JC, our Horatio on the bridge, took on all comers at Club Troppo over this post, “Capitalism is only harmful when bad people abuse it (and other conservative myths)”. The gist:
Promoted by Winning Our Future, a pro-Gingrich super PAC, ‘When Mitt Romney Came to Town’ features a series of poignant interviews with workers who lost their jobs, houses and health insurance coverage when the businesses they worked for were restructured or went under.
This misleading video illustrates what’s wrong with American conservatism today — an unwillingness to talk honestly about how free markets drive technological change and generate wealth. The economist Joseph Schumpeter called it ‘creative destruction’. Economies grow as new technologies replace older ones and industries and jobs move to where work can be done most efficiently.
It is we conservatives who show “an unwillingness to talk honestly about how free markets drive technological change and generate wealth”? Gimme a break. It is free markets that drive tech change and generate wealth. But it is not “tech change” as such, but entrepreneurs, those people, like Mitt Romney, who do the driving and if they succeed, end up very wealthy. To present it as “tech change” means that rubbish like the NBN or batts in the belfry might get counted. This man really needs to get a copy of my book.
Newt Gingrich was hammered from pillar to post by us conservatives for attacking Romney’s role in creating wealth at Bain and Co. No one I can think of said a good word on Gingrich’s behalf, and many said quite a lot of very bad words about this ad made for Gingrich. It is why so soon as we conservatives had actually looked at what Gingrich was saying and what he stood for he disappeared as a serious contender. It was clear that despite all his bluster, he was a “progressive”, that is, a complete nong. It is why he has now disowned the ad.
But meanwhile you folk over there on the non-conservative side, it is time you owned up that it is not some abstract force called tech change but the very direct application of talent and risk by our entrepreneurial class that create the wealth. Can I take the following as a straightforward criticism of Obama and Gillard, looking in each case at the car industry just for starters:
Instead of using tax payers’ money to prop up failing businesses, governments can let uncompetitive businesses fail. Instead of trying to generate jobs by picking winners, governments can leave the selection process to the market. Freeing markets will accelerate the process of creative destruction and create wealth.
Will he say that Obama and Gillard are WRONG? You really wonder how deluded this man is about the United States and indeed about every free market economy everywhere:
If conservatives would confront the reality of markets honestly, then Americans could have a serious debate about how to protect individuals and families while allowing markets to operate as efficiently as possible. It’s a debate that might include issues like health insurance, education, social security and social assistance. And it would mean giving up the pretense that tax cuts and deregulation are the solution to everything.
I know it’s not popular to mention it at the moment, but it was Mitt Romney who introduced Health Care into Massachusetts, and he defends it still. Meanwhile Obama is bankrupting the American economy but I hear not a word of criticism from anyone on the left. It would be nice if there were the occasional recognition by these people of just how much damage Obama has done to all of those families he pretends to care so much about.
A bit of a simplification. I’m sure health care existed in Massachusetts before Mitt Romney was governor. Are you saying he improved it?
TerjeP
17 Jan 12 at 1:21 pm
Like “liberal”, the word “conservative” has acquired a different meaning in the US context.
In my dictionary, conservatives are people who defend the status quo. That means they are opposed to radical changes such as substantial cuts in taxes, spending and regulation.
DavidLeyonhjelm
17 Jan 12 at 1:32 pm
Lol steve. It’s really like Daniel in the lions den.
JC
17 Jan 12 at 1:46 pm
“Meanwhile Obama is bankrupting the American economy but I hear not a word of criticism from anyone on the left. It would be nice if there were the occasional recognition by these people of just how much damage Obama has done to all of those families he pretends to care so much about.”
Amazing isn’t it? It’s like the soft racism of low expectations on reverse steroids with Odumbo and the left.
One dude was criticizing creationist believers unable to fathom the idea that Odumbo spent 20 years listening to sermons about the evil white man in a so-called church.
JC
17 Jan 12 at 2:11 pm
Lol, the labour exploitation theory reared it’s head too.
Sean
17 Jan 12 at 2:18 pm
People need to start getting some cognative dissonance out there. Calling our health care system a ‘soviet’ or ‘socialist’ model at least will get people who consider themselves ‘wet liberal’ voters to think about how a market system would provide inproved outcomes and cut waiting lists.
Sean
17 Jan 12 at 2:21 pm
“Lol, the labour exploitation theory reared it’s head too.”
Always lurking about, looking to frighten any innocent bystanders.
JC
17 Jan 12 at 2:26 pm
Don is capable of better, has been capable of better. However his Obama-love is obviously clouding his judgement just as it clouds Tillman’s.
jtfsoon
17 Jan 12 at 2:28 pm
Sean
I seriously don’t get it. I really don’t get the how they all seem to recoil at the idea of privatized medicine.
It really is like market forces stop at the doctor’s or the ER door.
And it’s not suggesting that da poor die from lack of health care. It’s basically suggesting we rearrange insurance through vouchers etc. to ensure we get better outcomes.
They recoil at this like vampires to a silver cross.
It’s really funny to watch.
JC
17 Jan 12 at 2:49 pm
Horatio had two helpers at the bridge, but they had to fight a larger number of Etruscans than the platoon of lefties on Topppo.
Rafe
17 Jan 12 at 2:57 pm
“However his Obama-love is obviously clouding his judgement just as it clouds Tillman’s.”
I’m hugely disappointed with Tillman’s performance recently when he came here wanting to discuss his unqualified prognosis that Romney is autistic.
I was saddened to see him plumb those depths of despair.
JC
17 Jan 12 at 2:57 pm
Don’t waste your breath. Or keystrokes… Leftists cannot admit a lie or an error. It’s like asking a dog to talk.
ar
17 Jan 12 at 3:16 pm
many conservatives are fair weather friends of the free market. abbott is an example. the Nats?
Jim Rose
17 Jan 12 at 5:24 pm
Another of many pearls to swine moments….
Oh come on
17 Jan 12 at 9:01 pm
Indeed, there are a large number of leftists commenting here who are tedious armchair psychiatrists. For example, THR likes to think he’s able to detect traces of psychopathy. And now Tillman (who I concede is not always a leftist) with the autism bunk.
Oh come on
17 Jan 12 at 9:12 pm
PS. just watched the recent GOP debate. Goddamnit Perry why couldn’t you have put that performance in a few months ago?
In a quixotic gesture, I am shifting my hotly-contested allegiance back to Perry. yukyukyuk
Seriously though, finally Perry looks the goods. Much too late, however.
Oh come on
17 Jan 12 at 9:23 pm
[Calling our health care system a ‘soviet’ or ‘socialist’ model at least will get people who consider themselves ‘wet liberal’ voters to think ...]
… That you have no idea what either word means and can safely be ignored.
LacqueredStudio
17 Jan 12 at 9:27 pm
Perry has always been the lazy talented kid who never reached his potential.
* Pilot in the Military.
* Married & faithful to his wife for 50 years
* The success story of Texas during the Obama recession.
* Able to seriously court hispanic votes & fend of the nasty conservative smear.
* Southern evangelical with backing from other southern / mid-west governors
Pity he acted like he is a valium addict in previous debates.
Token
17 Jan 12 at 9:35 pm
Right. Let’s agree from the outset that you (and certain others here) basically cannot distinguish between Keynesian, Soviet, left-anarchist, spendhappy-populist (Obama, John Howard) and socialist economics, properly speaking. You conflate them all into some kind of ‘libertarian’ porridge.
Secondly, there are plenty of major innovations and works of genius in the modern era which have little or nothing to do with entrepreneurialism. Everything from the major literature of the Western world since Shakespeare, to the periodic table, to the cure for Polio.
It’s time the non-reality based side of politics (i.e. you) ‘owned up’ – there is no ‘entrepreneurial class’ anywhere until genuine innovators (and, as it turns out, a lot of statist thugs you pretend to despise) make it happen. Actual existing capitalists (as opposed to your make-believe ones) were always the first welfare queens.
THR
17 Jan 12 at 9:44 pm
As if lying is going to help.
m0nty
17 Jan 12 at 11:01 pm
It’s lying? Why so, monster.
So you think it’s the epitome of free market economics where demand/supply curves slope downward. ‘splain yourself, you dumb bell.
JC
17 Jan 12 at 11:04 pm
Calling Medicare a Soviet system is lying. We are not living under communism. It’s just the usual tired old scaremongering in lieu of an actual argument by the right.
m0nty
17 Jan 12 at 11:12 pm
Our health care system is a socialist system, m()nty.
wreckage
17 Jan 12 at 11:15 pm
Socialist (or partially so) yes, Soviet no.
m0nty
17 Jan 12 at 11:16 pm
I suspect many here would prefer a fully privatised system of the sort you find in successful countries like Cambodia. The same sort of system was in operation during Industrial England’s most liberal period. Cambodia still has the better life expectancy and quality of life though.
THR
17 Jan 12 at 11:20 pm
Dude. You’re a Marxist, yes?
Plenty, but not most.
Can you re-phrase that as something other than a vague but angry rant?
wreckage
17 Jan 12 at 11:26 pm
How about, instead of choosing between failed systems, we choose between successful ones?
Don’t you advocate a socialist-left approach such as the ones found in successful nations like Vietnam?
wreckage
17 Jan 12 at 11:28 pm
Historically, the educated and/or brilliantly gifted were not entrepreneurs. The latter was always the path of mediocre ladder-climbers. It’s true that genuine, self-made capitalists have produced some innovations – tacks, for instance. Mostly, they just free-ride trying to sell the stuff intelligent people produce.
THR
17 Jan 12 at 11:29 pm
Compared to its neighbour, I unreservedly recommend Vietnam. ‘Socialist’ Vietnam is miles ahead of capitalist Cambodia. In any case, the system yearned for by Prof Kates and others here would more resemble Victorian-era Manchester, or 1960s Indian slums, I would wager. Life expectancies around 35. But the markets were very free.
THR
17 Jan 12 at 11:32 pm
Wow! Am in awe of the amount of inner city left pomposity and superiority crammed into the otherwise historically and economically ignorant comments from THR..
Lazlo
17 Jan 12 at 11:38 pm
Show us the ‘ignorance’, Laslow.
THR
17 Jan 12 at 11:40 pm
I am sure Cambodia ranks very well on counts of political and economic freedom, and certainly owes none of its current state to agrarian socialism. As such I am sure every classical liberal would clamour for rapid adoption of the “Cambodian model”.
Uh-huh. And all Socialists are Pol Pot. Oh, ok, only most of them. Go around your house and come back with a list of the things you use or need that were put there by genius academics rather than awful, awful “capitalists”.
wreckage
17 Jan 12 at 11:41 pm
Good God, THR, you really need to work for money at least once in your life.
wreckage
17 Jan 12 at 11:42 pm
I never said capitalists were ‘awful’, wreckage. Just mediocre. And I would struggle to find a thing in mine or anybody else’s house that wasn’t made in the
‘capitalist’ style with some form of government hand-out.
THR
17 Jan 12 at 11:44 pm
Every statement in the following:
Show us the ‘evidence’ THR
Lazlo
17 Jan 12 at 11:46 pm
Monster, you idiot.
I’m not saying this with a political/ideological angle you dumb twat.
I’m saying it’s a soviet model in the economic sense, as it’s set up along an identical model the soviets practiced in their economy. Almost no price signal, top down management from the bureaucracy, little response to consumer wants and needs, consumer totally removed from the cost and price point, and politicized supply of resources. This is eggsactly how the sovs ran their economy.
Oh and let’s not forget the 5 year plans too.
