[ExI] Private and government R&D

[Stefano Vaj]

On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 9:27 PM, Dan<dan_ust at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Actually, no.  In the present world, there are people like you, most people on this list, me, etc. who want such research.  If, let's say, tomorrow, the world turned completely libertarian -- i.e., no more coerced funding for anything, including the research you know and love -- would that mean no one would step up and fund the stuff?  I hardly think that'd be the case.  Do you?  Why?

No. I think on the contrary that if we manage to establish a
transhumanist Zeitgeist, research gets funded, no matter what economic
system is in place. If we do not, neither economic system is going to
help. :-)

With a caveat, however: a world with plural legal systems, communities
and sovereing entities, gives transhumanism (and transhumanists, who
can always relocate, legally or otherwise) more chances than
one-wolrdism... :-)

> *  That, as we can see, it looks like tokamak research is a dead end.  I could be wrong about that, but after half a century of research, how come we don't see tokamaks powering up entire nations?  Now we don't have a crystal ball, so nobody circa 1960 probably could've known that the tokamak resources might have been better used on other projects, but it's funny how this publicly funded project keeps on going...  I'd almost bet that tokamaks will never work but will continue to be funded for the next five decades.

I am not in love with tokamaks (actually, inertial or polywell
confinement might be the way to go...) but what about the ridiculous
level of the investments involved? To make ITER, for a budget which is
less than 1/80 of the costs of the Iraq adventure, it took ten major
countries plus years and years...

-- 
Stefano Vaj