Private corporations are concerned with immediate success. They need to show something in their next quarter report or their stocks will fall. Things like investment in future endeavors is rare, and only risked if there's a chance to gain some sort of perpetual patent. But why bother with high investments in basic research when it's far more profitable to whip up some trivial patent of something even a dumb fuck in middle management could come up with?

No, basic research, the research that actually does lead to groundbreaking results and exciting new technology is NEVER conducted by companies. Never. Remember the laser? You know, the thing that drives your DVD and BluRay drives? Think that was what the idea of Einstein when he whipped up the theoretic basis for it in 1917? Hell, even current patent laws don't allow you to milk it for a century. And no, this is NOT the suggestion that we should extend patents beyond the insanity copyright has already reached. But I ramble.

A lot, and I really mean a LOT, of theoretic and practical research was necessary, from great minds like Ladenburg, Kastler, Basov and Maiman, and still it took the last one 'til the 1960s to produce a working laser, more than four decades after the theoretic foundation.

You think any company on this planet would think in terms like this?

You think any investor would invest in something that could take half a century to produce results you can market?

Hell, it took 'til the 1980s to produce consumer grade lasers. And 'til the 1990s and even 2000s to make them cheap. Today, though, they're everywhere, from consumer electronics to cutting edge science, from micrometer distance measuring to touch-less cutting. And of course playing DVDs and BluRays.

Think we'd have any of those things if we left innovation to the market?

So you're that Nigerian prince who keeps sending me investment opportunities?

You're looking for someone who is incredibly good (able to offer a wide variety of programming languages, good enough to not create any bugs, anticipate them and/or find them very quickly), that is essentially someone who could pick and choose his job, but pay him like some intern.

Would you do it?

That's not what I said.

So? When THIS is what capitalism gets us, I guess socialism can't be so bad.

Agreed. For more than one reason, and from personal experience. I've had both, a crew of code monkeys and a small but incredibly efficient team of well paid but also very good programmers. To say that the latter were vastly outperforming the former (for less money in total, too) is an understatement.

Two people doing each 50% of work will not compensate for one person who could do 100%. Simply due to a lack of information. One person has, by design, all the information that person has. This is not true for two people who should do this one person's work instead. They have to synchronize and exchange information, and that invariably fails at some level as we all know, where you either lose efficiency by having to design an interface between these people or, lacking this, lose even more efficiency when their interface just doesn't work out.

In the end, you're better off with FEWER, but BETTER people than you could ever be with a truckload of code monkeys. Yes, even if they cost a multiple of the monkeys. A billion code monkeys with keyboards will never write the better OS.

And that's what's wrong with the USA today. Working simply doesn't pay anymore. Not working and having others work for you does.

In earlier days, we called them spongers and leeches, but in today's world where everyone needs a title, it's CEO.

Over 100 posts and not a single Super Mario reference...

Again, simple job creation isn't going to cut it, but there are quite a few things that could be improved in the country that requires workforce AND would improve the infrastructure and standard of living of many people.

So do I, and I was appalled when I went to the US for a few months. This was the big role model for economy, of growth and progress? The electric infrastructure (in California, not backwater hicksville) reminded me of our countryside in the late 1960s, and I found hemp isolation on the wires in the buildings. I was kinda wary to use the tap water for anything but washing hands, I didn't consider it impossible that they used lead pipes, too.

Fuck, I've seen better infrastructure in the former East Bloc, and those of you who've been to countryside Romania know what THAT means!

It's more likely to be invested somewhere, somehow. But that doesn't solve the economy problem, it adds to it. We don't need money on the supply side, we need money on the demand side of economy. That's the problem our economy is facing, a lack of demand. Look around you, does it seem like there is any shortage of any goods? Or any kind of service? The problem is that the stockpiles are full but there's nobody who could still buy the crap we produce, or request and pay for the service offered. That is the economy problem today.

We don't need more investment money. We need more spending money. Our economy needs consumers who want to and who can consume. That's a given. Now, our products are good enough that the consumers would want to consume, what's lacking is their ability to do it.

We need money on the demand side to restart our economy into its former strength. We need to SELL, people!

The idea itself is correct, though. It worked in the 30s with the Hoover Dam, which was of course a project to produce electricity and regulate the Colorado to avoid droughts and floods, but it also created an incredible amount of jobs during a time when jobs were sorely needed. Pretty much like today.

I could well see another, similar project, maybe in the south east of the US to protect it from Hurricane floods. There are many projects you could create that don't lead to an overabundance of certain infrastructural systems that lead to more problems. We could actually use that time (and money) to solve problems we have, create jobs at the same time and in the end create better living conditions in the long run.

Punishing "not spending" sounds about right in this economy where our problem is pretty much that people stopped spending.

Enjoy playing whack-a-mole a lot? Because that's what it would be if you really wanted to execute that injunction. There's literally millions of computers participating here, and every single one thereof might contain a copy of that video. Not to mention all the media that were connected to the internet when the video was reproduced and are no longer connected. But may be so in the future. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe next year. Or in 10.

You can order whatever you want, there are simply things the precious law can't order. Well, it can order, but likewise, the people can tell it to go fuck itself, and with impunity. It's not like there is any chance in hell to find out who has the video, who publishes it and where. Unless you're willing to spend a vastly disproportional amount of resources.

Do you REALLY think any country on this whole planet would go out of its way to execute such an injunction? If anything, countries will pay lip service to it, if it's not forwarded to officer /dev/null altogether.

Well, what do you expect when you let corporations write your laws?