Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

> It really isn't a good filter for anything except "makes money quickly".

How do you figure? We stand in a nation built on giant economic long shots and in the only one that managed to put humans on the moon in a joint government commercial venture.

I'm using an open source product to write this to you. Running on an open source operating system. Also on an open source hardware device. Where's the "quick money" in any of this?

> but that doesn't mean it's useless.

It doesn't mean it's useful either. You can't use a simple "expectation factor" divorced from all other reality to decide how to spend tax money.



Our motivation for putting humans on the moon was an international dick-measuring contest. While the space race certainly created jobs and advanced science and technology, none of that was the primary reason we went up there.


>Where's the "quick money" in any of this?

Where's the capitalism in open source? Yes, yes, Red Hat, Microsoft etc all have their hands in it, but the very idea is anticapitalist.

>You can't use a simple "expectation factor" divorced from all other reality to decide how to spend tax money.

It's a bit more complicated than that, but plenty of countries outside the US spend money on things without tangible economic benefit.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: