NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #16/NN_1992_16.iso/spool/sci/physics/fusion/1862

Internet Message Format | 1992-07-28 | 1.6 KB

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From: [e-mail] (Jim Bowery)
Newsgroups: sci.physics.fusion
Subject: Re: Techno-Something-Or-Other
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 28 Jul 92 15:18:52 GMT
References: <[e-mail]>
Organization: NetLink Online Communications, San Diego CA
Lines: 26

Thomas H. Kunich writes:
>I don't think we need to invent new buzz words and then attempt
>to breath some sort of ulterior motives into them. Socialism
>is socialism, regardless of whether it is being exercised in the
>technical arena or the social welfare arena.

I strongly disagree and assert that this lack of appreciation of the
differentially greater destructive impact of direct government
funding of technology development, especially in fusion, vs other
forms of socialism, is central to the greatest problems our world
faces.

Socialism is destructive in proportion to the immaturity of the
field in which it is applied.  Bureaucracy is the antithesis of
innovation and creativity -- it is least damaging where there are
mature, well understood disciplines and standards and most damaging
in nascent fields where the overthrow of established ideas and a
diversity of approaches are required and the sources of funding must
be close to the action so as to prevent an incursion of funding
parasites with their run-away foot-dragging, wasteful "experimentation"
and ultimately, viciously anticompetitive politics.

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