, as the USSR illustrates, government cannot organize the actual R&D very well. They might set the goals to achieve but are wise to let private researchers do the actual research. Set the goals/objectives and then let private teams submit proposals on how to meet those objectives.

Then government can accept several proposals and let the teams compete. Absent an over riding national need, private enterprise can fund research but at much smaller scales. Many companies combined can do an enormous amount of research and likely generate comparable results at much lower cost.

The R&D on electticity in the latter half of the 19th century come to mind. Edison's patents resulted private funding for research. Governments might have purchased the fruit of that research which increased the funds available to do more research, but did not directly fund most of his research. Edison was not the only one either.

I think that the significant thing here is the historical situation. The government tends to be at its best in areas of pure scientific research whereas the private sector does its best work in finding applications that it can visualize as profitable. That is in time of peace. In time of war, survival needs tend to shift things toward the government as the private sector works in partnership with the goverment to come up with needed applications for the military. We also saw a lot of that during the cold war.

The industrial revolution was different, however. That was mosly business driven as the move from a muscle to a machine driven economy unleashed a virtual avalanch of inovation and creativity.

I think that following the war, Safehold is going to experience that and the result will be more like the 18th and 19th centuries than the 20th.

Don

Dilandu wrote:

JRM wrote:Historically, most innovation has occurred in the private sector, where removing government and social roadblocks are more important than passive or active government support. In our world, we can see the difference between New York and Pennsylvania on fracking. Money is flowing into Pennsylvania, while upstate New York continues to hurt.

For the small scale innovations and applied research, it's true. But for fundamental research, the main power was - at least in XX century - almost always the goverment.

The U.S. won WWII with ships built with the steel made by foundries that were created for railroads, bridges, skyscrapers, and automobiles. The U.S. supplied weapons for U.S. forces, British, and even Russian forces from manufacturing plants in the U.S. that had been built for civilian goods.

After WWII, the U.S. engaged in targeted research. Let's thank DARPA for the Internet. However; it takes a 17 trillion dollar GDP to support a 600 billion dollar defense department. That is less that 4% of the GDP. I am reminded of a round up of Russian spies in the 80s where the spies were caught stealing genuine IBM secrets. I was amused that the government let us know that these weren't fake IBM secrets.

Innovation isn't just rockets, fighters, bombers, tanks, and ships. It is command and communication, design and production, both in the military, and the civilian economy. We currently have a synergy where advance in one side feed advances in the other side. Okay, lately the military seems not to get current concepts of design and production.

Would the U.S. have advanced as much technologically if we hadn't been in a cold war? Yes, but the direction of the advance would have been a little different.

JRM

JRM wrote:

Historically, most innovation has occurred in the private sector, where removing government and social roadblocks are more important than passive or active government support. In our world, we can see the difference between New York and Pennsylvania on fracking. Money is flowing into Pennsylvania, while upstate New York continues to hurt.

For the small scale innovations and applied research, it's true. But for fundamental research, the main power was - at least in XX century - almost always the goverment.
[/quote]

The U.S. won WWII with ships built with the steel made by foundries that were created for railroads, bridges, skyscrapers, and automobiles. The U.S. supplied weapons for U.S. forces, British, and even Russian forces from manufacturing plants in the U.S. that had been built for civilian goods.

After WWII, the U.S. engaged in targeted research. Let's thank DARPA for the Internet. However; it takes a 17 trillion dollar GDP to support a 600 billion dollar defense department. That is less that 4% of the GDP. I am reminded of a round up of Russian spies in the 80s where the spies were caught stealing genuine IBM secrets. I was amused that the government let us know that these weren't fake IBM secrets.

Innovation isn't just rockets, fighters, bombers, tanks, and ships. It is command and communication, design and production, both in the military, and the civilian economy. We currently have a synergy where advance in one side feed advances in the other side. Okay, lately the military seems not to get current concepts of design and production.

Would the U.S. have advanced as much technologically if we hadn't been in a cold war? Yes, but the direction of the advance would have been a little different.

JRM[/quote]

You might be right. But you are standing on conjecture. The race to the moon was government driven and the private sector is still benefiting from the spinoffs in both medicine and electronics. IIRC, the dot.com leap in the 90s was mostly private. So, it is hard to say.

Don

JRM wrote:Innovation isn't just rockets, fighters, bombers, tanks, and ships. It is command and communication, design and production, both in the military, and the civilian economy. We currently have a synergy where advance in one side feed advances in the other side. Okay, lately the military seems not to get current concepts of design and production.

Would the U.S. have advanced as much technologically if we hadn't been in a cold war? Yes, but the direction of the advance would have been a little different.

JRM

An interesting example from the 19th century:

The technology for machine sewn clothing existed from ca. 1830. It was not widely used until the Crimean War for England and France, and the Civil War for the US. Government contracts for uniforms paid for the factories, and they continued to turn out clothing after the war (and the government contracts) was over. Prior to this I believe most armies would have issued their troops not finished uniforms, but bolts of cloth, needles and thread. If the soldiers were not competent to sew their own uniforms, the camp followers were. I believe that sizing standards for mens clothing dates to this period.

