Capitalism made innovations like this possible.

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GalacticGaming1225@reddit

It's a bold move to praise pure capitalism using two technologies that were literally bankrolled into existence by the US taxpayer.

The hard drive's core tech traces back to the military's SAGE air defense program, and the microchip was nurtured by NASA buying up most of the early supply for the Apollo missions.

The innovation you're celebrating is what happens when the private sector commercializes a product after the government has already spent billions doing all the risky, foundational R&D. Less "Atlas Shrugged," more "thanks for the massive subsidy, Uncle Sam."

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GalacticGaming1225@reddit

Based on just two key government projects (SAGE for hard drives and Apollo for microchips), the initial taxpayer-funded investment was about $350 billion in today's money. This was the high-risk seed money.

For taking all the early risk, let's say the public retained a conservative 20% equity stake in the future market it created.

The global semiconductor market, which grew from that seed funding, now generates about $600 billion in revenue each year. The public's 20% share of that would be $120 billion annually.

If you distribute that $120 billion dividend among the roughly 150 million U.S. taxpayers who are the "shareholders," it comes out to:

An $800 check delivered to every taxpayer, every single year.

That's the annual return on the investment we were forced to make, which is currently collected as private corporate profit.

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Important_Total9588@reddit

I mean any and all technological advances since WW2 came from massive government funding and involvement.

Capitalism couldn’t function without government support.

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Middle_Door789@reddit

Yes, the earliest innovations came from government funding, but there was a sort of transition period after the first home computers in 1977 where less of the innovations came from the government and more of the innovations came from companies competing to give consumers the better PCs for a decently low price (then called micro-computers).

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natermer@reddit

I mean any and all technological advances since WW2 came from massive government funding and involvement.

Probably not as much as you think.

It would be more accurate to say that government found and dumped money into people who were creating the tech. They were already inventing shit and figuring stuff out before the government found them.

Government money is one of the reasons technological advancement has essentially stalled out since the 1960s. Since then most of what they are doing is figuring out cheaper and cheaper ways to produce the stuff they discovered in the 1860s to the 1960s.

Throwing tax money at tech doesn't work.

What ends up happening is the companies that invest in lawyers, politicians, and bureaucrats are the ones that end up winning in the market place.

Where as the people that actually go and invent new things end up in the shitter, only to be bought out by big corporations as soon as they start to create anything marketable.

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Bigfatmauls@reddit

Yeah it could function. If you think about it, it’s almost like the wealthiest organizations in the world are governments. Of course government spending in a sector is going to boost that sector, because that is a lot of money. Now if the government didn’t have all of that wealth, the same wealth could’ve gone to the same industry from the hands of private investors/the public, this happens quite a bit, so saying "any and all technological advancement came from the government" is not only not true at all, it shows that you either have 0 understanding or are just pushing propaganda. Saying that capitalism couldn’t function without the government is like saying that drugs couldn’t exist without the cartel lol.

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Important_Total9588@reddit

Ok!

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Bigfatmauls@reddit

Yeah it could function. If you think about it, it’s almost like the wealthiest organizations in the world are governments. Of course government spending in a sector is going to boost that sector, because that is a lot of money. Now if the government didn’t have all of that wealth, the same wealth could’ve gone to the same industry from the hands of private investors/the public, this happens quite a bit, so saying "any and all technological advancement came from the government" is not only not true at all, it shows that you either have 0 understanding or are just pushing propaganda. Saying that capitalism couldn’t function without the government is like saying that drugs couldn’t exist without the cartel lol.

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Asangkt358@reddit

Because massive government funding is everywhere. But that doesn't mean that the advancements were only possible with government spending. I mean, I bet most of the people accomplishing those advancements happened to be wearing shoes. That doesn't mean that shoes are a prerequisite to scientific discovery.

Governments can (and has) drive massive malinvestments and delays in scientific advancement. Go down the rabbit hole of the history of Alzheimer's research or the tragedy that is the development of scurvy treatments. In both cases, government interference in the marketplace drove decades of delay and wasted research dollars.

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Important_Total9588@reddit

It’s almost like The State and Capital work hand in glove! It’s…almost like there isn’t an actual, material distinction between The State and Capital, or rather, they are symbiotic systems!

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Asangkt358@reddit

There are not. State funding is driven by politics. Capitalistic funding is driven by market forces.

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Important_Total9588@reddit

Ok so: it is a False Distinction to separate “politics” from “economics”. They are 2 names given to one system of power-relations.

The cop that beats my ass for being homeless and the security guard that beats me for skateboarding on “private property” are both violent assholes who, in the end, serve the same masters.