Monster, I keep reminding you that you have no head for this stuff. You’re horrible at it. You’ve been here for around a year now and I’ve seen zero improvement. You’re heading for a fail and a well deserved fail too.
JC
17 Jan 12 at 11:47 pm
No THR. Singapore has quite a privatized model, is relatively cheap and works better than ours. The consumer is given choice and is considered important in the metric.
JC
17 Jan 12 at 11:50 pm
Evidence for what, LaSlow? That capitalists invented tacks? Show us a list of the hundred or so greatest geniuses of the past two centuries. Not more than 5% (and even this is extravagant) would be ‘entrepreneurs’. The blind faith that you (and others) exhibit in the capitalist system does little for your credibility.
THR
17 Jan 12 at 11:51 pm
What government hand-out supported the computer you are using right now THR? Or the mobile you will use tomorrow, or the TV you will watch?
Lazlo
17 Jan 12 at 11:53 pm
The consumer is given a choice (up to a point) in our system. You choose your own GP/Physio etc. It’s not that our system is perfect, but that it’s far superior to any more privatised system. Also, the Singaporean system has compulsory national insurance and price controls.
THR
17 Jan 12 at 11:54 pm
Who made them? Were the workers/designers entirely privately-educated? And if we turn to specific products – a Samsung monitor, for instance – then yes, the company in question has had significant collaboration with its national government.
THR
17 Jan 12 at 11:55 pm
Evidence to support you bullshit assertions. How do you define genius? How do you arrive at 5%? All pure shit..
Lazlo
17 Jan 12 at 11:55 pm
Those “one hundred or so great geniuses” the majority of which probably had entrepreneurs who saw the potential, took the capital risk and launched the genius-created product onto the market.
Gab
17 Jan 12 at 11:57 pm
WTF has that got to do with your argument? So if the government funds some education, that makes it a hand-out to the capitalists, who pay the taxes to fund that education. What a load of crap..
Lazlo
17 Jan 12 at 11:59 pm
I gave examples, you dope. Shakespeare, for one. Show me an ‘entrepreneurial’ writer of note from the modern era. Or artist. Or scientist. Or philosopher. Or doctor. ‘Capitalism’ has been a trivial or non-existent factor in most innovations, and, let’s face it, even the cumbersome Soviet system of the USSR came up with plenty of innovations. Your point, and the point of this post, is idiotic, moot, and bereft of even basic historical scholarship.
THR
18 Jan 12 at 12:00 am
Yes, if government funds the education and training of workers for capitalists, that makes it a hand out for the latter. You’re catching on.
THR
18 Jan 12 at 12:06 am
So we’re looking for a home schooled entrepreneur whose parents lived off the grid. That should narrow it down.
Infidel Tiger
18 Jan 12 at 12:07 am
So where do you think government gets these ‘funds’?
Zero chance of you catching on..
Lazlo
18 Jan 12 at 12:09 am
Excluding Bird and his offspring.
THR
18 Jan 12 at 12:10 am
Do you think capitalists and entrepreneurs are the only ones who pay tax? Seriously?
THR
18 Jan 12 at 12:11 am
Ladies please. No hair pulling or scratching in the powder room.
JC
18 Jan 12 at 12:11 am
Steve Jobs (Apple), Bill Gates (Microsoft), Larry Page (Google), Andy Grove (Intel), John Chambers (Cisco), Larry Elison (Oracle)
All scientists or engineers..
Lazlo
18 Jan 12 at 12:16 am
Nope, it’s also payed by the people they employ, who otherwise would be unemployed..
Lazlo
18 Jan 12 at 12:19 am
LOL. Who gives a flying about Cisco and Oracle, in the broader scheme of things? You could make a case for Apple and Google, but not qua ‘science’.
Oh, and that internet thing you’re wasting pixels on – wasn’t invented by ‘entrepreneurs’.
THR
18 Jan 12 at 12:20 am
Exactly the same could be said of the Belarussian public service. Try again, comrade.
THR
18 Jan 12 at 12:20 am
Come on in and man it up JC..
Lazlo
18 Jan 12 at 12:21 am
It’s impossible not to see a political/ideological angle when you’re insulting something for being Soviet.
Claims that Medicare and the health system are unresponsive to consumers are purely ideological, they have little basis in fact. If that was the case, voters would be up in arms about it. As it happens, everybody loves Medicare, and while complaints about funding and service provision are ever present, there’s not a huge clamour of protests about lack of supply at the moment. And if you want to claim that there’s a vast left wing media conspiracy not to report on shortage of beds, my buddy Nelson Muntz has a few words for you.
On a technical point, how can a system be Soviet if there is little to no control over wholesale prices over things like drugs and medical supplies? You might as well label Woolworths or McDonalds as Soviet if that’s your definition, as they are more vertically integrated.
m0nty
18 Jan 12 at 12:22 am
So where does the Belarussian public service derive its income – by taxing its employees at x% and then paying them again at 100%? This is deminishing returns THR.
You are missing something called ‘wealth creation’. The Belaruusion public service certainly does not do that.
Lazlo
18 Jan 12 at 12:26 am
Agreed. And your entrepreneurs – Steve Jobs being a prime example – do not do it either. Do not mistake the labour of Chinese children for the blatherings of ‘liberal’ ideologues.
THR
18 Jan 12 at 12:28 am
Incoherent nonsense, showing your ignorance.
So ‘science’ would be Tim Flannery then?
Who did invent the internet THR? (Caution: I know the answer)
Lazlo
18 Jan 12 at 12:30 am
Who brought up Flannery? If anything, he’s more in the mould of a ‘capitalist’ than a socialist, given that he obviously knows his way around a professional-looking grant application.
US defence. Not entirely free of the poison of government funding, as I understand it.
THR
18 Jan 12 at 12:34 am
Double LOL. Tell us about how the makers of Weetbix and manilla folders are scientific geniuses, LaSlow.
THR
18 Jan 12 at 12:36 am
So the internet was invented by a government department? What a joke.
FYI All the scientific minds that contributed to the birth and development of the internet have been participants in entrepreneurial enterprises. They have not all succeeded. Some have, spectacularly, including some you dismiss out of hand in your ignorance.
Lazlo
18 Jan 12 at 12:45 am
Incoherent nonsense about Cisco and Oracle, not Weetbix. Nice try idiot..
Lazlo
18 Jan 12 at 12:48 am
Dunno, but I can say tell you what Walmart did that was absolutely amazing but little known. They revolutionized logistics. Absolutely turned the science/ area of logistics on its head and were able to deliver astounding savings to their customers while making lots of money for their shareholders.
Who was responsible. It’s incremental. The original owner, then other people they hired.
JC
18 Jan 12 at 1:01 am
Shakespeare was, in point of fact, an entrepreneur, THR.
I suggest you find a new example.
In the meantime, I’d also suggest that your definition of “genius” excludes any developments logistical, manufacturing, primary production, engineering and even nutrition. Not many people get Nobel prizes for producing 100% more food off the same amount of land with 24 month lead-in and no extra resource usage, for example.
Your disdain for every practical and useful item in your possession is pretty disgusting to me, personally. You show contempt for the working class as much as for the middle class.
wreckage
18 Jan 12 at 1:12 am
So Walmart for logistics, who incidentally achieved “impossible” fuel efficiency across their transport fleet and whos stock management results in better emergency preparedness than any current government?
Shakespeare, the successful and notoriously commercial playwright?
Henry Ford, without whom no nation would be ready for the glorious leap to a worker’s paradise, due to insufficiently advanced industrialisation?
Industrialisation itself?
Monsanto’s R&D people, whos chemistry has resulted in agriculture having a diminishing carbon footprint and halted the threat of widespread erosion whilst massively increasing output?
Industrial hydraulics developed by William Armstrong, the system and principles of which are basically responsible for every piece of heavy machinery currently in use, anywhere on earth?
How about the production of computers so cheap even you can own one?
wreckage
18 Jan 12 at 1:22 am
You’re on a loser there, Lazlo. All the major advances happened at US government agencies and/or using public money. You can’t say that a dude like JCR Linklider is an entrepreneur. He spent five years at a private company prior to his major works, but it was a contractor for DARPA so he was getting paid taxpayers’ dollars anyway.
m0nty
18 Jan 12 at 1:35 am
Monster:
The internet that hit the consumer market was nothing at all like what the US government was using.. even remotely similar. But nice try. Still zero right on anything you’ve said for the past 12 months.
JC
18 Jan 12 at 1:38 am
You know two-fifths of rock all about the subject, JC. Stop flailing.
m0nty
18 Jan 12 at 1:40 am
Stop the lying Monster. Again the internet that comae into existence in the consumer market resembled nothing like what the US military was using.
Prove my assertion wrong rather than merely suggesting I’m wrong.
Go away.
JC
18 Jan 12 at 1:48 am
Computerised spreadsheets have revolutionised virtually everything but sex and were developed by entrepreneurs.
Relational databases were developed by corporate R&D, as were the low-sulphur diesel fuels that halted acid rain and the unleaded petrols that halted urban childhood idiocy.
Vulcanised rubber was the product of a failed entrepreneur…. wait. If he failed does he count?
Pretty much all your synthetics were the product of entrepreneurs or corporate R&D (the corporations inevitably being the result of entrepreneurship) and all your natural fibres come to you thanks to hundreds of years of breeding by entrepreneurs and some modern tinkering by corporate R&D.
Oh, and manilla folders might not be a revolutionary work of genius, but the vertical files that demanded them were, and were invented in 1898 by a guy called Seibels. Not a genius, you say? What else do you call a guy who takes a system that didn’t work all that well but was static for centuries and replaces it with a system that is so much better it becomes ubiquitous? He was working in an insurance firm. Does that count?
wreckage
18 Jan 12 at 1:50 am
If you are trying to say that the Internet can be credited to the likes of Cisco and AOL, you’re a blithering idiot. That’s like saying the Industrial Revolution can be credited to Boeing and Wal-Mart.
m0nty
18 Jan 12 at 2:33 am
No doofus, I’m saying the consumer orientated internet came into exitence as a result of the private market.
Who came out with the web browser, you dolt. If it wasn’t for the web browser we wouldn’t be here.
As I said, go away.
JC
18 Jan 12 at 2:37 am
JC
18 Jan 12 at 2:40 am
The Web was designed by Tim Berners-Lee while he was at CERN. CERN is the Euro version of the NSF, and is a governmental agency.
Keep caking on that clown makeup JC, it suits you.
m0nty
18 Jan 12 at 2:42 am
yep, the web is brimming with government innovation, monster, you fatheaded child. Literally brimming
JC
18 Jan 12 at 2:42 am
Also, NCSA is another governmental agency. Massive fail on your part, JC.
Commercialising technology that was invented by scientists employed by government agencies does not make the likes of Andreessen “inventors”. The Internet is a perfect illustration of THR’s point:
The scientists and engineers at DARPA, NSF, CERN and NCSA were the brilliantly gifted ones. Andreessen was the entrepreneur who got the free ride on their innovation.
m0nty
18 Jan 12 at 2:47 am
Tim Berners-Lee was an independent contractor .
As for all te innovation you’re suggesting da government does, where do ou think the resources comes from. The money came from to pay for it, you fat headed child. ,you think tax receipts just grows on trees or does it come from the surplus created in the private market?
Where from, you fat headed child?
Jc
18 Jan 12 at 2:56 am
“where do ou think the resources comes from”
A good point, a fundamental one. But also a shifting of the goalposts.
Jarrah
18 Jan 12 at 3:10 am
I’m not shifting anything. I’m not denying the web was started essentially as a type of information exchange in the government, which I think began in the military. However that internet was nothing like what began to appear in the consumer markets in the 90′s.
