Is the Space Elevator a Public Good?

[Fife]

Do you think the state will need to fund it?

Yes, if a public good.

Did you read my OP?

Yes I did. I'm just wondering if maybe you should develop another framework rather than try to make space elevator fit the definition.

OK I accept that your read it; but you obviously didn't understand it. My point is that the space elevator does NOT "fit the definition."

I told you that "space elevator" was a term of art for the purposes of the OP question.

Once again, para gusto:


I'm not sold on the idea of the state building a space elevator just yet; but if we could advance from that concept to provide non-rivalrous / non-exclusive transport to and from zero-G, I think I'm all in.

What do you all think about public funding of zero-G transport? What regulations would be proper and moral? (weight limitations, customs inspections, environmental safety regs, &c)

Is the space elevator a means to the end of zero-G? Of course, no one knows, I just picked that example arbitrarily. Zero-G transport might be developed by some kid messing around with number theory and topology in the middle of Iowa in his mom's basement for all we know. Which leads to the big question: Should the state attempt to mandate the development of certain technologies to the exclusion of others? Who says the state has a crystal ball to know in which direction research efforts should go?

[Speaker to Animals]

You are on the razor's edge of what I was trying to get at in the OP now. A normal highway to zero-G is obviously not a public good.

A telepad to zero-G, under the right conditions, certainly would be a public good.

How do we connect the dots? Because if we don't, we're screwed. I'm not willing to wait around on 12,000 to 15,000+ years worth of absolutely consistent central planning failures to get us there. How do we turn human capability loose from the state?

What if you have it exactly backwards?

I'm certainly willing to accept that idea as counter argument. What evidence exists to suggest that I have it exactly backwards?

It's more a lack of evidence. Everywhere I look in history, the lease state power, the least technological advancement. Rome had much state power and they spanned three continents with paved roads and aqueducts. The Cimbri had little more than a tribal government, and we only know about them because of the Romans. No real achievements in science and technology there. The Chinese had the first nation state in human history and promptly began inventing all sorts of interesting things. Mongolians.. not so much.

You can see it pretty clearly in Japan. Under the Shogunate, there was little technological and scientific advancement. Americans show up. Meishi Restoration begins. The emperor is in charge again and suddenly Japan leaps from an iron-age civilization (with some gunpowder) to seriously threatening the United States in less than a century.

Without strong state power, the United States would never have landed on the Moon, never have cured polio. Indeed, without government research labs, I am convinced we will never cure most diseases because curing them is unprofitable for private enterprise compared to developing treatments and drugs.

No Hoover Dam which makes much of the economic development in California impossible. We can all list examples for pages, but I cannot think of any examples where a lack of centralized government resulted in humans solving the really big problems.

Indeed, the bigger the problem, the more likely we need government to at least organize the response to it.

[Fife]

Your OP is insane. The answer to congestion is toll roads. The concept of a space elevator for the public good, ok, let's just substitute any random sci-fi term like teleportation, as a public good, doesn't exist. There is no public good created by the state. At best you have public goods capitalized by the state for the greater good and even then you incur a decrease in innovation for the profit of centralization.

This whole fucking premise is whacky and I have news for you, it's completely fictitious. If you think for a second that our third world replacements have even pretended to consider these implications you're a dullard.

I never knew you were such an anarchist. RAWWWR.

[doc_loliday]

I understood what you meant, I was just proposing that you might reconsider what the function of the state is. I don't know if its space elevators, but Sta is onto something, right?

[TheReal_ND]

Your OP is insane. The answer to congestion is toll roads. The concept of a space elevator for the public good, ok, let's just substitute any random sci-fi term like teleportation, as a public good, doesn't exist. There is no public good created by the state. At best you have public goods capitalized by the state for the greater good and even then you incur a decrease in innovation for the profit of centralization.

This whole fucking premise is whacky and I have news for you, it's completely fictitious. If you think for a second that our third world replacements have even pretended to consider these implications you're a dullard.

I never knew you were such an anarchist. RAWWWR.

I'm only an enthusiastic fascist when I gas light myself into beleiving people give a shit about our genetic legacy.

[Fife]

It's more a lack of evidence. Everywhere I look in history, the lease state power, the least technological advancement. Rome had much state power and they spanned three continents with paved roads and aqueducts. The Cimbri had little more than a tribal government, and we only know about them because of the Romans. No real achievements in science and technology there. The Chinese had the first nation state in human history and promptly began inventing all sorts of interesting things. Mongolians.. not so much.

You can see it pretty clearly in Japan. Under the Shogunate, there was little technological and scientific advancement. Americans show up. Meishi Restoration begins. The emperor is in charge again and suddenly Japan leaps from an iron-age civilization (with some gunpowder) to seriously threatening the United States in less than a century.

Without strong state power, the United States would never have landed on the Moon, never have cured polio. Indeed, without government research labs, I am convinced we will never cure most diseases because curing them is unprofitable for private enterprise compared to developing treatments and drugs.

No Hoover Dam which makes much of the economic development in California impossible. We can all list examples for pages, but I cannot think of any examples where a lack of centralized government resulted in humans solving the really big problems.

Indeed, the bigger the problem, the more likely we need government to at least organize the response to it.

I do hold that the US is a special case. I think Jonas Salk was successful in spite of the state, not because of it, for example.

Your examples of the Hoover dam and the Apollo program are, IMNSHO, examples of other expenditures on public goods. Apollo is the tougher one, but I can make good arguments all day long on how the program was a public good.

[Fife]

I'm only an enthusiastic fascist when I gas light myself into beleiving people give a shit about our genetic legacy.

Your "genetic legacy" is already ancient fucking history.

Sorry to be harsh about that.

[TheReal_ND]

Says the childless homosexual liberal

[doc_loliday]

Apollo is the tougher one, but I can make good arguments all day long on how the program was a public good.

If they are anything like the traditional arguments made, I'm pretty sure you can make space elevators fit the definition. What are your top arguments that Apollo was a public good?

[Fife]

Apollo is the tougher one, but I can make good arguments all day long on how the program was a public good.

If they are anything like the traditional arguments made, I'm pretty sure you make space elevators fit the definition. What are your top arguments as Apollo being a public good?

What do you mean by "traditional arguments made?" And what does "I'm pretty sure you make space elevators fit the definition" mean?

If you were paying attention, you would know that I don't have "top arguments as Apollo being a public good."

Speak plainly and stop bullshitting around.