From: poser@vxdsyc.desy.de (Till Poser)
Subject: Re: Supercollider "For" or "Against"
Reply-To: Poser@vxdsyc.desy.de
Organization: Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron, Experiment ZEUS bei HERA
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1992 00:51:30 GMT

In article <Bs61Lt.Ft5@apollo.hp.com>, nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson) writes:

|>>Records are not much good as a means of preserving technology. Too much
|>>of the actual expertise tends to reside in the culture that supports the
|>>technology.
|>
|>   By "records" I mean detailed technical descriptions of the technology.
|>   What couldn't you reconstruct from that? 

Would You be so kind as to remember a NASA press conference in the beginning
of the eighties, where they stated unabiguously that "NASA would not be able
to put a man on the Moon within ten Years, regardless the effort". What had
happened? They lost the technologogy to do that. The threw away the records.
They scrapped the machines that built the machines that ... built the
Saturn components.

Moral: If You lose a technology, it is _very_ hard to start it up again.
       Not impossible, but hideously expensive. It doesn't really matter
       how complex the technogly is. We're _still_ not able to rebuild
       Stradivaris.

|>   I'm not suggesting basic science be totally eliminated.   If the
|>   world had half as many high energy physicists, astronomers, etc
|>   as it has today, and the total money spent in these fields were
|>   half what it is today, we wouldn't return to a Dark Ages of
|>   science; things would just happen a lot slower and on a smaller
|>   scale than now.  

The real question is, how does the slower and smaller scientific progress
of a nation influence it's competetiveness? A scientific establishment
is not a luxury (the extent of it might be subject to discussion). Another
question to be asked: scientific breaktroughs in abstract research are
unpredictable. On the whole, however, a greater investment, however one
wants to quantify it, has a good chance of yielding a greater return.
What is the extent of abstract research that allows a nation to stay in
the game?

|>>But there is also the counter example of industries which deliberately
|>>refused to persue research. GM and Ford used to be pleased as punch that
|>>rust rendered a replacement for their products necessary after a few
|>>years. Built-in obselesence was the name of the game.
|>
|>  And the market responded to this by clobbering the big 3's market share
|>  and opening the doors to more reliable, quality-conscious imports!  
|>  I think this is a good example of how the market ensures that 
|>  private companies keep their customer's needs in mind.   

This is disingenuous. This is true only for a variegated market, and there
are some technologies, which are in the hands of de facto monopolies or 
cartels. The market has little concerns with a possible future need, it
satisfies the consumer now, or within the scope of the next couple of 
months. Companies have been known to slash and abandon non-imminently
marketable research in the face of coorporate hardships.

The question is, whether the market, and market forces, allow for abstract
research, and allow for it beyond the scope of the quarterly report. If
not, is abstract knowledge a "Ding an sich" , thus intrinsically valuable,
and if so, how does one go about providing for its supply? Note that I am
not saying anything about the SSC in specific. I just don't trust the
market to be that altruistic.

|>---peter

       Till Poser         Internet: poser@vxdsyc.desy.de
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