In point of fact, Jazz a semblance of the web wasn’t new to me as the trading markets had a sort of phone hooked up intranet i was using in the 80′s and in fact was started in the 70′s by Reuters, which had a strangle hold on fin information for a very long time. The Reuters dealing system and information monitor was privately developed.
In point of fact if the government hadn’t come out with their version, I would hazard to guess that the web would have been developed out of the intranet technology Reuters had. We’d still be here.
Monster downgrades the importance of the private innovations and plays up what happened in government thereby spinning his ideology.
The money angle is not just tangentially important but critical when these discussions take place.
Monster is just wanking himself again.
JC
18 Jan 12 at 3:23 am
Oh and Bloomberg began to appear as a monitor around the mid 80′s. It was providing all sorts of stock and bond information then and you could even do various bond calculations like yield to maturity etc.(think a primitive version of Excel) You could also have conversations on it like the Reuters dealing system (think a primitive version of messaging and email etc).
The idea that we wouldn’t be where we are now without the government is temerity at its worst.
JC
18 Jan 12 at 3:29 am
TBL was still working for CERN, JC, you dolt. His employment status doesn’t change the fact he was being paid from the taxpayer dollar.
I’m glad you’ve moved all the way to socialism, JC. I look forward to your continuing support for government to tax companies at high rates so that government can invest in R&D, enabling entrepreneurs to commercialise government-sponsored innovations. The system works!
m0nty
18 Jan 12 at 3:37 am
Bullshit. High tax countries have lower growth rates.
The Government productivity rate is always lower in the UK. The Treasury won’t even publish it here.
.
18 Jan 12 at 6:26 am
The Internet is much more than the protocols that manage its traffic and describe its content.
Tim Berners-Lee’s invention of HTML was pretty much just a network-friendly abstraction of the multimedia capabilities of the computer system he developed it on, NeXTSTEP – something Steve Jobs designed and marketed during his wilderness years.
It took years to develop a usable, accessible browser in its own right – thank the guy who started Netscape for that.
The other chestnut is that the US Government “invented” the internet as a result of funding the development of the IP stack. Mainframe manufacturers had invented their own networking technologies but it took DoD standardising on IP to make IBM, DEC and other manufacturers to put aside their networking protocols and use the standard. The true achievement here is making these companies give up their ‘never-gonna-share-’em’ proprietary technologies for technically similar but open standards.
But that’s a long way from “the government invented the Internet.”
Toxic
18 Jan 12 at 7:59 am
So it’s just a lie?
The internet was privately invented and then it was nationalised.
.
18 Jan 12 at 8:34 am
How DARE YOU call someone else a dolt?
Is there anything you’ve said here that HASN’T been thoroughly discredited?
You colossal and brain damaged fuckhead.
.
18 Jan 12 at 8:38 am
Steve – Aside from laziness on your part, I’m not sure why you’re trying to force this into a partisan left/right frame.
As people like Jason know, my problem with conservatism is much the same as Hayek’s problem with conservatism.
If you found this post irritating, try this one: ‘Hayek & Rawls’
http://evatt.org.au/papers/hayek-rawls.html
Don
18 Jan 12 at 9:16 am
Steve Jobs did not invent the Web. You’re sounding desperate, Toxic. Next you’ll say TBL stole all his ideas from Gutenberg.
Anyway, Steve Jobs’s invention of iTunes was just a network-friendly abstraction of Benjamin Franklin’s kite. You idiot.
m0nty
18 Jan 12 at 9:18 am
Sure, you can believe that. If you’re a complete moron.
m0nty
18 Jan 12 at 9:19 am
You’re making shit up monty.
Teller and Ullam invented the H bomb, not Harry Truman.
A private contractor invented the nationalised and military internet standards. The private sector already had an alternative system.
.
18 Jan 12 at 9:31 am
You’re still pushing that line, are you? You’re alleging that a sole operator who is contracted by the government is “in the private sector”? You’re a clown.
m0nty
18 Jan 12 at 9:40 am
What I said is entirely true you deadshit.
“Nationalised” is hardly “private sector”.
Stop misrepresenting the truth by making arguments by piecemeal.
.
18 Jan 12 at 9:42 am
“Nationalised” is entirely the wrong word to use here, you technical ignoramus. That would imply that the government seized assets, which is not the case even if your arguments are correct.
Alleging that IBM, DEC and other mainframe manufacturers invented the Internet shows your lack of comprehension. A network is not the Internet. The Internet is the whole IP stack and the public infrastructure that surrounds it, none of which the private companies had any inkling of doing. Saying that inventing mainframe networks is equivalent to inventing the Internet is like saying Herman Rockefeller invented the Sydney Harbour Bridge, or that Jonas Salk invented the cure for AIDS.
m0nty
18 Jan 12 at 9:50 am
No it is entirely the correct word to use monty. It just took a long time for the nationalisation to take root.
.
18 Jan 12 at 9:54 am
What the hell does that even mean? Speak English, man.
m0nty
18 Jan 12 at 9:55 am
It is written in perfectly intelligible English. You desire to have the facts hidden away.
.
18 Jan 12 at 10:01 am
So let me get this right? An academic comes up with an idea which wasn’t publicly funded (other than he was a private contractor, and definitely not with a specific grant) to solve the problem of integrating the web (which was privately invented by financial firms in parallel anyway to the military and private and public universities) and the US Government later assumes regulatory control (with no real legal justification, only raw economic and implied military power)….and presto, it’s invented by the Government?
This is Al Gore’s claim to inventing the internet?
He’s a freaking moonbeam.
.
18 Jan 12 at 10:09 am
You’re descending into the Mariana Trench with this stuff, Dot. I can barely get your signal. It’s mostly noise.
TBL was publicly funded, you nincompoop. Private firms did not invent the Internet. They didn’t invent networking either, that was done by a bunch of academics as well. The US government didn’t nationalise any mainframe networks belonging to private companies. You are well out of your depth on this one.
I don’t doubt that you lot have a raft of other real life examples to illustrate your edisonade myth of muscular Hank Reardens creating the universe with their bare minds. The Internet happens not to be one of them. I suggest you move on to more fruitful examples. Unless you like bashing your head against a brick wall – in which case, be my guest.
m0nty
18 Jan 12 at 11:36 am
Monster
You really a first rate idiot.
JC
18 Jan 12 at 11:38 am
Glad to see you’ve given up on argument altogether, JC. Only the abuse remains.
You really are a complete loser of this argument.
m0nty
18 Jan 12 at 11:39 am
Unless you consider kiddie pron and fantasy football important, then the internet doesn’t even rate in the top 100 inventions of all time.
Capitalism gave us the toilet and the car. That’ll do me.
Infidel Tiger
18 Jan 12 at 11:46 am
You guys are getting it all wrong. The internet is an amalgam of many strands of technological development, and can’t be claimed by any one person or group. Public and private efforts all contributed.
Two things that I don’t think have been mentioned are a good example of this. Bulletin boards were an important step, and they was a distinctly individualist/entrepreneurial endeavour. The non-commercial collaboration between US universities was also very important.
Jarrah
18 Jan 12 at 11:59 am
monty, tell me where this is untrue:
An academic comes up with an idea which wasn’t publicly funded (other than he was a private contractor, and definitely not with a specific grant) to solve the problem of integrating the web (which was privately invented by financial firms in parallel anyway to the military and private and public universities) and the US Government later assumes regulatory control (with no real legal justification, only raw economic and implied military power)
What you’re telling me is since he chose to work as a contractor at CERN instead of as a quant trader (Wall St already had their own unintegrated version of the web as well), the internet therefore was “created by government”.
This is apocalyptic levels of stupidity.
.
18 Jan 12 at 12:01 pm
That’s precisely my point. monty thinks this is a reason to increase ARC fellowships.
.
18 Jan 12 at 12:03 pm
Jazza
Monster is suggesting we wouldn’t be here talking to each other like this if da government didn’t invent the internets.
Your comment is true:
I’ll add this though. The web would have shown up even if the government wasn’t a participant as we had a version from the mid 70′s onwards as a result of Reuters systems servicing the fin markets and later on came the bloomberg monitor.
I’d call it an intranet.
I mentioned this earlier. Both had nothing to do with da government.
A web of sorts would have shown up as a result of these developments in the financial markets.
The fat headed child goes quiet about this and doesn’t want to address it of course.
JC
18 Jan 12 at 12:05 pm
I didn’t say that. Essentially Berners-Lee took the concept of hyperlinks from Doug Engelbart, SGML (a language that had its roots at IBM) and essentially wrote a program to translate pages into something that only worked on a NeXT machine. It took the initiative of many others to make it into something usable by the wider world.
Besides, TBL’s ideas didn’t have any traction beyond the use of SGML to visually present information. He spent a decade working on widening the separation between content and presentation, and making the web editable while most of the traction was towards making content ‘richer’ with the use of JavaScript, Java and Flash. (Microsoft, Sun, Macromedia)
There’s nothing magical about the Internet in terms of packet-switched networks. The only difference is scale.
Paul Baran conceived packet switching while at RAND (private non-profit research group). Bell Labs was responsible for most of the technologies for moving around bits up until the ’80s.
Jarrah is right. It’s stupid to try to reduce the invention of the Internet to one party. But if your infantile mind forces you to do so, ‘the Government’ is not an unchallengeable prime candidate.
Toxic
18 Jan 12 at 12:28 pm
Al Gore invented the internet. Everyone knows that fact.
Gab
18 Jan 12 at 12:29 pm
Spot on Jarrah, JC and Toxic.
The embodiment of the ‘amalgam’ is of course the IETF.
Lazlo
18 Jan 12 at 1:16 pm
I have already itemised your lies, you just refuse to listen. Let me reiterate, since you are acting dumb in addition to actually being dumb.
1. TBL was publicly funded.
2. Financial firms did not invent “integrating the web”, or anything else for that matter. They free rode off publicly funded academics.
3. There was no governing body or set of assets which the US government assumed regulatory control over. US government agencies set up their own, separate network using public monies and defined the standards which comprise the Internet.
4. You claim to know anything at all about this subject (the most egregious lie of all).
m0nty
18 Jan 12 at 1:39 pm
He was a contractor to a public service. He did not have a specific grant, his innovation was due to his own frustration with the systems in place.
I never actually said that – but it’s true anyway. The system used to trade LIBOR based contracts across the pond was free riding was it monty? Please tell me which university was behind this or that traders back then paid a low rate of taxation.
Your first statement is correct as is the second. However, the second purports to be a different outcome to what I said. The US simply took over the regulation because of economic prowess. They didn’t invent anything, they hijacked a free system invented by nerds globally to overcome IT issues in public and private work. Al Gore is a liar and a self aggrandising fool to boot.
You believe him. You’re an “expert” as much is Britney Spears.
How come I’m right and you are making shit up as you go along?
.
18 Jan 12 at 1:46 pm
What a pissweak argument. I believe this is known as the Scooby-Doo Defence. “If it hadn’t been for those meddling kids!”
As I said, Reuters and Bloomberg were free riding off the innovations of government agencies (or more accurately, the IT suppliers were). The financial firms accomplished precisely zero innovation.
Claiming that Reuters and Bloomberg would have provided us with the Internet if given the chance is the most laughable thing I have ever seen you post, JC, and that’s a tough contest. You are a buffoon. Stick to stock picking, you may actually have a skerrick of a clue what you’re talking about there.
m0nty
18 Jan 12 at 1:48 pm
You’re just an ignorant idiot. You didn’t even know this existed until JC pointed it out. Now you’re pretending it’s irrelevant. It was a massive network worth billions. Stop being such a bloody minded fool.
