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No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees

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Re: No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees

#21

Post by HotKFreshSwag »

newbie12 wrote: post #7

A little funding for basic computer science research is not big government. Bailing out banks and giving private solar companies loans is big government.

A "little funding", are you serious? DARPA is part of the freaking DoD.

Are you really going to criticize the government for investing in American companies of which a couple ones failed on a VC news site.

Yeah, companies fail. Yeah, the American government invests in American companies. Yeah, the American government can afford it. Right now the US treasury bonds that are indexed to inflation have negative interest rates[1]. Investors are _paying_ Uncle Sam money to take care of their money. The market is telling the government: invest, invest, invest.

1. http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/data-chart-center/in...

Re: No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees

#22

Post by mseebach »

lutze wrote: post #19
mseebach wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Polemic columnists is a phenomenon exclusively observed in the Murdoch-owned end of the world.

"BUT EVERYONE ELSE IS DOING IT!!!!" is not an excuse you'd accept from a child, so why does it become an acceptable defence in politics and journalism?

Good thing that's not what I said, then.

Re: No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees

#23

Post by jamesbritt »

lutze wrote: post #19
mseebach wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Polemic columnists is a phenomenon exclusively observed in the Murdoch-owned end of the world.

"BUT EVERYONE ELSE IS DOING IT!!!!" is not an excuse you'd accept from a child, so why does it become an acceptable defence in politics and journalism?

... so why does it become an acceptable defence in politics and journalism?

It didn't sound like a defense, but an observation that, sadly, this is common behavior.

I also suspect it was a sly reference to some of the comments on HN, too.

Re: No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees

#24

Post by joezydeco »

Prophasi wrote: post #20
joezydeco wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounded bad coming out of the President's mouth because he did a very bad job of paraphrasing Elizabeth Warren. Warren put it like this: " I love small businesses. My daughter started a small business, my brother started a small business, my aunt Alice started a small business, I worked in it when I was a teenager. This is really about a basic question of fairness. And that is, when big businesses really make it b…

The Republicans have given their vision of how we build our future—they've said, 'I got mine, the rest of you are on your own'. Which is, in turn, a poor job of paraphrasing the actual small-government view, which would be better stated as 'I was on my own, I made it, and you can do the same.' And not all Republicans/libertarians have made it yet. For them it might be 'I haven't made it yet, but I will -- and so can…

I think the GOP's voting record is enough to show that they can publicly proclaim support for public infrastructure, education, civil rights, and healthcare but then do exactly the opposite when it comes to legislation.

Re: No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees

#25

Post by cloverich »

rondon1 wrote: post #6

The republicans want to frame the presidential race as Big government vs. small government. "Romney wants to let the free market fuel America's success while Obama wants the government to your money and spend it how they see fit" Obama has recently tried to point out that the success of the free market in America has been dependent on the US Government. "Someone built the road and bridges and someone educated your em…

While true of Republicans, imo the quoted argument is equally dogmatic. Its not as though its used as a simple painting of Government as symbiotic; today's liberal arguments take it much further. Something like the following: "Government invented the internet. And without government, NO ONE would have invented the internet."

That, imo, is silly. PEOPLE invented the internet. There's time's and places where private investors are better at backing these people, and times when government forces are necessary. These blanket assertions that pumping money into either (without direction) will lead to improved innovation and economy are reductionist and, to a large extent, fundamentalist.

Its not simple. Investment is tough, and both sides get it wrong more often than right (that's the nature of business).

Re: No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees

#26

Post by tjic »

cs702 wrote: post #8

Why would anyone try to revise history, casting doubt on the verifiable fact that the U.S. government deserves credit for funding and helping create the Internet? Why would the Wall Street Journal publish this garbage? Short, simplistic answer: because the mere existence of this article, published in a newspaper widely perceived as reputable, is "evidence" of debate about the government's role for all those politicia…

> verifiable fact that the U.S. government deserves credit for funding and helping create the Internet?

