Debate help - "government invented the internet"

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hashem Posted: Sun, Jul 22 2012 10:12 AM

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My natural objections are

- The internet is a secure means of communication, plenty of those have been invented and managed without need for government

- The government intervenes in the market in a NECESSARILY counterproductive way, there's no telling a) how much earlier the market would have naturally came up with its more efficient alternative, b) whether we would even need this stone age technology if the market was allowed to advance without government intervention

- The government doesn't actualy have anything except for what it takes from the private sector, so in any event the internet depended originally on the efforts of the private sector

I'm wondering if anyone knows any technical facts to use, like how much of a role the government actually played, whether the government's "invention" of the internet was just a step forward from steps originally worked out by private sector engineers, whether private sector technologies had already been in the process that were better/equivalent but maybe government didn't approve patents or for one reason or another those technologies were illegal...and so forth. Of course, I'm doing my own googling. Thanks in advance for any help guys.

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eliotn replied on Sun, Jul 22 2012 10:55 AM

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Don't know if you found this with your googling, but this appears to be an extensive article on the history of the internet, and how the state was involved.

http://www.internetsociety.org/internet/internet-51/history-internet/brief-history-internet/

Also, I found this, which has an interesting bit of history.  The internet was actually inhibited by government, as they wouldn't allow commercial organizations to connect.

http://www.cnri.reston.va.us/what_is_internet.html#GOVERNMENT%E2%80%99S%20HISTORICAL%20ROLE

Hope this helps.

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John James replied on Sun, Jul 22 2012 11:39 AM

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The invention fo the internet

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hashem replied on Sun, Jul 22 2012 3:38 PM

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Excellent. Thank you both. JJ, you're a mfing encyclopedia. The day we have search access to your brain, google will be obsolete.

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impala76 replied on Sun, Jul 22 2012 5:35 PM

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- The government intervenes in the market in a NECESSARILY counterproductive way, there's no telling a) how much earlier the market would have naturally came up with its more efficient alternative, b) whether we would even need this stone age technology if the market was allowed to advance without government intervention

That doesn't follow from what you said. Now, if you explained how the government preventing commercial firms from connecting to the internet inhibited commercial firms from developing their own internet, that would make more sense (but your argument still wouldn't).

- The government doesn't actualy have anything except for what it takes from the private sector, so in any event the internet depended originally on the efforts of the private sector

Good, but that doesn't address the point.

Your best answer is to note that all forms of government intervention are immoral and that any government program which helps people is doubly immoral. Good luck with your debate, OP.

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Autolykos replied on Mon, Jul 23 2012 8:34 AM

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Ban-Evader:

That doesn't follow from what you said.

Perhaps you'd like to elaborate on this.

Ban-Evader:

Good, but that doesn't address the point.

Ditto here.

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impala76 replied on Mon, Jul 23 2012 8:47 AM

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>Perhaps you'd like to elaborate on this.

He mentions that we don't know how much earlier the market would have come up with the invention (without presenting evidence that this would occur), and then mentions that the market, might, hypotethetically, invented some alternative to the "stone age" internet (but doesn't present a support). That doesn't support the point that "The government intervenes in the market in a NECESSARILY counterproductive way".

>Ditto here.

I don't think his friend denied that the private sector played some role. The point is that both were able to work together to create the internet.

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Phi est aureum replied on Mon, Jul 23 2012 8:50 AM

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The point is the Internet did not flourish or develop its near-infinite potential until the government loosened its grip. The market clearly would have developed it as there were/are hundreds of thousands or millions of individuals and companies that see it as a means to profit in some form or another. The government only demonstrated that it's hands prevent or slow down innovation and the advance of society.

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impala76 replied on Mon, Jul 23 2012 8:54 AM

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The point is the Internet did not flourish or develop its near-infinite potential until the government loosened its grip. The market clearly would have developed it as there were/are hundreds of thousands or millions of individuals and companies that see it as a means to profit in some form or another. The government only demonstrated that it's hands prevent or slow down innovation and the advance of society.

That's true, and perhaps the government should have allowed commercial networks to connect to the internet in the first place so they can benefit from this government invention. However, you might then want to prove that the government denying commerical access to the internet somehow deterred commercial companies from setting up their own internet.