No you’re lying. Specifically state which innovations.
You’re a fool monty. One day you are complaining about evil companies making profits and consumerism the next day they are too inept to do anything.
The fact of the matter is the internet was developed by several different parties with meagre and indirect private and public funding and it was not “invented by the Government”.
.
18 Jan 12 at 1:52 pm
The hair you’re trying to split isn’t even there, Dot. TBL was paid entirely with public monies while he was working on the technologies of the Web. You may try to dance around this fact all you like, but it is inconvertible.
The technology they were using was developed in academia, and apart from MIT and Rand they were all publicly funded institutions. The fact that they bought their hardware from commercial suppliers does not change the fact that the real innovation – which is what we are talking about here – happened before the commercialisation. Commercialisation itself is not innovation, though they sometimes happen at the same time.
There was not a “free system” to hijack, Dot. Whatever network the financial sector had going between them was specialised and proprietary. It would no more be able to give rise to the Internet than a parrot could give birth to an elephant.
Your lack of domain knowledge is cruelling your ability to argue any sort of effective line, Dot. Give up now before you dig your way through to China.
m0nty
18 Jan 12 at 1:58 pm
Reuters and bloomberg are not financial firms Monster, you dolt. They are information providers. They are in the information and data business. Shut the fuck up, as you’re really annoying the shit out people today.
JC
18 Jan 12 at 2:08 pm
Go look up the invention of networking. Most of the players were publicly funded (the aforementioned Baran being the exception).
No hand-waving is allowed on this one, Dot. Innovators at government agencies created the Internet and the Web using public money. This is indisputable. Your attempts at undermining these facts with your “truthiness” are straight out lies.
Like I said, look elsewhere for your examples of innovative private entrepeneurs. There are plenty, I am sure.
m0nty
18 Jan 12 at 2:12 pm
Big deal. Work in a public university here and you get 50% equity in any IP rights. He chose to work there out of novelty in physics, he could have worked in NY as a quant. You are basing “whom” invented the internet over TBL’s job satisfaction.
“The technology they were using was developed in academia”
You just ignore ANY work that was done in the private sector. Who do you think pays the taxes, anyway?
Yes it does considering the equipment has it’s own IP. How do you know the “real” innovation didn’t happen on Wall Street? Are you an expert on the history of Wall Street IT? I thought you purported to be a telco analyst, and a shit one at that.
No, they created it after everyone else had already created their own networks when it wasn’t necessary and imposed their own rules. Somehow you think that CERN’s IP was now the property of the US Government.
Conveniently, the finance sector now, gets rightfully, partial credit.
You can’t even keep your story straight.
Like Jarrah said – no single entity created the internet. There was much work on the public and private side. Assuming if US Congress didn’t usurp authority or TBL worked in Wall Street then the net wouldn’t exist is fantastical.
.
18 Jan 12 at 2:13 pm
Alright then JC, who are the financial firms you claim had the power to invent the Internet and were cruelly crowded out by the government? This should be good. I might make waffles.
m0nty
18 Jan 12 at 2:13 pm
Monster… lol
You know what traders call your mental state a the moment…. “married to your position”. No matter what new info comes in and the losses incurred, you sit there like a ripening banana unable to think straight, or accept you’re wrong.
What a sad, sad day this if for you. So sad.
JC
18 Jan 12 at 2:15 pm
No monty. State the innovations. You’re the “expert”.
No, this is bullshit and it is dishonest.
You actually think the private sector doesn’t innovate.
Why were all of the Soviet Union’s computers reverse engineered from Western ones?
You are a champion of ignorance and stupidity.
.
18 Jan 12 at 2:22 pm
Translation: My name is Dot, and I was wrong.
Keep telling me that the private sector’s taxes pay for government innovation, you lot. It’s beautiful. I’ll remind you about it next time you whine about company taxes. Evidently those taxes go to useful causes, like technological innovation that private enterprise can benefit from! Yay socialism, the Cat is in agreement that it rocks!
“The equipment has its own IP”? LOL! You have no idea what you’re talking about, do you? You’re confusing levels of the IP stack. Your red nose keeps getting bigger and honkier. This is entertaining stuff, the Cat is great fun when you lot sashay in front of machine gun nests like this.
LOL, now you’re bringing sovereignty into it. Stop, my sides are splitting! Those meanies at DARPA, stealing the stuff that CERN stole from them! Bastards! Ha ha ha ha ha!
Translation: “Alright, we’ll call it a draw.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eMkth8FWno&t=3m59s
m0nty
18 Jan 12 at 2:27 pm
I just did, Dot: the creation of networking. You should get your head read old son, you seem unable to comprehend or speak English today.
m0nty
18 Jan 12 at 2:31 pm
So Government gave us the internet, eh?
Thanks a lot for all the spam, porn and mOnty, government.
Capitalism gave us beer, cars, toilets, showers, aeroplanes, bikinis and couches, too name but a few things I’ve enjoyed so far this week.
Infidel Tiger
18 Jan 12 at 2:33 pm
This new line of argument you lot have thought up – that government-funded innovation is really creditable to the private sector because they pay tax – is wonderful in many aspects. You realise that this is a perfect underpinning for arguing for the MRRT to fund the NBN, don’t you? Those miners should be given medals, they are funding the innovations that will fuel the entrepreneurs of the future. Clive Palmer will be personally responsible for the next Atlassian or Hitwise, kind soul that he is. A policy approved by both Dot and JC according to market principles!
I commend this move towards arguing for socialist nation-building on the Cat, long may it last.
m0nty
18 Jan 12 at 2:36 pm
The Government created the idea of a motherboard is what you are basically saying.
Let’s ignore the difference in innovation between the Soviet Union and free world. You muppert.
No monty, that’s not an argument, you lose.
They pay for basic research. They do most of the innovating.
The complaint is about how wasteful it is. The US has low corporate tax rates and high innovation.
monty you are a complete and utter tool if you don’t think hardware has copyright or patents.
Yes at the same time you claim the US Government invented the internet (specifically, Al Gore).
monty, yo are losing very badly but you can call it whatever you like
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFBOQzSk14c
.
18 Jan 12 at 2:38 pm
Monster
You are such an unnecessary weasel.
The point isn’t that we’re supporting government spending, which is really saying supporting a tax regime.
What we’re saying is that no government could exist without the private sector getting stung for money. The private sector would do fine if there was only 3% of the current size of government. And if this was the case historically we would still be at this blog posting comments and you having a serious brain spasm (like you are now).
Go away, you fat headed child. You haven’t won one single argument at this site and you never will.
JC
18 Jan 12 at 2:42 pm
Geebus, m0nty, how about some concrete examples instead of just nonsense? I have to leave soon so quickly now, like a bunny.
Gab
18 Jan 12 at 2:43 pm
Certainly not the sharpest tool in the shed.
Sean
18 Jan 12 at 2:44 pm
It’s also true. Principal and agent principle.
You only think this because you are a fool and equate Government innovation with all innovation. You are a fucking idiot.
Without the mining sector, we’d lose about $30 bn in taxes every year. That’s without multiplier effects.
.
18 Jan 12 at 2:45 pm
Anyone want to address any of the inventions I raised, or is the subject to be decided solely on the basis of who “invented” the internet?
wreckage
18 Jan 12 at 2:48 pm
No, I’m saying that academics employed by government agencies invented networking, so you can’t say that these networks you’re talking about are inventing anything. Building an application on top of a network is not creating a network. It may have been an innovation in the sense of being a financial intranet application, but that’s not germane to discussion about Internet technology.
Do you even understand what I’m talking about? Do you comprehend the concept of the IP stack? I don’t think you do, judging from your ignorant reference to a motherboard.
That is true in other sectors, but not basic Internet technology.
Neither of which has any relevance at all to the discussion. You don’t even know where the goalposts are, so try as you might, you can’t move them.
You lot are the ones married to your position. You’re dead wrong, you are incapable of understanding it, yet you blather on regardless. It’s a freak show.
m0nty
18 Jan 12 at 2:49 pm
This argument started because THR asserted that entrepreneurs brought little or nothing novel or important into the world.
With that assertion utterly obliterated, mOnty is claiming a moral victory because it can’t be decisively proven that that entrepreneurs were pivotal to the creation of the internet.
And now he’s blathering on about the NBN being inherently justified by the existence of taxes.
wreckage
18 Jan 12 at 2:52 pm
But they didn’t. They invented major parts of the networking systems that would become the internet. Are you really arguing they invented networks or are you just being sloppy?
wreckage
18 Jan 12 at 2:55 pm
Oh, so we win. Well, that’s nice then.
wreckage
18 Jan 12 at 2:55 pm
Their basic argument: capitalism evil and nothing has been invented under that system. Inventors, geniuses, get ripped off by the evil capitalists.
Government funds innovation (I know, right?) and socialist government is the best at encouraging and funding innovation.
It would be funny if it wasn’t so pathetic.
Gab
18 Jan 12 at 2:57 pm
monty tried:
“The only people who invented any form of networking were Government officials whom cannot individually or jointly claim credit, but must do so collectively”
Networking was inevitable as computers get sufficiently complicated. What is parallel processing if not networking?
Like Jarrah pointed out and TBL said – the net already existed. He integrated it. He did it himself out of frustration. He did not receive a grant for it and he wasn’t his job to “invent the internet”.
IP stacks are not my thing nor was I referring to them. YOU don’t even understand how a simple PC is a very rudimentary form of networking. Hence my second point. You think networks were only ever going to emerge out of Government edict. This is crazy.
Bullshit.
Bell. Lucent. IBM.
Materials engineering is not “basic IT”.
It was completely relevant monty. You brought up the equipment Wall St owned or leased.
Monty you cannot even keep your story straight. You are attributing arguments to me you brought up, were found wanting and now want to forget.
.
18 Jan 12 at 2:57 pm
‘Sactly, the unnecessary weasel has it around backwards.
JC
18 Jan 12 at 2:58 pm
Like I’ve been telling these chuckleheads, wreckage, they have a lot of fertile ground elsewhere in other industry sectors, but they have chosen to dive bum first into a bed of nails.
m0nty
18 Jan 12 at 3:01 pm
Not true. IBM SNA and DECnet were around before the ARPAnet.
The innovation that led to the internet was the development and publication of open protocol standards, especially TCP/IP. This occured through co-operation between many public and private sector employees, via what became the IETF.
Let’s leave TBL and the WWW out of the discussion then..
Lazlo
18 Jan 12 at 3:04 pm
“Networks” is a broad term, you’re right there. “Networking” in this sense means communication between computers. There are different kinds of networking than packet-based, that’s true.
As far as the financial firms and the mainframe networks from the big suppliers go, though, we’re talking the same stuff as later became the Internet, as innovated originally in large part by academics at government agencies.
m0nty
18 Jan 12 at 3:05 pm
“as innovated originally in large part by academics at government agencies.”
And that’s where it would stay if not for entrepreneurs who could see the potential for taking it to the market.
Gab
18 Jan 12 at 3:07 pm
More and more you type, nothing intelligent to say.
Networks were “inevitable”, were they? A very lazy intellectual position, Dot. I suppose so were electricity, planes and the Hills Hoist? All thought is inevitable if you take a post-modern view of it. But that view is dumb, and you’re dumb for using it.
