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A comment on The Myth of Welfare’s Corrupting Influence on the Poor. Parent comment

Re:The Myth of Welfare’s Corrupting Influence on the Poor by orangecat on Sunday October 25, 2015 @12:09PM (#10447231)
DARPA's budget is about $3B this year alone.

Compared to $10 billion in R&D for Microsoft and Intel and $8 billion for Google: http://fortune.com/2014/11/17/top-10-research-development/

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Re:The Myth of Welfare’s Corrupting Influence on the Poor by mikeash on Sunday October 25, 2015 @01:00PM (#10447423)
Pretty much all of that money comes from selling stuff they are only able to sell because of previous government R&D.

For example, without the government leaning heavily on integrated circuits in the 60s, would Microsoft and Google even exist today?

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Re:The Myth of Welfare’s Corrupting Influence on the Poor by abalone on Sunday October 25, 2015 @02:56PM (#10447891)
...in late stage development which is MUCH less risky. Super risky early stage tech development mostly happens in the public sector at taxpayer expense through government agencies like DARPA.
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Re:The Myth of Welfare’s Corrupting Influence on the Poor by zo1 on Sunday October 25, 2015 @07:00PM (#10448818)
A lot of things are easier when it happens with other people's money. A lot of those projects didn't necessarily have the expectation to make/turn a profit.
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