The Innovation Equation
March 2, 2009 by Steve Meyer
Filed under Automation
When people start talking about how “technology will restore our economy” I tend to get a little nervous. Generally, it is not good to mix politics and science. It is worse for politicians to make national policy using science or technology as the justification. Politicians are rarely technically astute enough to interpret the opinions of the “experts”, especially when they conflict with each other. And due to the politics of funding, experts sometimes have to be politically sensitive to their patrons.
What is the proper role of government in the realm of science and technology? Personally, I think there should be no direct role. But the cat’s out of the bag. And government has taken a large part of the role controlling what technology we as a nation will work on when $9Bil is spent by the DOE and many times that is spent through the various military and non-military agencies of the government who contract research and development. There is a legitimate interest in our country’s defence, but the lines have become blurred as more and more funding comes from government sources.
Industry in the United States, it seems, has outsourced a lot of the Research and Development that it used to fund. The Euorpeans work closely with their Universities to leverage the available talent at low cost to get some things done. The US is doing some of that, but maybe we need to do more.
Sometimes there are bigger forces at work that no single company can overcome in its marketplace. Transitioning from gasoline based cars to electric cars might be one. Auto makers need volumes of 50,000 to 100,000 units to get cost effective. Notwithstanding that claim, I am pretty sure that the Japanese hybrids are just now reaching those volumes. Those are cars American workers didn’t get to build.
And taxing things is a form of economic punishment. Taxation is intended to discourage certain behaviors. But taxing (punishing) is a form of negative reinforcement. Instead, wouldn’t we be better off by encouraging good behavior?
So here’s are a really radical idea; instead of taxing carbon, or creating a shadow currency that only a few large companies can profit from, why don’t we incentivize any new technology that can be substituted for combustion? Let’s figure out some novel ways to run our systems without burning something. Carcinogenic diesel emissions and other atmospheric polutants, will gradually disappear. Clean air and water will be an almost certain result in years to come.
Solar Power, Wind Power and Electric Cars all avoid combustion. Tax Credit? You bet. Fuel Cell Bus(already available) for city transportation systems? Yup. Injection heaters for hot water? Hot water heat exchanger for central heating systems? That would replace burning natural gas, right? Cha-ching, tax credit. Electricity generated by atomic energy in mini-reactors instead of burning coal? That too. In fact, we could affort to give the whole coal industry help to convert itself into the fuel refining and encapsulating industry instead of paying $60 to $90 Billion to rebuild the national grid. The grid won’t be needed except in an emergency.
We would have so many new businesses opening up, employment would go up and the national debt would go down, without raising taxes. Let’s give American innovation a chance.
Now you are thinking like a true conservitive.
When government starts providing money (our money) for ‘technology advancements, it will then start picking and choosing which ones it determines are ‘worth while’ and cut off the rest.
Tax incentives work and have always worked to generate inovation. Simply look at the solar and wind credits that have been used in the past.
However, what’s happening right now has nothing to do with new technology and everything to do with more governmental Socialist control under the guise of ‘technology’. Socialism (communism) in other words, full government control of everything, didn’t work for the USSR or any other country that tried it including China. The only reason it appears to work in China is because of the products they ship to us, and the rest of the world. It only appears to work because the government controls the wages of the people keeping them low. Without us, it’s a failure.
The technology policies of our current government, and the path they are taking us on, have nothing to do with technology and everything to do with more government control. It’s the old, ‘keep them barking up the wrong tree’ so we don’t notice what’s happening until it’s too late.
The real problem is with politicians believing that scientists can solve these problems. They are the least capable to do it. REAL world problems are solved by engineers, not scientists. Engineers develop real, tanglible solutions using todays technology. Scientists only bring more questions that need to be \studied\. Science is notorius for getting in the way of progress on fine example is with the development of the airplane.
Regarding:
“When people start talking about how “technology will restore our economy” I tend to get a little nervous. Generally, it is not good to mix politics and science.”
I Disagree.
Religion and science are the main drivers to politics. Science must win over religion and be used to drive decisions and they must be common to us all. IF we all (or even enough of us) happened to make good decision independantly, I’d agree with you. But we don’t. Govenrment must drive the common objectives based on our collective smartest common opinions. Look how screwed up the financial sector got us by leaving them uncontroled and undirected by governement. Greed ruled and will always rule individuals.
I agree:
“Sometimes there are bigger forces at work that no single company can overcome in its marketplace.”
That’s why government is so important in leading. Some individuals make bad decisions. Having governement help us become focused with science based objectives will help individuals make good decisions more often than when they are left alone.
Regarding:
“Incentivize any new technology that can be substituted for combustion.”
I completely agree.
You are right on the money here. But the government has to give the money that you are right on to. So again, government must make the decisions base on the science and produce the incentive for individuals. This can also include taxing carbon – a dis-incentive to point us to the incentive of not releasing carbon oxides into the environment.
I address Mr. Sundberg here as “Comrade” not as a pejorative but to illustrate the point that his thinking follows Socialist dogma. Mr. Sundberg may think of himself as a Socialist if so he will be proud of being called Comrade if not he should stop thinking like one. Read on.
- Comrade Sundberg: “Religion and science are the main drivers to politics.”
I disagree. Science is not a driver of politics it is a tool.
- Comrade Sundberg: “Science must win over religion and be used to drive decisions and they must be common to us all.”
Your disregard for religion shows off a blind spot, and I think is foolish. And by the way Comrade, at what department of the peoples government must I get my common decisions?
- Comrade Sundberg: “IF we all (or even enough of us) happened to make good decision independantly, I’d agree with you. But we don’t.”
- The reason we do not make good decisions is that we are under served by the public school system and the press. Most of us are not taught to think critically and the press is biased and/or disinterested.
- Comrade Sundberg: “Govenrment must drive the common objectives based on our collective smartest common opinions.”
- What the Comrade meant to say was: Government must tell the common folks what to do based on the opinions of the elite. If you don’t participate in the “collective smartest common opinion” shut up, or be shut up. It seems to me comrade, as though you have morphed from Republic into Democracy into Socialism.
- Comrade Sundberg: “Look how screwed up the financial sector got us by leaving them uncontroled and undirected by governement. Greed ruled and will always rule individuals.”
- Clarification: This is a good example of the lack of critical thinking I talked about earlier. Comrade Sundberg heard or read somewhere the Idea of an uncontrolled financial sector… accepted it, then repeated it as though it were true. The fact is that the number of laws, rules and regulations that govern our financial industry would fill a library. However if one accepts the concept that the problem is a lack of regulation then you easily (and wrongly) accept the idea that the fix is more regulation.
More specifically the Comrade says “Look how screwed up the financial sector got us by leaving them uncontroled and undirected by governement.” The financial sector acted badly but predictably according to the rules put in place by agencies of the government. It is the role of the government to construct laws by which the financial sector can operate fairly. In this, the government failed. I place the blame for our current financial troubles on inappropriate regulation by our government.
And then “Greed ruled and will always rule individuals.” Don’t paint me with that brush. In a healthy mind greed does not rule, rather it is balanced by other needs and emotions.” Are you ruled by greed?