Parallel processing is not networking, you knuckle-dragging moron. I think you need to go to one of those remedial TAFE courses to teach you how computers work. If that’s too hard for you, lay off making any statements about IT because you just make yourself look stupid. (IT stands for information technology, btw, you drongo.)
m0nty
18 Jan 12 at 3:15 pm
Agreed, but what entrepreneurs do is not innovation, which is what we’re discussing. It’s commercialisation, which is worthy in and of itself, but it not equivalent to innovation.
m0nty
18 Jan 12 at 3:16 pm
“what entrepreneurs do is not innovation,”
Henry Ford? Orville and Wilbur Wright? Philo Taylor Farnsworth? Bill Gates? Steve Wozniak? An Wang? etc
Gab
18 Jan 12 at 3:22 pm
No argument from you monty. No comment on the innovation of the Soviet Union vs the West.
Lazy? It’s true. You hadn’t even thought this through, you insult your social betters and you have the temerity to call me lazy.
What you call “networking” is simply networking to a defined standard.
LOL, tech is monty U. Previously you said I was lazy (inevitable) now my idea is untrue because of what they teach you in a knife and spoon course at tafe.
.
18 Jan 12 at 3:27 pm
Robert Norton Noyce, an inventor and entrepreneur funded by the Soviets. lol
Gab
18 Jan 12 at 3:30 pm
As I said, other industries provide better stories of entrepreneurs who are also innovators. The development of the Internet is not one of them.
m0nty
18 Jan 12 at 3:30 pm
Innovation doesn’t occur in vacuum. It requires someone/group who are trying to solve a specific problem making a bold guess and then testing out their theory. That’s not exclusive to private/public/university sector at all. In fact it can be done in all, more likely however is that a lot more waste occurs where the gravy train lies. A dud innovation in the private sector gets quick feedback which is where the profit motive is important.
Watts and Gutenberg are two of the better examples of individual innovation driven by profit that changed the world more than anything else thus far.
Sean
18 Jan 12 at 3:34 pm
What has the Soviet Union got to to with this issue? Another non sequitur from Dot, who believes every time he yells “Soviet!” it’s an insta-win for his argument.
Words are being typed, but they make no sense when put in the order you put them. Networking requires a common communication protocol which is a defined standard (at least standard to the nodes in the network), otherwise it’s gibberish. So your argument is that networking is networking. Good Dot, a fine argument that. Your fifth grade English teacher would have given you detention for being so incoherent.
You’re on an iPad, aren’t you. That’s the only kind excuse I can think of for such incomprehensible rubbish.
m0nty
18 Jan 12 at 3:40 pm
monty tried at 2.12 pm:
Like I said, look elsewhere for your examples of innovative private entrepeneurs. There are plenty, I am sure. (sarc off)
What has it got to do with your argument – everything.
You inferred you didn’t believe in private innovation, profit or non profit.
This is not an argument. Fail.
Which is what I said, which you then repeat and mock.
That isn’t the point you bloody idiot.
The point is that complexity made it a necessity – not the non existent job TBL had to “invent the internets”.
Now monty agrees with my comment on networks he wished he could forget what he said before. Poor bastard.
.
18 Jan 12 at 3:48 pm
Nearly right, actually a suite of protocols.
Now let’s look at some of the protocols that really pulled the internet together.
Ethernet: invented by Xerox and later fully specified by Xeros/DEC/Intel
IP: based solidly on the innovations of Baran (Rand) and influenced in detail by exisiting suites such as Xerox PUP.
TCP: likewise strongly influenced by Xerox PUP.
So who were the university academics, unsullied by grubby commerce, who contributed to all this? I am not saying they didn’t exist (eg Kleinrock), but they were a small part of a much wider team.
Lazlo
18 Jan 12 at 4:01 pm
Complete bollocks, Dot. I have been saying all along that there are plenty of fine examples you can point to in other sectors which illustrate your legend of the Galtian ubermensch. Just not in the case of the development of the Internet and Web.
You seem to be again confusing the Web, the set of document standards that TBL invented, and the Internet, the set of network standards that DARPA invented. This is another in your long list of confusions in this thread about the IP stack, which has lead to your repeated beclownings. You acknowledge your ignorance of the IP stack, yet you continue blithely wading into arguments about its creation. Dot, the cheerful fool.
m0nty
18 Jan 12 at 4:07 pm
Not true, see previous post..
Lazlo
18 Jan 12 at 4:10 pm
Shorter Monster.
Yea, you lot, AlGore really did invent the interwebs.
JC
18 Jan 12 at 4:10 pm
monty you refused to believe the private sector was innovative and only the public sector can do IT. Lazlo has shown your idea to be wanting.
“You seem to be again confusing the Web, the set of document standards that TBL invented, and the Internet, the set of network standards that DARPA invented.”
I’m only as confused as you, conflating CERN and the US Govt.
.
18 Jan 12 at 4:11 pm
Xerox PARC was essentially a subsidised playground for academia as far as Internet technologies went. Let me see, how many of those Internet technologies did Xerox commercialise with any degree of success… none of them, actually. PARC was a technical triumph for its Internet-related innovation, but a commercial failure. It’s no poster child for private sector entrepreneurialism.
m0nty
18 Jan 12 at 4:20 pm
DARPA, NSF, CERN, NCSA… evidently these mean nothing to you.
m0nty
18 Jan 12 at 4:23 pm
You are saying this in response to a post four minutes earlier where I said the exact opposite thing, Dot. Your cognitive dissonance is pitiful.
m0nty
18 Jan 12 at 4:26 pm
Hey Mont, what other great stuff has the gubbermint invented?
C.L.
18 Jan 12 at 4:27 pm
Misleading. Xerox PARC was a 100% private sector funded research lab, not ‘a subsidised playground for academia’
It is an unsolved mystery why Xerox never exploited the great inventions of PARC, which included windows/menus/point-and-click interfaces, later ripped off by Jobs.
But that is a strawman in the current argument.
Lazlo
18 Jan 12 at 4:28 pm
The current argument, Lazlo, is about whether the Internet and Web are examples of private entrepreneurs creating new industries through innovation driven by the profit motive. Xerox had the chance to do this, but did not take it. Thus it is relevant.
m0nty
18 Jan 12 at 4:31 pm
I know them well mont, and they are not ‘academics’.
DARPA and NSF are funding agencies. They don’t invent anything. DARPA did fund some of the early work (both public and private sector based) that contributed to the development of the internet. But they didn’t invent it.
Lazlo
18 Jan 12 at 4:33 pm
Moving the goalposts mont. The argument is that the innovations that led to the internet only took place in the hallowed halls of academe.
Lazlo
18 Jan 12 at 4:36 pm
Fine then Lazlo, but the academics they hired were paid with public monies and were (contract status notwithstanding) part of the public sector. There was little to no profit motive or entrepreneurialism in the minds of TBL, Cerf, Postel or any of the protagonists of the story until we get to Andreessen. That’s the origin of this long-winded discussion.
m0nty
18 Jan 12 at 4:39 pm
monty SEZ:
monty you refused to believe the private sector was innovative and only the public sector can do IT.
at 4.26
monty tried:
at 4.20
monty has changed his argument mid stream again.
.
18 Jan 12 at 4:43 pm
IP is a layer in the TCP/IP stack.
ar
18 Jan 12 at 4:51 pm
Who was commissioned by the DoD to, as Sean put it, “solve a specific problem”. In this case the problem was one defined (or at least diagnosed) as a public one, the search for a solution was funded by public monies but the solutions drew on diverse public & private intellectual resources and innovations. It’s foolish to try to insert some sort of ideologically based definition of innovation or attribution of credit into a development that was the contingent outcome of a range of disparate initiatives, discoveries & innovations.
badm0f0
18 Jan 12 at 4:56 pm
M0nty and THR have reached new heights (or should that be plumbed new depths?) of stupidity today! What they are both missing is that (as Schumpeter noted) invention is not the same as innovation and also that the incentives to innovate are much stronger in the private sector than in the public sector – you know, the prospect of earning (yes earning) a bonanza from making many consumers happy as opposed to currying favourable treatment from a politician or senior bureaucrat??? I am not getting into this discussion any more, as it would be like Robert Solow discussing tactics used in the battle of Austerlitz with the lunatic who thinks he’s Napoleon. I counsel the rest of you sane Cat folk to do the same…if they cannot see these obvious points, then there is no helping them.
Skuter
18 Jan 12 at 4:57 pm
Happens all the time, you dingbat. That’s why we keep saying to you we need a healthy private sector. If one group misses an opportunity there may be another set of schelps that see it.
Another day another defeat, monster. You’re obviously getting used to it by now.
JC
18 Jan 12 at 4:59 pm
He must enjoy it JC…he has to, else why would he keep rocking up here?
Skuter
18 Jan 12 at 5:01 pm
I agree, monty doesn’t.
.
18 Jan 12 at 5:02 pm
You don’t know that at all.
.
18 Jan 12 at 5:03 pm
I was thinking the same. Failures are an important part of capitalism. That’s why they legislated for corporations; a safe way to conduct tests without bankrupting the people involved (adds a bit of moral hazard too tbf).
Aussie Home loans guy is a perfect of a guy who kept failing until he didn’t!
Sean
18 Jan 12 at 5:05 pm
Likewise agree..
Lazlo
18 Jan 12 at 5:07 pm
It’s really shocking to read that the most technologically advanced societies on earth all have private ownership of the means of production backed up by bourgeois parliaments. There must be something special about these two ingredients that makes them essential to human progress, so in the absence of any serious alternative (and there isn’t one and never will be), I move that we keep private property and bourgeois parliaments, permanently.
Fisky
18 Jan 12 at 5:09 pm
Some people don’t care for big $$ signs but rather get a kick out of tackling a small problem or pushing a new idea (possibly a new spin on an old one). The market simply allows people with enough skills and who can potentially add value to perform these duties. Simple fact is that you can’t be a pioneer who sits in a closed room and doesn’t produce anything or perhaps does but the results aren’t shared with anyone.
Sean
18 Jan 12 at 5:09 pm
^well you can, just don’t expect others to pay you to do it.
Sean
18 Jan 12 at 5:10 pm
This thread is marginally appalling.
To watch THR’s early remonstrations, I felt compelled to ask a simple question:
What drove Banting to discover the successful treatment for diabetes?
Answer: entrepreneurship.
Risk/reward.
THR’s spectacularly limited interpretation of how that mechanism functions is some kind of horror story. No wonder our spiecies is now so wracked, yet again.
We are doomed to suffer intellects such as THR’s.
RichardM
18 Jan 12 at 7:21 pm
This is a category error. You ask a question of Banting’s psychology, and you seek to answer it by way of (confused) economics. Moreover, if you were correct, there would have been no inventions or discoveries prior to the era of industrial capitalism and ‘entrepreneurs’.
QED.
THR
18 Jan 12 at 7:46 pm
There was of course, very little and slow progress.
.
18 Jan 12 at 7:48 pm
Balls. Banting sought to innovate. The food and drink of the entrepenuer. You fail to understand what the concept is, and, more importantly, how the market fosters its growth.
RichardM
18 Jan 12 at 7:52 pm
This isn’t true uniformly. There were times and places of immense progress throughout the pre-capitalist world, from Athens, Florence, China, and India. It’s self-evident that entrepreneurs were not required to motivate a Galileo, or a Kant, or a Plato. In some cases, entrepreneurs actually diminish progress. Take the example of hip hop, for instance. In its origins, it was a brilliant working class invention. The entrepreneurs quickly got to it and very largely destroyed it.
Complete and utter non sequitur. At most – and I’m being kind here – ‘innovation’ or invention may be epiphenomena of capitalism. They are not and cannot be intrinsic to it. The entrepreneur is interested in (usually) short-term financial gain, not invention per se.
