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Joe Biden: Great ideas of the last 200 years needed government

Did all the great ideas of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries need government?


  • Total voters
    27
  • Poll closed .

Ockham

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“Every single great idea that has marked the 21st century, the 20th century and the 19th century has required government vision and government incentive,” he said. “In the middle of the Civil War you had a guy named Lincoln paying people $16,000 for every 40 miles of track they laid across the continental United States… No private enterprise would have done that for another 35 years.”

- Joe Biden, Manhattan Fund raising even 10/26/2010 - NY Daily News

Think about some of the things you use every day. Some of the biggest inventions that have changed the way we live over the past 200 years. Our health. Transportation. Communication. Did all of those great ideas need government vision and government incentive?


Now take the poll.
 
Why so... absolute? No middle ground?

Joe Biden made it an absolute. So obviously the only correct answer is that he is incorrect.
 
You know a range of options would produce a more interesting poll with a greater accuracy in describing what people on the board really think in an easily accessible visual aid.

“Every single great idea that has marked the 21st century, the 20th century and the 19th century has required government vision and government incentive,” he said. “In the middle of the Civil War you had a guy named Lincoln paying people $16,000 for every 40 miles of track they laid across the continental United States… No private enterprise would have done that for another 35 years.”

- Joe Biden, Manhattan Fund raising even 10/26/2010 - NY Daily News

Think about some of the things you use every day. Some of the biggest inventions that have changed the way we live over the past 200 years. Our health. Transportation. Communication. Did all of those great ideas need government vision and government incentive?


Now take the poll.

You sure youre not.... trying to be divisive? :lol:
 
Joe Biden made it an absolute. So obviously the only correct answer is that he is incorrect.

It sounds like your bitter about the... divisiveness... of his statements. :lol:
 
SE, can you explain your answer?
 
Well as a total absolute I wouldn't say he is correct, an easy example would be the Wright Brothers and their flight at Kitty Hawk. However there are a great many inventions or accomplishments that owe their success or at least timely success to the the government, especially in the past, today I wouldn't be so quick to call much of what the government does as an accomplishment on the scale of some of the projects of the past.

Example: Transcontinental railroad, fueling stations for ships across the Pacific on islands, the Panama Canal.
 
Well lets see....

The computer Chip (dont remember if thats govt or not), The Internet, The Train system, The Highways, The elimination of major diseases, Landing on the moon, Major wars (for good or bad)...

we could make a list of government accomplishments and instances where accomplishment was incentivised.

lets make it a game!

Oh yeah the microwave...

possibly lasers...
 
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Well lets see....

The computer Chip (dont remember if thats govt or not), The Internet, The Train system, The Highways, The elimination of major diseases, Landing on the moon, Major wars (for good or bad)...

Oh yeah the microwave...

possibly lasers...

How about asprin. Microsoft. The assembly line? The lightbulb?
 
Typewriter?
Sewing machine?
Dishwasher?
Telephone?
 
The Internet
Space Travel, Satellites
Eisenhower Highway system
Atomic Energy
 
How about asprin. Microsoft. The assembly line? The lightbulb?

that's just the tip of the iceberg. There are hundreds of inventions, and dozens of concepts that did not require the government in any way, shape or form. Biden, as always, is an idiot.

EDIT: My personal favorite is the transistor, developed in 1947 by Bell Labs... NO gov. assistance whatsoever.
 
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How about asprin. Microsoft. The assembly line? The lightbulb?

Aspirin is as old as roman and before I don't think any side can claim that one.
And wasn't the graphical user interface invented by apple? I dont think a monopoly is an example of something good. Windows has been bad till 7. And its still wigging some computers out.
The assembly line as in job specialization in a complicated manufacturing process has been around for a long time as well, ford applied it to the car and took it to a different level.
And the lightbulb had many inventors too.

As an absolute statement it is wrong, but as a trend I believe it to some extent, the really big important seems to have had some government hand in it.

I dont know there are always exceptions though. :shrug:
 
The other day Joe said Obama's brain was bigger than his skull. I almost spit out my drink when I read that.
 
“Every single great idea that has marked the 21st century, the 20th century and the 19th century has required government vision and government incentive,” he said. “In the middle of the Civil War you had a guy named Lincoln paying people $16,000 for every 40 miles of track they laid across the continental United States… No private enterprise would have done that for another 35 years.”

- Joe Biden, Manhattan Fund raising even 10/26/2010 - NY Daily News

Think about some of the things you use every day. Some of the biggest inventions that have changed the way we live over the past 200 years. Our health. Transportation. Communication. Did all of those great ideas need government vision and government incentive?


Now take the poll.

My advice would be to read Biden's book: Promises to Keep. Amazon is selling for 2.60 from the original 25.95 retail. Such a small price to learn about the man, the essence that makes Joe Biden, the intellectual, the storyteller, the American hero and brilliant government mind...Our country owe's a debt to this legend...
 
Joe Biden is a Time Lord? His skull is dimensionally transcendental? Wow. Who'd have thunk it?
You misread.

It's Obama who is the "Time Lord".

Edit: And as too my reason for voting "Other".

I think there are some inventions and breakthroughs that may have been assisted by the Gov.

But I also think that many more were not.

And of those that were, most would have been accomplished at a later time, if not for assistance by the Gov.

That said, it could be considered that the infrastructure which supported by the Gov. is a kind of assistance.
 
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I think people are being kind of simplistic when they think of 'ideas'. The telephone and internet had ideas behind them but were they really 'great ideas'? Not in the historical sense because they were a conglomerate of various ideas. This is in opposition to things like Fordism for example. Most people don't know this but the reason Ford became a staple of American culture was because the government gave Ford ridiculous tax breaks and leeway during the 1920s. How else would Ford have afforded to essentially create a completely new system of worker efficiency? As another example take telephony. The government has invested billions in the infrastructure that allows people to go on the internet and connect to the world. Mass warfare (a 'Great' idea of the 20th century) couldn't have been possible without the government investing heavily in the military complex ever since WWI. A typewriter is not a great idea. It wasn't even that good of an idea. It's a practical idea but a 'great' idea? Not really.
 
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Well, some of them definitely needed government. I think if you look at the most important inventions, a good many of them had at least SOME significant government involvement...whether in infrastructure, R&D, coordination, or just good old fashioned regulation. What would you consider the most important inventions of the modern world? I think that any such list would include the following technologies, all of which had a significant role for the government:

Automobiles (interstate highway system), airplanes (airports), the internet (DARPA), television (FCC assigning broadcast channels), telephone (phone lines), electricity (power grid), plumbing (public sanitation/sewer systems), antibiotics (large public health campaigns), and high-yield crops (public R&D).

I'm sure there are some examples that didn't require much government involvement, but most of the inventions that I'd classify as among the most important did.
 
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some great ideas the government F'd up.

anyone know the story behind Gene Stoner and the AR-15 assault rifle?
 
My advice would be to read Biden's book: Promises to Keep. Amazon is selling for 2.60 from the original 25.95 retail. Such a small price to learn about the man, the essence that makes Joe Biden, the intellectual, the storyteller, the American hero and brilliant government mind...Our country owe's a debt to this legend...

2.90? I couldn't justify that kind of cash to learn about the "essence that makes Joe Biden, the intellectual..... " PFFFT!!! BWAHAHAHAHAHA~!!!!
 
OF course.
Imagine a nation without government.
Somalia
Then imagine a theocracy.
The middle ages "nations"
 
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