Because it's NOT verifiable.

Some of us believe in historical determinism. Moore's Law meant that chips were getting better and cheaper. Telecommunications was growing. People were already using modems to build ad-hoc networks.

I argue that there was going to be an internet in the year 2000 whether or not the US government pushed a piddly amount of funding into Arpanet or not.

This is distinct from my take on rocket technology: I think that the market would NOT have perceived human spaceflight as worth doing, and if the US and Soviet governments had not pushed it, there might not yet be a person in orbit.

Reasonable people can differ on whether the US government "caused" the internet or merely jumped in front of a parade and then later declared itself the leader.

...but your opinion that one of these is "verifiable" is nonsense.

Re: No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees

#27

Post by astine »

HotKFreshSwag wrote: post #21
newbie12 wrote: post #7

A little funding for basic computer science research is not big government. Bailing out banks and giving private solar companies loans is big government.

A "little funding", are you serious? DARPA is part of the freaking DoD. Are you really going to criticize the government for investing in American companies of which a couple ones failed on a VC news site. Yeah, companies fail. Yeah, the American government invests in American companies. Yeah, the American government can afford it. Right now the US treasury bonds that are indexed to inflation have negative interest r…

"Are you really going to criticize the government for investing in American companies of which a couple ones failed on a VC news site."

I am. The government is not a VC firm. It's investment are invariably political and not business based. There's a huge potential for waste there, not to mention conflict of interest. A DoD project that happened to have civilian applications is a different beast entirely.

Re: No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees

#28

Post by crusso »

twoodfin wrote: post #12
rondon1 wrote: post #6

The republicans want to frame the presidential race as Big government vs. small government. "Romney wants to let the free market fuel America's success while Obama wants the government to your money and spend it how they see fit" Obama has recently tried to point out that the success of the free market in America has been dependent on the US Government. "Someone built the road and bridges and someone educated your em…

"Someone built the road and bridges and someone educated your employees, and someone built they internet that you use. Those things were funded by tax dollars." All of that's true, but it's also true that the guy who didn't build a business also gets to use those roads and the internet. It's also true that private spending on telecommunications infrastructure in this country utterly dwarfs public spending. And nobody…

Do people just go through and downvote opinions they disagree with and upvote the ones they do agree with?

Re: No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees

#29

Post by mfringel »

tjic wrote: post #26
cs702 wrote: post #8

Why would anyone try to revise history, casting doubt on the verifiable fact that the U.S. government deserves credit for funding and helping create the Internet? Why would the Wall Street Journal publish this garbage? Short, simplistic answer: because the mere existence of this article, published in a newspaper widely perceived as reputable, is "evidence" of debate about the government's role for all those politicia…

> verifiable fact that the U.S. government deserves credit for funding and helping create the Internet? Because it's NOT verifiable. Some of us believe in historical determinism. Moore's Law meant that chips were getting better and cheaper. Telecommunications was growing. People were already using modems to build ad-hoc networks. I argue that there was going to be an internet in the year 2000 whether or not the US go…

Let's say that the assertion "An Internet would have existed in 2000 anyway, even if the government did nothing." is true. It's unverifiable, but let's assert it.

Even if it was true, _that's not what happened._ FedGov put money into Arpanet, which led to multiple academic (and a handful of corporate research) institutions putting time, money and organizational effort into creating the current framework. That much is known.

It theoretically could have happened some other way in some alternate timeline, but in this one it happened like that, and pointing out the possibility of an alternate history doesn't change the one we have.

Re: No Credit for Uncle Sam in creating Net? Vint Cerf disagrees

#30

Post by russell »

TheGateKeeper wrote: post #3

WSJ should be embarrassed and fire that writer. Getting basic tenets of history wrong and misleading millions? What a sham.

From the WSJ:

"Gordon Crovitz is a media and information industry advisor and executive, including former publisher of The Wall Street Journal, executive vice president of Dow Jones and president of its Consumer Media Group."

Not exactly a random stringer.

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