Libertarians and science

[Kärnfysikern]

I know there is a bunch of libertarians here, especialy godfather whos oppinion I respect alot so I want to hear your oppinion on this.

There is one thing that has always troubbled me when it comes to libertarianism and that is science funding. What would happen for instance to the american national labs under a libertarian goverment?

What happens to all science that "only" have a value in the sense that it gives us knoweledge of how the universe works, but that cant be applied to any technology in the close future and therefor isnt of interest to buisness? Research like that depends almost exclusively on tax payer money.

[Pooks]

Anarcho-Capitalism for one, supports property rights.. some that err less on the anarchy side, and more on the capitalism side, even support intellectual rights, such as patents and so on..

so, in that aspect if there is a vested interest in researching something, on the merits of having a better or cheaper product than your competitor, corporations will fund the reseach..

Corporations same as people would be paying less in taxes to the government in a country that lacks a big govt.
So this money will instead be used on research.

Corporations would have to team up on certain ambitious projects, but it will be done in the more efficient way. There wouldn't be red tape to go through, and it will be run by people hired to do a good job, and not elected officials bumbling around.

or..
People like you Karn, will gather together, and start up organizations with an interest of furthering science.. You could set up charities or accept donations from other people to further your studies.. there just won't be gov't supervision on you studies.. everything you guys study will be your own decisions.. you won't be taxed on income... so you guys could easily set up Funds, in stock markets, or buy bonds, or some other investment, and of course if is a large amount of money, you guys could easily find a way to fund certain science..

[Kärnfysikern]

Anarcho-Capitalism for one, supports property rights.. some that err less on the anarchy side, and more on the capitalism side, even support intellectual rights, such as patents and so on..

so, in that aspect if there is a vested interest in researching something, on the merits of having a better or cheaper product than your competitor, corporations will fund the reseach..

Corporations same as people would be paying less in taxes to the government in a country that lacks a big govt.
So this money will instead be used on research.

Corporations would have to team up on certain ambitious projects, but it will be done in the more efficient way. There wouldn't be red tape to go through, and it will be run by people hired to do a good job, and not elected officials bumbling around.

or..
People like you Karn, will gather together, and start up organizations with an interest of furthering science.. You could set up charities or accept donations from other people to further your studies.. there just won't be gov't supervision on you studies.. everything you guys study will be your own decisions.. you won't be taxed on income... so you guys could easily set up Funds, in stock markets, or buy bonds, or some other investment, and of course if is a large amount of money, you guys could easily find a way to fund certain science..

The problem starts when we talk about realy BIG projects, like CERN, ITER , the hubble telescope ect that cost many many billions to build and hundreds of millions yearly to run. Billions in donations is probably impossible. No company would invest in projects like that because there is no return on investment, yet those projects are the most important ones from a scientific perspective. Industry only funds research that might be applied within 5 years or so.

The other problem with research done by industries is that it rarely is openly published and doesnt contribute much to science as a whole in the same way that the research at universities or national labs.

I agree that everything becomes a mess when the goverment is involved and a couple of million always disappear hiering people to look after those millions in the first place, half the time is spent pushing papers rather than doing research. But I dont se how fundamental big research could survive without tax payer money.

What position does Ron Paul have on the american national labs?

[goodcents]

So why aren't you Johan again?

[Pooks]

So why aren't you Johan again?

He will always be Johan!

Good Question bro, on like Ron Paul's stance on NASA for instance

Did some research and apparently..

"He has said he would keep NASA for national defense purposes."

That is probably not supported by the Constitution,, unless "common defese" is used as a clause...

but...
If elected he would be the President of the Federal government, and his whole agenda, is a small Federal government..

There will still be 50 states that will govern themselves any which way they like.

NASA is mostly located in Florida and Texas, so I would assume more funding for it would have to come from those states, and with which ever countries they work with overseas.. and NASA could be privatized.

Private space projects are taking of like crazy..
the Virgin airlines guy is involved in Space now.
Googles having a space contest thing.
Amazon guys also..
so private corporation are slowly picking up when it comes to space.

[goodcents]

He'll always be just Johan to me aka old lady pimper

[thegodfather]

Im actually a registered Republican, however I adhere to a lot of Libertarian idealism....Anyway, I would still advocate that public funds be used for it. Where these funds would come from? Well you know I actually read an interesting article about mining the comets&asteroids near the meteor belt for natural resources, so I believe the capitalism idea can be applied to space as well, it is the largest untapped resource in existence. If we open up space to the free market I think we will see a lot bigger of a push to explore it than if we just mandate public funds to send a ship into low Earth orbit for 10 days to do a few meager experiments.

