Please read my sibling reply about DARPA grand challenges. This knowledge was built using public dollars by people who publish papers, which are being read today by people building products. That's the great cycle of progress.
Notably DARPA felt the need to do this because they didn't trust private industry to do it on their own; with no money in driverless cars, the government figured industry would get there only if there was some catalyst, which they provided (successfully).
If you only ever go where the work is, then you're going to be left behind by societies that have a vision and leadership that will work to make it real.
> they didn't trust private industry to do it on their own
That's a laugh. The fact of the printed money being thrown around crowds out private investment, because no loser wants to pay where competitors reap. It needs to be dead certain that no one near government will fund research, then it will creep back in. Politicians making promises kills private research funding.
That's an interesting counterfactual but it doesn't really mean much to reality. Fact is, what happened is that public research got the results where private industry did not, and everyone is better for it, including private industry. Progress doesn't wait for private industry to be certain of its profits; if it doesn't happen here, it'll happen elsewhere.
It also complete bullshit, pharmaceuticals are heavily dependent on the basic research that is done by colleges and anyone that thinks these private entities can do more research than the best universities in the planet is just insane.
For decades now the main difference between the US and the other economies is the amount of highly qualified labor across the board, this move to destroy academia and elevate the stupid and unqualified will be the end of America and the whole world will be poorer for it.
I’ve seen “behind the curtain” in both private and publicly funded research. I can’t think of a single area where private industry isn’t standing on the shoulders of collective advancement. (I speak from experience as someone who holds a degree in one of the fields I’m about to mention.)
The biggest leaps tend to be made as a result of public-private partnerships. For example, essentially the totality of fundamental knowledge relating to aeronautics and aerospace, advanced medicine and life-saving pharmaceuticals (especially drugs for orphaned diseases), and any of the examples already offered in this thread.
Private ownership of scientific knowledge isn’t inherently a bad thing, but locking it up indirectly by virtue of eliminating all public funding for it does nothing more than to invite a new corporatist driven Dark Age.
Cyberpunk 2077 is a fun place to visit on the screen. I guess some people do want to live there.
Just because you don't read the papers doesn't mean that no one does. Much of the work done in private industry is based on basic research. There are examples given in this thread: the DARPA robotics challenge, and the internet itself.
This assumes only research that can be turned into a product should be pursued. Maximizing profit is not actually a virtue, no matter how hard the business types try to say it is.
False. Mass accumulations of capital allow exploratory research without a clear path to commercial benefit, but it's a cherry on top, a kind of motivator for researchers.
[EDIT] Rather, yes, of course it's artificial, what do you mean by bringing that up? Corporations and money are also artificial, so... what does that matter? In fact, all research is artificial.
You not reading it doesn’t mean nobody reads it. A lot of things you’re enjoying NOW stands on the fundamental knowledge brought by these papers/research. You not going to school doesn’t mean the school is useless.
