DiscussWorldIssues - Socio-Economic Religion and Political Uncensored Debate - View Single Post - The US cannot be defeated militarily, only economically

**tpdirorg** · 08-29-2012, 10:31 PM

So we can pick and choose. So the private sector would have created the Internet. So we should be funding the peace bomb to create the next Internet. (That's kinda black and white and I apologize.) But where do you stand? Do you like public or private funding of innovation?

In my opinion there is a need for both. I seriously doubt that a privately funded Internet would look like today's Internet, but probably more like the cell phone industry, where everything is an extra, the basic service is twice what we pay today, and the Apple Internet doesn't talk well with the Microsoft network.

So, I do like the idea of both. The military bought and paid for the Internet, on their terms, and it worked out just fine. The space program put a man on the moon, but private enterprise built all of the pieces. The military designed and was the driving force on the Interstate, but private contractors built it.

The model of government being the driving force is there, it is proved to work, and it is available. Lets use the process. An example: We badly need a new power grid. Industry knows how to do it but so far it is a lot of jockeying for a competitive advantage, and if someone doesn't do something, the new power grid will be a patchwork of proprietary standards. Wouldn't it be fantastic if the military said "OK, here's what we need. Build it for us"

08-29-2012, 10:31 PM	#4
tpdirorg Join Date Nov 2005 Posts 372 Senior Member	So we can pick and choose. So the private sector would have created the Internet. So we should be funding the peace bomb to create the next Internet. (That's kinda black and white and I apologize.) But where do you stand? Do you like public or private funding of innovation? In my opinion there is a need for both. I seriously doubt that a privately funded Internet would look like today's Internet, but probably more like the cell phone industry, where everything is an extra, the basic service is twice what we pay today, and the Apple Internet doesn't talk well with the Microsoft network. So, I do like the idea of both. The military bought and paid for the Internet, on their terms, and it worked out just fine. The space program put a man on the moon, but private enterprise built all of the pieces. The military designed and was the driving force on the Interstate, but private contractors built it. The model of government being the driving force is there, it is proved to work, and it is available. Lets use the process. An example: We badly need a new power grid. Industry knows how to do it but so far it is a lot of jockeying for a competitive advantage, and if someone doesn't do something, the new power grid will be a patchwork of proprietary standards. Wouldn't it be fantastic if the military said "OK, here's what we need. Build it for us"
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