Don,

That the race to the moon was performed in the best way possible is also conjecture. Arguments may be made that the moon could have been reached sooner and with a smaller price tag than was actually accomplished.

Government is good at applying vast resources into a narrow, well define goal. It is horrible at finding optimal solutions to nebulous problems. It can produce 1 million tanks of a set design and ship them to battle fields accross the world. It can't find the optimal heathcare solution for each of our citizens. The latter, like general research, is something a rigid hierarchy is not fundamentally capable of doing well.

PeterZ wrote:Don,

That the race to the moon was performed in the best way possible is also conjecture. Arguments may be made that the moon could have been reached sooner and with a smaller price tag than was actually accomplished.

Government is good at applying vast resources into a narrow, well define goal. It is horrible at finding optimal solutions to nebulous problems. It can produce 1 million tanks of a set design and ship them to battle fields accross the world. It can't find the optimal heathcare solution for each of our citizens. The latter, like general research, is something a rigid hierarchy is not fundamentally capable of doing well.

Problem is that private sector is usually not better, and setting goals besides improving shareholders wealth is not even in the charters governing companies. Which is why most companies focus strictly on quarterly results and applied research or incremental improvement of existing products, not general research.

This is dumb as it is a proven thing that long term goals and research grants (>5years) have a higher return on investments than short ones and that you get much more bang for your buck this way. The history of Bell labs, or Intel is a good example.
But the shareholders are not anymore long term holders, and could not care less about the value in 10 years, they want results next quarter.

There is some exceptions even now (W. Buffet for investors, Apple, Siemens in Germany, as companies) and those do usually well.

More, Government funding is often essential in the infrastructure building phase (there is no money yet to gain) and the private sector will only step in the later phases. Then they can drives costs down. Good examples are internet (Darpa invented, Web is CERN creation) , or what is happening right now in the aerospace sector. Almost all the action is now from newly born firms without connections to the old gov funded sector, and they are the one who are innovative. But they can only do that because the tech has matured from government contracts.

alj_sf wrote:

PeterZ wrote:Don,

That the race to the moon was performed in the best way possible is also conjecture. Arguments may be made that the moon could have been reached sooner and with a smaller price tag than was actually accomplished.

Government is good at applying vast resources into a narrow, well define goal. It is horrible at finding optimal solutions to nebulous problems. It can produce 1 million tanks of a set design and ship them to battle fields accross the world. It can't find the optimal heathcare solution for each of our citizens. The latter, like general research, is something a rigid hierarchy is not fundamentally capable of doing well.

Problem is that private sector is usually not better, and setting goals besides improving shareholders wealth is not even in the charters governing companies. Which is why most companies focus strictly on quarterly results and applied research or incremental improvement of existing products, not general research.

This is dumb as it is a proven thing that long term goals and research grants (>5years) have a higher return on investments than short ones and that you get much more bang for your buck this way. The history of Bell labs, or Intel is a good example.
But the shareholders are not anymore long term holders, and could not care less about the value in 10 years, they want results next quarter.

There is some exceptions even now (W. Buffet for investors, Apple, Siemens in Germany, as companies) and those do usually well.

More, Government funding is often essential in the infrastructure building phase (there is no money yet to gain) and the private sector will only step in the later phases. Then they can drives costs down. Good examples are internet (Darpa invented, Web is CERN creation) , or what is happening right now in the aerospace sector. Almost all the action is now from newly born firms without connections to the old gov funded sector, and they are the one who are innovative. But they can only do that because the tech has matured from government contracts.

The companies you cite are large, publically traded companies. Large corporations have the same inability to provide flexible solutions to complex problems. The problem is with structured hierarchies adapting quickly to extremely fluid situations.

Small companies or ones with very flat decision making structures can do much better. Unfortunately, small companies don't have the funds and large companies approach governments in their inflexibility. Governments fund to achieve stated goals and firms optimized to do research actually perform the research.

I have never suggested that the race to the moon was accomplished in the most efficient possible way. What I have said is that at least at that time and place, it was accomplished in the only way possible, at least in terms of marshalling public support and resourses. Further, the cost of the project has paid for itself many times over in terms of the spinoffs that made their way into the private sector economies.

The private sector does well on research for which it can see an immediate use. The government, on the other hand, has been funding pure scientific research, often through the universities forever. I am merely saying here that this is not an either/or. Both are needed and their roles should be regarded complimentary rather than competitive.

Don

jgnfld wrote:Waterproof fuses are pretty straightforward. Every cherrybombs and m80s have had them since forever. My grandfather used to use "Dupont spinners" apparently a century ago to increase his fishing success.

I even accidentally got some trout that way once as a kid not meaning to--tied an m80 to a rock and threw it in a creek and well all of a sudden there some trout were just floating there asking to be taken home and fried.

Actually you can fire a bottle rocket into the water, and most of the time it will continue to "fly" underwater and ultimately explode. You'd think it would immediately be quenched, but it apparently drags a column of air behind it long enough to keep the acceleration powder burning until it reaches the explosive charge.

It's a LOT of fun to try at night, but it won't kill a fish bigger than a guppy.

And yes, m80s blow up beautifully underwater, but I must have been tossing them in the wrong places. No free trout for me!