[ExI] Transhumanism and Politics

[J. Andrew Rogers]

On Jan 26, 2008, at 5:07 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
> On 27/01/2008, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>
>> Governments are poor customers.
>
> I don't think arms manufacturers would agree with you.


On what basis do you assert this?  The US used to have a thriving arms  
industry with all the R&D paid for privately, in large part because it  
was a free market.  During the Cold War, the government outlawed the  
previous free market in the US *and* created prohibitive export  
controls that completely killed the industry.  Consequently, the only  
customer left was the US government, by design of the US government.   
Since there was only one customer, it no longer made sense to invest  
in product development unless that customer asked you to and then that  
customer had to pay for the entire process.

The government is a terrible customer.  Profit margins are usually  
regulated, very modest, and thoroughly audited, the indirect overhead  
is extremely high such that only very large companies can afford to  
even participate, and there are an inordinate number of stupid  
regulations to conform to.

Can you name a customer in the private sector that makes these  
demands?  Government is the same entity that will withhold regulatory  
approval for as long as possible so that they can force companies to  
sell to them at cost, saying that the product is not proven on one  
hand and while purchasing it and deploying it pervasively on the  
other.  No one that sells to the government likes this kind of  
malignant behavior on the part of the government, but it is what you  
have to put up with.

So yes, governments are poor customers.  They get away with  
pathological behaviors through force of government that no private  
sector customer could get away with.  And the private sector returns  
better profit margins; you do not have to recoup the cost imposed by  
all the government customer nonsense.


> If the government provided everyone with free toasters, manufacturers
> would strive to make a better and/or cheaper toasters to sell to them.
> If the government had its own toaster research facility, private
> enterprise could set up a parallel facility, lure the best engineers
> to work there with better pay and conditions, and develop toasters so
> obviously superior to the free offering that the population would
> either pay for them directly or insist that the government pay for
> them out of taxes.


You are apparently unfamiliar with how this works; there is a lot of  
history of exactly this happening in the US.

The punch line is that when the private sector comes up with something  
that is clearly better than the "free" government version, the  
reaction of government is to create non-compete regulations and laws  
that prevent the private sector from intruding on their market or in  
some cases the market of a favored regulated monopoly.  I am having a  
really hard time of thinking of a time when this has worked out well  
for the consumer.

The reaction of the government to the obsolescence of one of their  
services by action of the private market is not "Aw shucks, I guess we  
will just close shop" it is "You will not be allowed to compete with  
us, and we have the regulatory power and guns to ensure it".  It is  
like clockwork, and very predictable. Bureaucrats are as resistant to  
losing their cushy jobs as anyone else, but unlike everyone else they  
do not have to compete to keep them if they do not want to.


J. Andrew Rogers