But growth very often doesn’t occur, irrespective of one’s religious beliefs about markets. See the latest predictions on Italy, for instance, whose economy is tipped to shrink 1.5% this year. Some ‘innovation’.
THR
18 Jan 12 at 9:21 pm
Dot, the fact that Xerox PARC was a commercial failure with its Internet technologies does not mean I am arguing that “only the public sector can do IT”. Xerox was wildly successful with commercialising other PARC technologies, in fact. As I have said until I am blue in the face, there are myriad other examples outside the Internet that would support your claims about entrepreneurial innovation. You’re beating up on a straw man yet again, in lieu of a cogent argument.
m0nty
18 Jan 12 at 9:25 pm
Balls yet again.
You over intellectualise human motivation (no surprise, coming from such an uncompromising Stalinist).
RichardM
18 Jan 12 at 9:29 pm
monty,
Everyone has handed your arse to you on a platter.
Shut the fuck up.
You said only the public sector can successfully innovate in IT.
lazlo showed this was complete and utter bullshit.
.
18 Jan 12 at 9:32 pm
Skuter, all I have done here today is demonstrate once again that Cat denizens know sweet Fanny Adams about tech issues, which does not seem to stop them telling outrageous lies to support their ideology.
Every so often we get into a technology discussion on the Cat, and the likes of Dot and JC throw themselves against the lightbulb like so many flying ants until they fall over in exhaustion. It’s very entertaining for me, as it’s fun to watch them flail about in helpless fashion, but it’s not edifying.
It also doesn’t really say much about the underlying economic issues. This is more about the ignorance of Dot and JC, it doesn’t prove that the public sector is superior (it isn’t in general, actually). But hey, if they want to dance like rodeo clowns in front of the bucking bronco for my amusement, I’m going to laugh and clap like any punter.
m0nty
18 Jan 12 at 9:34 pm
More complete bollocks. When will you stop lying? I am bringing up examples in the Internet sector, but I am not saying this is the case in all other tech sectors. I have REPEATEDLY said the exact opposite of what you are claiming. You’re shameless, really.
m0nty
18 Jan 12 at 9:36 pm
Why should they honestly deal with the issues Monty when they can bullshit their heads off to the applause of the rest of the echo chamber.
sdfc
18 Jan 12 at 9:40 pm
I haven’t ‘intellectualised’ it at all, I simply haven’t reduced it, idiotically, to the profit motive. Your moronic bit of ad hom at the end does little to commend your intellect, chump.
THR
18 Jan 12 at 9:41 pm
Well said, sdfc. The cheersquad is even more brainless on these issues than they are.
m0nty
18 Jan 12 at 9:42 pm
THR, you continue to confuse invention and innovation. They are not the same and can occur either together or independently. New inventions are not necessarily useful in terms of altering people’s lives on a large scale, whereas innovation can utilise either new or existing technologies to change the way people do things and therefore improve their lives. Both can occur in a socialist or a capitalist system, but due to the inherent incentives and feedback mechanisms in each system, a higher rate of innovation is inherent in a capitalist environment. Of course, as a society becomes more advanced and specialised, genuine innovation becomes more difficult.
Skuter
18 Jan 12 at 9:45 pm
The greatest invention in mankind’s history has been the toilet. This is an incontrovertible truth.
Government’s contribution to the toilet was to reduce its flushing power. Case closed.
Infidel Tiger
18 Jan 12 at 9:47 pm
9:50AM:
9:34PM:
I have shown you to be wrong a number of times today. Please indicate where I have told outrageous lies.
Lazlo
18 Jan 12 at 9:52 pm
Shut up you fucking cry baby you are a serial bullshit artist, monty has been quoted contradicting himself and changing his position in light of evidence, several times.
He doesn’t even bring up his retarded position anymore, just ad hominem.
What’s telling is that you’re being a cry baby just waiting to lay the boot in is that you chime in RIGHT AFTER monty has been caught out contradicting himself again.
ENGLISH MOTHERFUCKER, DO YOU SPEAK IT?
.
18 Jan 12 at 9:53 pm
You merely prove the contention: you fail to fully and realistically understand what the profit motive is.
I understand your need to prevail.
I don’t understand your failure to facilitate that need.
RichardM
18 Jan 12 at 9:56 pm
You merely prove the contention: you fail to fully and realistically understand what the profit motive is.
I understand your need to prevail.
I don’t understand your failure to facilitate that need.
RichardM
18 Jan 12 at 9:56 pm
Another Dot dummy spit. What a surprise.
sdfc
18 Jan 12 at 10:03 pm
You’ve been okay, Lazlo. It’s Dot and JC who are wearing the baggy polkadot pantaloons and oversized shoes.
m0nty
18 Jan 12 at 10:09 pm
“Your moronic bit of ad hom at the end does little to commend your intellect, chump.”
Like I care. I’m reading bullshit, so I call bullshit.
You’re not nearly as clear cut as you’d like to believe.
Honestly. You don’t get it.
RichardM
18 Jan 12 at 10:09 pm
sdfc, get a life.
monty has abandoned his arguments in the face of facts. He can’t even ask any questons posed to him. He can merely change his position when challenged.
We won, he lost.
.
18 Jan 12 at 10:10 pm
Enough of your bollocks. Stop deflecting. Answer the questions lazlo, and everyone else has posed to you.
Lazlo backed up what we said. You cannot even get your slurs to make any sense you fool.
.
18 Jan 12 at 10:11 pm
I have countered every one of your lies, Dot. You keep restating more lies. At some point, you have to stop lying if you want to speak like an adult.
m0nty
18 Jan 12 at 10:24 pm
Dot
Monty as far as I can tell was talking about the internet rather than IT in toto.
Try dealing with that argument rather than one that wasn’t made.
sdfc
18 Jan 12 at 10:29 pm
I feel very Groucho Marx about that..
Lazlo
18 Jan 12 at 10:36 pm
BTW What were dot’s lies?
Lazlo
18 Jan 12 at 10:53 pm
Go eat a dick sdfc. monty said the only the Government can and the private sector can’t innovate in IT.
You uneducated, stupid, pretentious fuckwit.
.
18 Jan 12 at 11:02 pm
I think you mean the WC IT. Toilets are as old as Adam’s arsehole (as are opinions, as demonstrated by a number of leftie goons here today)
Lazlo
18 Jan 12 at 11:02 pm
At 1.58 pm, monty brought up IP issues with hardware that Wall Street used – in addition to software and protocols.
At 2.49, he generalised Government competence in IT innovation to the entire sector.
Just fuck off sdfc you irrelevant little turd.
.
18 Jan 12 at 11:09 pm
They want us to eat shit, and feel good about it. Whereas I want them to get the fuck out of my life.
I’m sure you would agree, monty and sdfc..
Lazlo
18 Jan 12 at 11:11 pm
monty seems not to understand the difference between Intellectual Property (IP) and Internet Protocol (IP)..
Lazlo
18 Jan 12 at 11:14 pm
Hello? Silence from the leftist intelligentsia..
Lazlo
18 Jan 12 at 11:33 pm
I have called out Dot’s lies multiple times in this thread, Lazlo. He has repeatedly stated the opposite of what I just said and claimed it was my position.
m0nty
18 Jan 12 at 11:35 pm
SDFC
Dot has makes a few good points directed to you in that short burst and the abuse was first rate if I may say.
Stay the fuck out of it like monster should.
Monster is having his head handed to him… again.
JC
18 Jan 12 at 11:37 pm
Oh the Bird defense. You know the Monster has egg on his face when the fat headed child hauls out the bird defense… ” You lied”.
That’s it Monster. You’re about done now.
JC
18 Jan 12 at 11:39 pm
And? You’re just stringing jargon words together without understanding what they mean and the relations between them, aren’t you? Software and protocol and such as, indeed. Thanks, Miss South Carolina.
The line at 2:49 went like this (blockquotes extended back):
I was actually agreeing with you that in other sectors, private enterprise pays for basic research and does most of the innovating. You unrecoverable lunkhead, you thought I was disagreeing with you. You’ve spent so long lying, you don’t know what the truth looks like any more.
m0nty
18 Jan 12 at 11:46 pm
That’s funny, I learned that technique directly from you.
m0nty
18 Jan 12 at 11:50 pm
You are really and truly are behaving very strangely monty. Are you so attached to your debunked socialism you cannot admit you are wrong? I’ve damned well referenced where you’ve come up with a dumb idea. When these are challenged, you dump them and give them to the person who called them out. Now you’re calling me a liar for showing the evidence at those times.
Use ctrl F if you can’t find the times.
Just give up this stupid “Al Gore invented the interwebs” meme and get over it.
.
18 Jan 12 at 11:51 pm
This is about you being woefully ignorant about the history of the Internet, Dot. I have said all the way through that you have plenty of examples in other areas to buttress your argument, and I even agree with it in a general sense. In this specific industry sector, though, private enterprise had a minimal contribution and it was by far and away public funded institutions which led the way.
m0nty
18 Jan 12 at 11:55 pm
monty,
You have no arguments. All you have is cheap rhetoric and even cheaper, bargain basement tricks left.
It doesn’t matter that I don’t know how TCP/IP really works. Lazlo has pointed out you don’t know what you’re talking about either.
What matters is that I was correct in stating that you:
1. Asserted only the Government can innovate in networking and IT in general.
2. You brought up the IP that Wall Street had between itself and its suppliers;
and then in 2. had to argue that;
3. The private sector didn’t innovate at all.
Now you are saying because you agree with me (no you don’t really) I can’t tell that you’re agreeing with me, so I’m an inveterate liar.
You are not agreeing with me. I am not lying.
Al Gore did not invent the internet.
.
18 Jan 12 at 11:56 pm
Try again monty.
Try making an argument instead of loading up on convenient assertions.
Your history was woeful. Somehow you have conflated CERN with the US Congress.
.
18 Jan 12 at 11:57 pm
Provide some figures if it is quantifiable and so obvious.
.
18 Jan 12 at 11:58 pm
Gab summed it up wonderfully an eternity ago:
Would love to go camping with that woman..
Lazlo
19 Jan 12 at 12:02 am
No need to provide figures. It’s a demonstrably shit statement. I have provided all the facts above. They have persisted with their lying leftist meme. It’s all they do.
Lazlo
19 Jan 12 at 12:11 am
Dot, I have demonstrated that your point 1 is incorrect, at 11:46pm. JC was the one who brought up Wall Street (another lie by you).
There was no “IP that Wall Street had between itself and its suppliers”. This is gibberish, displaying yet again your cluelessness as to how IT works (that’s information technology, just to remind you). In itself this is nothing to be ashamed about, but you show rank arrogance by drawing ignorant conclusions based on your misunderstandings.
Let me remind you of what I said at 2:49.
This puts a lie to your point 3. I specifically said that the Wall Street network may have represented an innovation. My point was that it was irrelevant to the history of the Internet, because it was orthogonal to the development of the Internet. I don’t know the detailed history of it, but it may not have been packet switched at all, given how IBM didn’t adopt TCP/IP until 1984.
The wingnut playbook seems to follow a general progression.
