Comments on: So What?

By: Sure, Congress Has Principles « Where’s Lumpy?

Sure, Congress Has Principles « Where’s Lumpy? — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 03:42:19 +0000

[...] so says this one. This echoes my point in this earlier post. Why is “ownership society” a good [...]

By: You Friend

You Friend — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 11:50:06 +0000

Just one example: look up ‘NSFNET’. This was a large education (not military) network funded by NSF. They spent 100’s of millions (1980’s dollars) on connecting universities together.domain

By: whereslumpy

whereslumpy — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 13:19:45 +0000

@My Friend: Careful, I did not mention the constitution once. Could have, but didn’t.

You say the internet wouldn’t exist if it were not for federally funded research; care to prove that point? That’s a pretty strong statement, because it means that under no conditions could the internet have existed without Uncle Sam’s help (or Al Gore’s, I guess, since he invented it). Yours sounds like a false cause argument to me.

If you meant that federally-funded research helped create the internet as we know it today, then you’ll get no argument here. That’s different than saying that the internet couldn’t have existed without Uncle Al, er, Sam. To the extent that that funding was for purposes of defense, and much of it was (ARPANet, etc.), said funding was at least within constitutional bounds.

Thanks for the idea for a new post though >:)

By: Your Friend

Your Friend — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 10:57:35 +0000

Our poster’s outrage over the Federal government’s involvement in areas where they are not constitutionally mandated to act is very clearly communicated in this blog article. (and transmitted to you, the reader, over a network that would not exist if it were not for Federally funded research, and 30 years of federal subsidies.)