NDT on Trump's "Space Force"

[Yonadav]

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American tax payers are the biggest funders of R&D on the planet. An awful lot of the scientists who are working on government funded R&D are doing so with the intention of patenting their discoveries and making many millions of dollars. Defense contractors all have their roots in government funded R&D. The internet, computers, and cellphones all came out of government funded R&D. Scientists working with government funding develop new drugs in university labs, patent them, and then go on to make millions of dollars off of their government funded research.

Don't get me wrong. I love scientists. I love research and development. But in America our socialized costs for private profits monster is completely out of control. Our scientists live on welfare while doing research, and then bilk us for many millions when they make profitable discoveries that were paid for by us.

Not necessarily bigger than the EU though. True, the EU is not a single country but investment in science is made via European-wide funding bodies. What you are describing is very different to what happens in Europe. Remember, America is not the world.

Brexit: The EU is a science powerhouse - leaving it will put us behind the US in innovation

The EU is already a scientific juggernaut, with a total academic output that's 20 per cent higher than the US. This should be no surprise given the combined EU population of over 500m versus America’s 319m. Europe as a whole produces a third of the world’s research outputs.

I don't know, Mathilda. Our defense spending is orders of magnitude greater than anyone else's. It's one of the reasons that we keep saying that we can't pay for healthcare. I wonder if the EU really does outspend us on total R&D, and even if it does, that is a pretty recent development. In America, we tend to believe that Europeans would be at war again, were it not for US soldiers serving as hostages in the European alliance. Our dark humor about Europeans being at each other's throats again, were it not for us, isn't quite funny. We really are pretty sure that you folks would be trying to kill each other again, within 15 years of a complete US withdrawal from European affairs. So we're off to make space safe for everyone.