Erdos Had The Number First

So, people know about the “Tragedy of the commons”, where farmers graze out
common land because it’s, you know, common and it’s not _their_ land.

Research and Tech companies are doing the same thing. Basic research benefits industries and people, not companies. So why fund it? Sure, if you’ve got momey to burn you might allocate 10% of your staff’s time, but you know as well as I do that your staff is going to dedicate that 10% of their time to their own projects anyway. By giving it official aproval, you just aproving of what is already happening (see Dave Barry’s comments about the National Pretend Speed Limit).

So who cares?

You should, for one. This isn’t just a U.S. problem. This is a general problem that short term profitiability is being pursued without regard to long-term sustainability.
R&D is just one small, but critical, portion of that.

Also, understanding the root cause of the general erosion of basic research being done might actually help to fix the problem. This is doubly true for basic research since it’s not as scarce a resource as it would appear.

Basic research is not an economic good. If your confused at this point, I’m sorry.
This whole post has just sortof turned into notes to myself.