Re: Monopolies
Rich,
Actually, there are two separate issues here:
1. How can any person or organization get the
resources to do fundamental research?
2. What effect does a monopoly have on research?
In my previous note, I was primarily addressing
point #2, and only incidentally touched on #1.
RC> Monopolies or not, there are human beings doing
> research wherever they can find the time, the
> opportunity, and the conceptual novelty to stretch a wing.
Yes indeed. I was not recommending monopolies as the
best or even a good way to fund research. I was just
commenting on the monopoly I knew first-hand, and on
a couple of monopolies I knew from indirect evidence.
Re slack in the system: Sometimes, for some projects,
it can be good. It certainly makes life more pleasant
for employees who don't have to scrounge for pennies,
but it also leads to a lot of bloat. It's a mixed
blessing:
1. Someone has to pay for that extra slack -- customers,
taxpayers, stockholders, underpaid workers, etc.
2. Sometimes the results are very good for everybody
-- a win-win situation all around.
3. But as I commented about IBM, ATT, and Microsoft,
many outstanding projects are killed because they're
so good that they're "counterstrategic", and others
are supported for political rather than technical
reasons; e.g., Billg making Windows 3.11 and W95
incompatible with OS/2 and thereby shooting himself
(and the customers) in the foot by making it
incompatible with Windows NT.
4. And a lot of people take advantage of the extra
slack by just goofing off; e.g., Wally in the
Dilbert cartoon, who is typical of many people
that we all know.
> At present, there is no major market leader that
> can afford to have researchers contributing to the
> greater humanity concerns in genetic tech. But I'm
> sure there will be one within the next dozen years.
I don't have much hope for the pharmaceutical industry
generating serious research. They talk about their
enormous research expense, but when you look at their
bottom line, the largest expense is "market research"
-- i.e., lobbying Congress for laws that prevent people
from buying drugs in Canada and unethical advertising
to sell expensive drugs to people who don't need them.
John