Comment Re:So, what's the answer supposed to be? (Score 4, Insightful) 235
He asks students to imagine if mainframe vendors had asked government to prop them up in the same way that General Motors recently was.
Perhaps there would have been more supercomputers? Or the internet would have arrived sooner and networking would be more advanced? None of us know what would have happened. Assuming it would have been worse is just speculation.
Given the history of such enterprises, learned speculation would tell it'd have to be worse... You are saying that since they didn't have a chance to screw that up, magically it would turn out to be their only success...