1. Identify the weaknesses in your own argument.
2. Accuse your opponent of those very weaknesses.
3. Repeat 2 ad infinitum, in the face of all logic.
m0nty
19 Jan 12 at 12:14 am
On the one side, you have DARPA, NSF, CERN and the NCSA, all of whom funded and guided scientists making major advances. On the other, you have MIT making minor contributions, plus Baran who was at Rand but using DoD public money. That’s as quant as you can get about it.
m0nty
19 Jan 12 at 12:17 am
Oh, and Xerox PARC, which was a complete failure as an entrepreneurial powerhouse and was indistinguishable in effect from the public institutions, since it never succeeded in commercialising any of its Internet-related innovations.
m0nty
19 Jan 12 at 12:19 am
Uh, by most definitions those were all capitalist. The ones that maintained technological momentum were ones that were definitely capitalist. Societies that are trade-linked, trade-oriented and productive are the ones where invention happens, but also necessary are rule of law, stable traditions and a reasonable population base.
wreckage
19 Jan 12 at 12:48 am
We can thank the church’s position on usary for holding back the development of capitalism in Europe.
Sean
19 Jan 12 at 1:27 am
Usury is impossible to define, is the problem there.
wreckage
19 Jan 12 at 1:39 am
On the contrary, capitalism as I understand it began with the industrial revolution in the UK, and spread relatively quickly to many parts of Northern and Western Europe and the USA. By definition, all of the places I mentioned were pre-capitalist.
THR
19 Jan 12 at 7:08 am
Give them a break. Wikipedia was down yesterday…
ar
19 Jan 12 at 7:38 am
monty – maybe it is time you answer some questions. How much has the private and public sector invested in IT, and whata re the respective ROI?
monty – I never lied. You just assert that I did.
Here’s what really happened:
1. 2:49
a) monty asserted that only the Government can innovate in IT (which is bigger than the internet)
b) I jumped up and down about it being ridiculous even if you credit the internet as a Government invention
c) monty simultaneously claims now he didn’t mean that he meant all sectors other than IT – and he also meant only the creating internet and not the rest of IT
You really think I am confusing IP with IT? That’s pretty bloody arrogant. Of course IP is relevant, you are saying that firms can’t basically create their own IP in this industry.
2. Your argument about Wall Street originally before I started using a list of your quotes was that it was irrelevant, because I brought it up as a red herring after 1:58. Now you have traced it back to JC. You didn’t argue it was a red herring then, you just said private innovation in IT was ineffective. It was only when I challenged you on this you conveniently found the argument was suddenly “brought up” by me and it was now, a red herring. Now you have accused me of using the tactics you use in your last paragraph, which appears to be what you are doing on this point.
3. You made a category error to argue that Wall St had contributed nothing to the creation of the internet, which is bizarre since they had their own intranet. You are inferring that this technology is no transferable and had no innovation whatsoever except for what was gifted to them. Now, which version of 1. is this consistent with?
As for me being confused about IT – you manage to do this well enough yourself, toxic, lazlo and jarrah have shown your knowledge of IT and the history of the internet to be somewhat lacking for an “expert”. Why did you get CERN and the US Congress confused after all?
Maybe it would be useful if you provided some quantitative data on the effectiveness of public and private R&D wrt the internet, if it is so obvious private spending has been ineffective.
Admit it monty, this is just a blindside for your NBN fetish, which appears to have virtually 0% of the network built, cost 150 bn+ (being an off balance sheet item with a 250 bn debt ceiling) and not have any capital works turn up in ABS (special run) data on engineering construction.
Another gem from you at 2:49
Ha! Something developed in parallel to the internet’s predecessors isn’t “germane” to discussing whether or not the private sector could have on it’s own delivered the internet?
You have to be kidding me. You question whether if I know anything about IT – I say I don’t – can you bloody speak English? Stop using big words you don’t understand you twit.
Shorter monty: If I categorise competition as irrelevant, it’s irrelevant!
monty your last slur is just full of shit. It’s precisely what you have done.
.
19 Jan 12 at 7:41 am
We are not talking about the broad sector of information technology, Dot, but specifically about the development of the Internet. Nice try at shifting the goalposts. (I am going to expand acronyms to prevent further confusion on your part.)
I have said repeatedly that this is not what I said, and showed as such at 11:46pm. You keep lying and lying. Why are you still lying? Is it just lack of comprehension, or are you doing it deliberately because you have no real argument? It’s one or the other. Or maybe both.
No, I didn’t say that. What I said was that your phrase of “IP that Wall Street had between itself and its suppliers”, with IP meaning intellectual property, was gibberish. There is no IP “between” a supplier and its client in an IT (information technology) project. What IP (intellectual property) there is, is either held by the client or the supplier, or parts owned by either, according to contractual details. The IP (intellectual property) is not shared jointly between supplier and client. This is yet another example of how ignorant you are of how IT (information technology) works in practice.
Is anyone else following this? Let’s cut it back to simple terms: you’ve been losing this argument all the way through, and in desperation you have repeated things said by JC and Lazlo in the hope that they make more sense than you do. Which they did, but not when filtered through your smooth-forelobed brain. The “system used to trade LIBOR based contracts”, which you brought up, is irrelevant to the development of the Internet. I would challenge you to find a single article where it is credited as being an inspiration.
I don’t know how many times I have to repeat that I did say that it could have been an innovation, just not Internet-related. Stop lying!
The system for LIBOR trading most likely would have used an IBM or Digital network that was not using anything like IP (Internet Protocol), probably not even packet switched. It has not been cited anywhere as a precursor to the Internet.
Claiming that if DoD, NSF, CERN and NCSA didn’t exist then the banks would have created the Internet is completely and utterly comical. You don’t even realise how ridiculous that sounds.
I am trying to unpick this monstrously hilarious lie. Your line of reasoning seems to be like so:
1. Wall Street ran a network prior to the invention of TCP/IP (Internet Protocol).
2. “The equipment has it’s own IP” (intellectual property).
3. Wall Street deserves “credit” for helping to invent the Internet.
4. The US Government “nationalised” the systems run by Wall Street and others “when it wasn’t necessary and imposed their own rules” to create the Internet.
5. CERN was one of the injured parties which had IP (intellectual property) “nationalised” by DARPA.
The problem is that 3 does not follow from 2. The system would have included hardware from IBM/DEC, from which Wall Street would have developed no IP (intellectual property). There may have been innovation in the software side. This does not imply that the innovation was at all relevant to the development of the Internet, though, as it most likely would have followed a different development line than did the Internet.
Think of it this way. Two medieval artisans are given a slab of steel. One artisan creates the world’s first gun. The other creates the world’s first socket wrench. Can the gun maker claim credit for inventing the socket wrench, or vice versa? No.
As for 5, you are an utter tool, Dot. TBL’s contribution via CERN came later, after the Internet was invented. TBL invented the Web in the 90s, decades after the Internet was created.
That last bit alone completely destroys any credibility you may have asserted in this debate. You don’t even know the difference between the Internet and the Web. Do you even know how to use a computer, Dot, or do you dictate your posts to a lackey? Unbelievable.
m0nty
19 Jan 12 at 9:52 am
I was referring to the internet. Provide some figures. Stop squibbing. Stop falsely accusing me of shifting goalposts.
No monty. You just said something different earlier. You then have the temerity to accuse others of “shifting goalposts”.
This is just pontificating, now monty knows how every single IT contract works…?
So again you’re saying that the financial sector’s own network is irrelevant to the development of the internet. You don’t know this at all monty. You are asking for unfalsifiable evidence.
You claim that the US set up the internet and that TBL was employed by CERN to “invent the internet”.
That is not what is being claimed you illiterate dolt. What is being claimed is that what Wall St had would have evolved into the internet. Previously you asked for evidence now you find it so ridiculous you just dismiss it out of hand. You ask other people for unfalsifiable evidence and now just produce assertions that the private sector can only create derivative software wrt to an internet.
This is actually irrelevant. No one you are arguing with has a claim analogous to this. If you think so, prove it.
Actually he did it in the 1980s but thanks for coming.
lol
You were once a paid IT consultant? Fuck me.
.
19 Jan 12 at 10:11 am
THR; I think a detailed discussion of what is and isn’t capitalist would be frustrating and go no-where, since we have differing criteria and connotations.
There’s really no way to reconcile Marxist theory to my own position, so I’ll just say that a trade-oriented, production-oriented, largely unplanned patchwork of people attempting to accrue wealth is good enough “capitalism” for me.
wreckage
19 Jan 12 at 12:23 pm
IT is not an acronym for “Internet technology”, Dot. It stands for “information technology”. The Internet is a subset of IT. You ignorant fool, you can’t even get the most basic things right in this debate.
If you are asking me to provide figures as to the investments over the course of decades made by DARPA, NSF, CERN, NCSA, MIT, Rand and the other relevant organisations… don’t be stupid. How about YOU provide them, since you’re the one making the impossibly dumb argument that Wall Street invented the Internet.
I did not say something different earlier. Your lack of comprehension skills is the problem here. Stop lying.
I reported on these kinds of stories for years, Dot. I talked to the principals of such projects. I even worked for an IT services company for a short while. In no cases have I ever heard of a supplier and a client holding shared IP (intellectual property) over the innovations in an IT project. The supplier owns some, the client may own some as well, but never “between” the two. You are illiterate about this whole scene.
You are the one making the unsupported claim, which no one has ever made that I have heard, that Wall Street invented the Internet. You have no evidence. There is more than enough evidence that other people invented the Internet.
You are engaging in pure argument from ignorance, in an attempt to shift the burden of proof. Another textbook case of logical fallacy from Dot. It’s a common tactic of yours. You are ignorant about so many things.
Yes, the US did set up the Internet, seeing as it was adapted from US DoD networks. As for your quote, you are quoting your own words and inferring that I said them. I said no such thing. Is it even possible for you to stop lying at this point?
You have no evidence because there is none, so why would I keep asking for it? Unlike you, I don’t generally keep doing the same thing and expecting a different result.
“an internet”? Really? You sound like Ted Stevens. You’re a parody of an old fuddy duddy, Dot.
m0nty
19 Jan 12 at 12:29 pm
monty, man up.
Provide some quantification that the Government is better in investing in the internet than the private sector.
It would be really good if you could show how there is market failure in the private sector.
The private sector was banned from using the internet until George Bush deregulated it in 1992.
I’ll continue the rather acerbic thread in this post later. Just provide some facts and figures for now.
.
19 Jan 12 at 12:40 pm
That’s not what we have been arguing, Dot. We have been arguing about the historical facts of the early development of the Internet industry. Those goalposts are going to stay firmly in place.
Man up to your responsibility to act like an adult and stop lying.
m0nty
19 Jan 12 at 12:54 pm
No monty. You asserted that the private sector couldn’t do it, based on your recollection of what the history was.
Please quantify your assumptions.
.
19 Jan 12 at 12:56 pm
You cannot pretend you were “discussing the history of the internet”. All along you have been asserting it was impossible for the private sector to create the internet as we know it, or something close. This just confirms your bias.
.
19 Jan 12 at 1:01 pm
THR
Actually, the entrepreneurial genius goes back at least to Aeschylus and Aristophanes, all the way to Shakespeare – the quintessential entrepreneurial genius – on to Spielberg and Gates today.
Peter Patton
19 Jan 12 at 1:15 pm
I asserted that the private sector DIDN’T invent the Internet, based on what everyone accepts is the true history of its development. To the extent that it couldn’t, that is true of the governance aspects, but not the underlying technology. The Internet is defined in large part by its public-sector-influenced governance, though, so it’s hard to see how Wall Street could have invented it. If Wall Street had invented it, it wouldn’t have been the Internet. It would have been something far less free and open.
In any case, your assertion that the private sector DID invent the Internet, but the US government “nationalised” it, is a hopeless joke. You’re worse than Al Gore.
m0nty
19 Jan 12 at 1:46 pm
I never asserted that monty.
There is no need to be dishonest.
You have no proof of this, nor any reason to say this.
