How Government Ultimately Kills Creativity

SEE HERE Big science spends billions of dollars for ever diminishing and narrowing returns. As we've increasingly entered the era of big science we've also entered the time of publish or perish and the generation of every more meaningless and limited science. Creativity is not bought and paid for. It is a labor of love and the fruit of intense concentration in a kind of mental space free of the pressures of bureaucratic obligations. It's interesting to me that one of the most productive enterprises, Bell Labs, was also one of the least confining. At Bell Labs they freed smart people to do what they loved and they generated phenomenal results. It was a big play pen for grown up kids who loved science. It wasn't built on the model of a production line or a focused development project. It worked. The more government has intruded big money and big planning into science the less progress there has been. The engineering has gotten more intricate and the technology has been astounding at times, but where are the scientific breakthroughs? I'm reminded of those who at the turn of the century thought that science had already found out everything that could be found and that all that was left was crossing the t's and dotting the i's. The we got relativity and quantum mechanics and superconductivity and all bets were off. That's the only reason I'm the least bit skeptical about saying that we're killing the goose that lays the golden egg. We probably need more adult playpens and fewer big government overkill projects. MORE