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Asangkt358@reddit

That is absolute nonsense. Capitalism is driven by satisfying a consumer need and voluntary transactions. The government is not.

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Important_Total9588@reddit

Oh ok

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Important_Total9588@reddit

Do you call the two sides of a coin separate things? The carrot and the stick are held by the same Master, and guess what buddy? Ur the slave either way.

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Important_Total9588@reddit

“But that doesn't mean that the advancements were only possible with government spending. I mean, I bet most of the people accomplishing those advancements happened to be wearing shoes.“

1) can’t prove a counterfactual; “We could have had similar advancements without massive State investment” isn’t a true or false statement. 2) scientists having shoes isn’t the same as scientists being provided with nuclear and genetic research facilities, billions of dollars in funding, thousands of workers and technicians, etc

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Ok-Walk2985@reddit

No idea what this is but it looks cool af

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Verum_Orbis@reddit

Not human evolution of the hands, brain, and nervous system?

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december151791@reddit

Is the sub getting brigaded hard? Or are y'all the most pro-government spending libertarians in the world?

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Genubath@reddit

Nowadays, you can get a 1TB microSD for <$100

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Electronic_Ad9570@reddit

I got a 2TB external ssd for $120

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NaturalCarob5611@reddit

I'm skeptical that you could have gotten a 1GB SD card for $5 in 2004. I remember buying my first flash drive in 2003 or 2004 for about $30 and it was 256MB.

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rasungod0@reddit

You are correct, a reverse image search shows the oldest copies of this image online are from 2008.

It was first turned into a meme that just said "20 years ago," and "today" in 2013. No weight or price.

It was grabbed by Unilad in 2017 and they made up the numbers I guess.

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bassjam1@reddit

Yeah, I bought my first in 2001/02 for $65 and it was 128 mb.

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rasungod0@reddit

Lower case "b" means bit, uppercase "B" beans byte.

But expecting accuracy from Unilad is silly.

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Tasty_Impress3016@reddit

Don't rub it in. I used to put 10MB removable disk packs in my car to move to another building. We called it "Sneakernet". I remember a series of meetings with an administrator when I needed a 20 MB for a testing partition on the system.

I don't think I own a thumb drive that small now.

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MangoAtrocity@reddit

1GB SD card in 2004 was absolutely not $5. Agree with the sentiment though.

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kvakerok_v2@reddit

Would also be cool to see the cost of R&D of each

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Deep-Sentence9893@reddit

This is silly if you are trying to make the point you are trying to make.

Capitalism sure did make both those products possible, but the massive goverment spending through universities and the military were also required.

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winkman@reddit

...k, but why stop there if you're trying to discredit capitalism?

The only way to truly discredit it is by pointing to a system which would perform better with the same gov/military backing.

That doesn't exist.

Therefore, capitalism still reigns supreme.

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Deep-Sentence9893@reddit

Why do you think I am trying to discredit captilism????

I said, "Capitalism sure did make both those products possible"

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m00t_vdb@reddit

State founded science did.

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jg0x00@reddit

State funded science brought you COVID

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Deep-Sentence9893@reddit

Possibly, but it also brought us vaccines for things like small pox.

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jg0x00@reddit

Yay for a few victories, that still does not justify the rest of it.

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m00t_vdb@reddit

As well as all modern medecin

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zeek609@reddit

Not really, most research into storage density is done by companies like WD, Seagate etc. that have a vested interest in improving their technologies.

Like, I personally use 16TB, Helium filled Exos enterprise drives. They started using the helium because it reduces friction of moving parts as well as keeping the drive cooler.

Helium filled drives had been around as a concept since the 70's but the gas would escape due to the tiny atom size. The first people to figure out how to contain it? IBM in the early 2000's. A private company looking for innovation and profit.

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Deep-Sentence9893@reddit

This argument is getting silly. Of course the free market was required to get the cheap atorage options we have now, but the basis of the technology required was heavily goverment funded.

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initialgyw@reddit

The first digital storage was funded by State science due to wartime and defense. It’s true that free market rapidly evolves the technology, but without the first initial funding for the invention, you would not have any innovation.

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zeek609@reddit

And you think wartime and defense is a public industry? 😂

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initialgyw@reddit

I’m not really sure what you’re implying. I understand that capitalism is the reason why our storage medium is so innovative. But you can’t discredit the government propelling us into the computer age, even if the reason is war and defense. Any findings from the State is not capitalism, is it? You need inventions for innovations and it’s not all capitalism.

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