Ergo, you’ve concluded the private sector cannot innovate in IT (as you said before). This is demonstrably false.
.
19 Jan 12 at 1:54 pm
M0nt you’re showing your chops as a washed up has been IT “journalist”.
The “Internet” is merely a a description of the connection of disparate private networks communicating via a common network protocol: TCP/IP.
Trying to claim that “The Internet” is some sort of monolithic “Government run” entity is the sort of embarrassingly vomitous rubbish that caused the end of dead tree IT magazine industry which the likes of you polluted throughout the 90′s.
The real history is thus:
The US military needed a better network protocol so paid various competing public and private American institutions to invent and build it, out of that ARPANET and NCP and later TCP/IP was born.
Apparently these organizations being paid to invent something equates to “The government built the Internet”, similar I suppose to Al-Gore building it himself.
In fact the most amusing thing, the most deliciously tasty and most ironic thing (in the context of Leftists crowing about wonderful Government) is that the “Internet” was built entirely for the much maligned by the left “Military Industrial Complex”. In fact it’s one of its greatest achivements while also being one of its greatest rorts with people moving into and out and around and around of DARPA and the IPTO into universities, various private institutions and their own companies while giving to each other and taking massive grants and contracts and plum positions from one another.
It is indeed wonderful, just wonderful to see leftists extolling the wonderful virtues of a product (TCP/IP) funded by and created purely for the American Military for the protection of the US against the Soviet threat.
God bless you United States Military, for without you, leftists couldn’t tell us all how evil you are and God Bless you US Military Industrial Complex, for without you we would not have The (TCP/IP based) Internet.
(We won’t go into the large private networks: Fidonet, Compuserve, Telenet etc that were operating and on the up and up at the same time as well).
twostix
19 Jan 12 at 1:57 pm
I never claimed anything of the sort, 26. Steve is right, you are silly as a two bob watch.
Last time I looked, the US military was a public sector institution. Here’s an analogy for you: The Australian government needed a better network so paid various competing public and private Australian companies to build it, out of that NBN was born. Would you claim the NBN is a triumph of private enterprise? After all, NBN Co is pretty much just a funding body at this point, like DARPA was.
The reality is that the Internet, and the NBN, are public sector projects. The fact that they employ people who previously worked in the private sector does not change that it is a public sector project.
m0nty
19 Jan 12 at 2:15 pm
That’s unfortunate, wreckage, as I’m not using some specifically Marxist definition of ‘capitalism’. As I understand it, the term refers to the industrial economic system which emerged in the UK around the 1780s (give or take a couple of decades) and spread from there. Your definition is unsatisfying in several respects. First, what constitutes ‘unplanned’ trade? Do you simply mean trade not organised by a central authority? And what in your definition distinguishes capitalism from feudal, soviet-style or even hunter-gatherer economies? All could arguably fit your categories, rendering the term ‘capitalist’ meaningless.
THR
19 Jan 12 at 2:21 pm
You claimed that the US government “nationalised” the Wall Street network’s “real innovation” for which “the equipment has it’s own IP”, “when it wasn’t necessary and imposed their own rules”. So the direct implication of what you’re saying is that Wall Street invented the internet, and the government confiscated it like so many Fanny & Freddie assets.
You’re a figure of fun, Dot.
m0nty
19 Jan 12 at 2:24 pm
I never claimed or said that.
The US nationalised something TBL was willing to give away (“the web”) (he invented it without specific funding as an employee of CERN) and the US denied private sector access.
No, you’re a lying fuckwit who can’t produce any evidence.
.
19 Jan 12 at 2:31 pm
The word “nationalised” makes no sense in this context, Dot. What assets did they seize? TBL went of his own free will and set up the W3C at MIT (which is a private institution, I might add). He was not forced by the US government to do anything. You’re using entirely wrong terminology.
Access to what was denied? Are you saying the development of Mosaic should have been put up for tender? How much of an idiot are you?
m0nty
19 Jan 12 at 2:40 pm
Then US Congress blocked commercial development for 2-6 years, except for the military and educational institutions which are largely public (and not for profit).
More absurd anti commercial bias with no basis whatsoever.
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19 Jan 12 at 2:51 pm
You’re still not explaining what was blocked, Dot. As 26 pointed out, there were a number of commercial networks and BBSes around that time. What exactly was blocked for two to six years? What was the name of the bill?
m0nty
19 Jan 12 at 2:57 pm
So you refuse me any quantification but demand evidence? Wanker.
I don’t know the bill but we know Bush and Clinton deregulated after the fact.
Yet above you refuse to believe the internet would have happened or that it would have been prohibitively expensive.
Absurd.
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19 Jan 12 at 3:03 pm
It is common knowledge commercialisation was held back.
Pretty easy to claim competitive advantage if you prohibit competition.
.
19 Jan 12 at 3:04 pm
Give it up monster. You’re getting destroyed.
JC
19 Jan 12 at 3:05 pm
The NBN hasn’t been “born” at all.
They’ve built less than 1% of a seven year project almost three years into it.
Costs have blown out at least 25%.
What a joke.
.
19 Jan 12 at 3:06 pm
I don’t believe this bill existed, Dot. You’re making it up. You have displayed your wanton ignorance often enough in this thread that the default should be to assume that you don’t know what you’re talking about.
An Internet that grew from commercial BBSes would have been a bunch of silos. Imagine about five different AOLs, massive walled gardens of content with no interoperability and DRM everywhere. The analog hole of the telco sector all over again, what a disaster. That’s what you would have got from them if the public sector hadn’t stepped in.
m0nty
19 Jan 12 at 3:11 pm
No, it isn’t. Point it out to me in a historical document about the birth of the Internet. Go!
m0nty
19 Jan 12 at 3:12 pm
I thought the Internet started in the military? Either way, the Internet that we all use and have used over the past two decades is undoubtedly a product of entrepreneurialism!
Peter Patton
19 Jan 12 at 3:19 pm
You’re a lying cnut M0nty you claimed that the Internet by definition is government run:
Truly that and the fact that you try and erase the massive contributions of MIT (who only helped to invent that little inconsequential operating system called UNIX which runs the bulk of heavy lifting machines on the Internet) and the inventor of Packet Switched networks: Paul Baran, in pursuit of your dogmatic unreal belief that it was all government all the time who “created” and runs the Internet is nothing short of disgraceful.
If you were honest you’d accept Jarrahs summation of the history – which is the most accurate.
But you’re not honest, not at all, and you’ve become very, very bitter lately.
Finally your continued bizarre attempts to equivocate the US government funded research into packet switched and redundant networks for military purposes during the cold war and the current Australian government’s state owned public network monopoly are bizarre and not worth disgussing.
twostix
19 Jan 12 at 3:26 pm
It is widely known commercialisation was held back. The National Science Foundation had to lobby Congress for commercialisation AFTER Gore co authored his “invention of the internet”.
Anti commercial quackery.
Horseshit. Private sectors and walled gardens give us Apple’s market dominance in consumer IT now, Al Gore gave us NERN and dial up.
The NBN hasn’t been “born” at all.
They’ve built less than 1% of a seven year project almost three years into it.
Costs have blown out at least 25%.
What a joke.
.
19 Jan 12 at 3:29 pm
monty actually went on to say that beforehand.
Cognitive dissonance par excellence.
.
19 Jan 12 at 3:30 pm
Translation: I am too lazy to research it. Or, I don’t even believe the rubbish that comes out of my own mouth so I’m not going to bother. Signed, Dot.
m0nty
19 Jan 12 at 3:33 pm
You fucking idiot.
Research NSF 93-52 you dummy.
.
19 Jan 12 at 3:34 pm
Wait, so did this deregulation happen under Bush or did it get delayed until Clinton? You can’t even make your own lies internally consistent. What a loser.
m0nty
19 Jan 12 at 3:35 pm
It began under Bush. Gore wasn’t as far sighted as he thought when he co-authored the bill as a Senator and the NSF had to lobby Clinton to commercialise.
Learn to fucking read, chump.
.
19 Jan 12 at 3:37 pm
Commercialisation was not held back, Dot, unless you’re an ideologue who considers any public investment to constitute crowding out. The NSFNET backbone was the backbone of the Internet, pretty much, when the advent of the Web kickstarted demand for Internet services. The NSF allowed commercial operators on it but imposed acceptable usage policies – not censorship, but relating to volume of traffic to prevent free riding. This is normal, prudent resource planning.
The only problem with NSFNET was that smaller operators didn’t like the cosiness of the larger vendors like IBM and larger ISPs like MCI, as the government was picking winners with its funding for projects a fair bit at the time. This came to a head in the ANS CO+RE controversy, which was about peering, which is the interconnections between networks – a subject I know like the back of my hand, as I worked for a peering organisation for 8 months. This was about commercial negotiations over contract terms between ISPs of different sizes to connect to each other, which has always been fraught with aggro. If you think grousing by smaller ISPs about the unfairness of it all is a terrible scandal, pay some attention to the industry for a while, as that’s pretty much every story no matter what the market conditions. They do like to complain.
While this spat was important on its own terms, it does not come close to fulfilling your statement that “commercialisation was held back”. There was a transition to commercial networks, but it was never going to happen overnight. The four-year period from 1991 to 1995 when NSFNET during the Web era was still operating was always going to be temporary.
tl;dr: Dot still has no idea what he’s talking about in this area.
m0nty
19 Jan 12 at 4:11 pm
Commercialisation was held back. Stop bullshitting us, monty. Commercial activity was once illegal. The US Government insisted that because it’s part of the network was there first – it could/should regulate the whole thing – you could be connected by a private network but the G men insisted you were misappropriating their funds and bandwidth.
Furthermore, e Commerce was really born when netscape utilised ssl. This innovation did not come from Government.
.
19 Jan 12 at 4:23 pm
The NSFNET was created for universities and academic institutions for the purposes of research and education, paid for by the taxpayers of America. It was not so egregious to regulate its use to prevent free riding for commercial purposes. It became clear quickly after the advent of the Web and the explosion of demand that this situation was untenable, of course, which is why the NSF transitioned to the NAP model. You can argue the toss whether it took too long, but the transition started just after the Web took off.
I should think that the fact that the controversy spanned the administrations of Reagan, Bush I and Clinton would tell you that this was not a leftist conspiracy.
m0nty
19 Jan 12 at 5:59 pm
None of those are trade-oriented, and the fuedal isn’t even production-oriented. Limits on “planning” mean that central authorities did not have control of production decisions, so feudal and hunter-gatherer slip in there, but I consider the Soviet to be a central authority. We can quibble on that, if you like, but overall I think you’ve misread my intent.
My replies to you assume you work from Marxist assumptions, as I understand them; they’re implicit in much of your argument. My background is in business, specifically farming and agribusiness, and lifelong. I think we can understand each other better if we acknowledge there are fundamental differences in our outlooks, right down to word definitions.
I have used the word “Capitalist” to mean trade-oriented, production-oriented, (ie “open”) economies where production decisions are largely decentralized and almost exclusively profit-motivated.
It is very frequently used as such, which I agree is very broad, whereas it implies (and means to some) a society driven by maximising capital gains by whatever means present; I’d tend to call that mercantilism or crony capitalism depending on the mechanisms used to create and cement legislative advantage.
It is my opinion that placing down an arbitrary line before which there was no capitalism is like arguing that before a certain time there were no collectives. Perhaps specific academic models do so; I suspect they are ahistorical.
wreckage
19 Jan 12 at 6:50 pm
No one ever said that. It’s just how the Government works. We disagree with you that it is efficient or innovative.
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19 Jan 12 at 7:14 pm