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A comment on We have socialised the risk of innovation but privatised the rewards. Parent comment

Re:We have socialised the risk of innovation but privatised ... by nmrm2 on Monday March 09, 2015 @10:04AM (#9170945)
> β€œIt is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” -Upton Sinclair

The author met that they've benefited in the sense that we all have benefited.

I very much doubt that there are many people in the world who have directly benefited (i.e., received grants from) all of NASA, the NIH, and DARPA.

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Re:We have socialised the risk of innovation but privatised ... by dnautics on Monday March 09, 2015 @02:44PM (#9172902)
Even if the benefit is indirect, it's still hard to see how alternatives are possible, even when the evidence is right there in front of you. Did you even know we eradicated two diseases without the NIH (Smallpox, eliminated in the US by 1897, long before the NIH existed) - and Polio, eliminated through the private nonprofit March of Dimes.
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