Uh what

Were still the most technologically advanced country in the world with most of the best research institutions. If we get less government well do even better

If we "get less government" that will dry up almost all of the public research funding. I work at a top 5 research medical school and basically every lab here funds with R01 grants. They also court private money but it isn't anywhere near as accessible. My lab courts more private money than any other lab I'm aware of and we maybe get 20% of our funding from private sources like cancer foundations. We have a few projects going with private companies but they aren't the bulk of the work.

If we are the most technologically advanced depends on your metric. If you are looking at theoretical physics we're definitely not the top since the EU has particle accelerators out the wazoo and we trade leadership in computational resources with China. For biomedical research we are probably #1 but that's heavily government funded.

This post was edited by Thor123422 on Jul 15 2020 03:52pm

Although im shaky on the subject of public grants, i think that kind of money is still pretty efficiently used and can still be part of an idealized "better america" where bureaucracy is kept to a minimum. Although whether or not it could be replaced by a privatized system is honestly beyond my scope of understanding.

I would measure "most technologically advanced" by how much meaningful research and scientific innovations a country produces. I added meaningful as there are a ton of shady indian and chinese journals that are pretty awful.

Not on ballot.

Probably just missed his dose of risperdal.

This post was edited by Skinned on Jul 15 2020 04:49pm

Don't think you are really seeing the point I was making. I wasn't contending that the US is not a leader in research. The elite in the US are clearly among the best in the world. The problem is that this eventually will lead to an automation crisis where low skilled to menial labor becomes 10-30% of what it currently is to non-existent in some areas which is the majority of the workforce which results in millions upon millions of people without jobs and no skills to obtain employment that would net them $ to pay bills or spend money to simulate economic growth. When transportation trucks become automated or at the very least set up with remote control operations and you just have nerds in a building playing eurotruck simulator, that entire industry evaporates that supported the truck drivers at truck stops. Retail is already being scourged by it and it will get worse and worse as the years go by.

So it doesn't matter how elite the US research is if the government/culture/society does not realize this has to be met with changes to potentially mean the government has to shoulder wealth distribution to people or else they will take to the streets and things like drug abuse will get even worse cause that's part of the heroin epidemic is that middle aged men who were manufacturing workers loss their job and felt like they had no where to go and just fell through the cracks.

There's also a skills gap in skilled labor/trades that is basically a bubble popping right now as the boomers start to croak and retire that younger Americans aren't trained to take their place which means the US will import that labor.

Uh no i kinda understood you. I was just saying that the outlook that there is no opportunity for certain classes of people shared by many people is a little off.

I think as long as theres money coming into the country theres going to be jobs for everyone. Trades/certain services are in high demand for the next generation of people who dont like traditional school. My bottom line is I hardly think a changing economy is a good reason to trend towards larger government involvement than what we have now.

Wouldnt mind adopting a negative income tax to replace welfare though.