There is a great argument for tax dollars to be used for space. Christopher Colombus' journey was financed by Spain.

[Kärnfysikern]

So why aren't you Johan again?

Well I wasnt quite comfterable with that name anymore

He will always be Johan!

Good Question bro, on like Ron Paul's stance on NASA for instance

Did some research and apparently..

"He has said he would keep NASA for national defense purposes."

That is probably not supported by the Constitution,, unless "common defese" is used as a clause...

but...
If elected he would be the President of the Federal government, and his whole agenda, is a small Federal government..

There will still be 50 states that will govern themselves any which way they like.

NASA is mostly located in Florida and Texas, so I would assume more funding for it would have to come from those states, and with which ever countries they work with overseas.. and NASA could be privatized.

Private space projects are taking of like crazy..
the Virgin airlines guy is involved in Space now.
Googles having a space contest thing.
Amazon guys also..
so private corporation are slowly picking up when it comes to space.

I wonder why Ron wants to keep NASA for defense purposes, I thought that everything defense related when it comes to space belongs to the air force?

I guess privatizing NASA would be good aslong as money keeps flowing to them from some soruce, but most of the research NASA does wont give any profit. Investments in things like the Hubbel telescope doesnt give any return at all. So even if privatized NASA would have to rely on grants ect.

Its very cool that private space companies are starting to grow btw, one of those companies are setting up a launch site in nothern sweden D: But I doubt they will ever have any incentive to invest in new space telescopes and things like that.

He'll always be just Johan to me aka old lady pimper

Well my old lady pimping days are over If i ever become single again I think Il give the younger ones a try!

Im actually a registered Republican, however I adhere to a lot of Libertarian idealism....Anyway, I would still advocate that public funds be used for it. Where these funds would come from? Well you know I actually read an interesting article about mining the comets&asteroids near the meteor belt for natural resources, so I believe the capitalism idea can be applied to space as well, it is the largest untapped resource in existence. If we open up space to the free market I think we will see a lot bigger of a push to explore it than if we just mandate public funds to send a ship into low Earth orbit for 10 days to do a few meager experiments.

There is a great argument for tax dollars to be used for space. Christopher Colombus' journey was financed by Spain.

Mining asteroids is defenetly a nice idea. Im all for striving to move industries out of the atmosphere it would be the best thing for the environment. But right now the private companies are not even close to getting to earth orbit. It will probably take 50-70 years before we can even think of mining asteroids.

I guess that is the main problem I envision with cutting state funds to research, industry do not have a very long perspective on research. They fund stuff that can be applied within a few years.

Fusion, next generation fission, space mining and other tech that is 15+ years or more into the future doesnt get any industry money. its to bad because private involvement would probably accelerate things alot.

[meathead320]

I know there is a bunch of libertarians here, especialy godfather whos oppinion I respect alot so I want to hear your oppinion on this.

There is one thing that has always troubbled me when it comes to libertarianism and that is science funding. What would happen for instance to the american national labs under a libertarian goverment?

What happens to all science that "only" have a value in the sense that it gives us knoweledge of how the universe works, but that cant be applied to any technology in the close future and therefor isnt of interest to buisness? Research like that depends almost exclusively on tax payer money.

I am right in-between Libertarian/Republican.

For example I disagree with the War on Drugs; as it is wasteful and unsuccessful, and even furthers the very problem that it was designed to solve, all while spewing for massive amounts of violent crime, and to top it off is an impediment of our rights over our own body.- that is a very libertarian ideal


I do however disagree with 0% taxation all together, and I believe in a strong military and defense, as in a modern world where our enemies have Nuclear weapons, and bad guys would love to walk across our border we need a way to defend ourselves and our freedoms. Wanting a large and strong military is more of a Republican ideal.


Both fundamentally are for a similar idea, “LET THE FREE MARKET DECIDE THINGS”.

Q: As for science purely for the sake of learning, even if no money comes of it…?

A: Private donations, for non-profit research. Those kind of donations can also be encouraged by having them be tax-deductible. What better way than to encourage large donations? It is also better than foring everyone to donate by using our taken tax money. Encouraging vs. forcing.

[3bd]

It really depends on how big and established the beuracracy is. It doesn't matter who wins the election or how much rhetoric is spewed nothing will change with such agencies like the IRS and the EPA and any other biggie you can name. Our newest and scariest beuracracy that scares me the most however is the TSA... totally incompetent and inconsistant across the country, yet they hit you every time you travel - automatically added to your fare no less! Nah, no one's going to shut down science, but it will get redirected according to which ever political party is in office, i.e. it won't get any smaller.

[Logan13]

So why aren't you Johan again?

I can't spell his newer name, still Johan to me.