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Autolykos replied on Mon, Jul 23 2012 8:57 AM

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Ban-Evader:

He mentions that we don't know how much earlier the market would have come up with the invention (without presenting evidence that this would occur), and then mentions that the market, might, hypotethetically, invented some alternative to the "stone age" internet (but doesn't present a support). That doesn't support the point that "The government intervenes in the market in a NECESSARILY counterproductive way".

The question is, counterproductive according to who?

I personally think that, had radio frequencies not been nationalized in the 1920s, the "Victorian Internet" could've become largely wireless.

Ban-Evader:

I don't think his friend denied that the private sector played some role. The point is that both were able to work together to create the internet.

Yes, that's how it worked out historically. The question is whether the internet couldn't have arisen without some amount of government effort.

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Phi est aureum replied on Mon, Jul 23 2012 9:14 AM

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The problem with your "government invention" is that the government is made up of people and the government needed corporations to make it happen. It most cetainly would have been created without e government. The government was completely unnecessary in this invention. The government was helpless without the private sector, from capital raising to necessary equipment and technology to the very ideas. Go re-read (or read for the first time) the links from JJ.

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impala76 replied on Mon, Jul 23 2012 9:31 AM

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It most cetainly would have been created without e government.

Eventually, yes. The important point is whether or not the market would have invented it sooner on its own, without government working with private companies to make it.

However, if the articles make an effective case about how social security, public parks, or some other government program prevented the development of the Victorian Internet, well, that is a possible line of argument.

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Phi est aureum replied on Mon, Jul 23 2012 9:34 AM

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It would have developed it at about exactly the same time. The idea of computers talking to each other was just an aspect of the technology of computers. People at IBM and AT&T, among others, we're already working on this. They were ready to go once they were allowed to use the Internet, which is evidenced by the huge jump certain companies got on the Internet.

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impala76 replied on Mon, Jul 23 2012 9:50 AM

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Alright. But do you think the government's decision to close off DARPANET from civillian access hindered the development of the civillian internet? If DARPANET was inferior and inefficient, shouldn't the government have never opened its internet to civillian use?

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Wheylous replied on Mon, Jul 23 2012 4:50 PM

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Relevant article:

Gordon Crovitz: Who Really Invented the Internet?

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eliotn replied on Mon, Jul 23 2012 4:58 PM

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"

Relevant article:

Gordon Crovitz: Who Really Invented the Internet?

"

Thanks.

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Aristophanes replied on Mon, Jul 23 2012 5:08 PM

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Alright. But do you think the government's decision to close off DARPANET from civillian access hindered the development of the civillian internet? If DARPANET was inferior and inefficient, shouldn't the government have never opened its internet to civillian use?

Just look at hackers.  Hackers can do things with APIs that the API originator cannot do (for many reasons, not technical incapability).  The private market is where we get chaos theory from.  Chaos theory (the 'unknown' variable) isn't present in any of the bureaucratic planning. 

The government would not benefit from the private market out doing them.  They create things for themselves (bureaucrats), secure transfers, data sets, etc.  So, while the private market would have advanced the technology faster, it would have been outside the intention and necessity of the state (the military especially) and would probably have threatened the usefulness of the new technology to the state in the first place.

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Wheylous replied on Mon, Jul 23 2012 5:09 PM

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ANY TIME

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Clayton replied on Mon, Jul 23 2012 6:03 PM

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I've written on this at length before. I'm too lazy to search it up or re-type it. The highlights are this: Government didn't invent anything in regard to the Internet. The most you can say is that ARPANet was formative in the development of the TCP/IP protocol which eventually became the basis of the Internet but DARPA's interest had nothing to do with what makes the Internet valuable to normal human beings (web content, low-cost commercial communication, etc.) but rather it was nuclear survivability. All the concepts in network topology - including even packet-routing - predated ARPANet. And what really makes the Internet "tick" is not the network which is little more than wires strung from point to point. Rather, the "magic" is in the computer itself, something the government had no hand in whatsoever, in fact, the government turned its hand against the man who invented the theoretical foundation of the general purpose computer and helped the Allies win the war by decoding sophisticated encryption algorithms. Motivated by homophobic intolerance, they drove him to suicide. I speak of Alan Turing, RIP.

Clayton -

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TheFinest replied on Mon, Jul 23 2012 6:18 PM

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Counterpoint to above mentioned article

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/07/23/wsjs-crovitz-creating-the-internet-and-getting/187284

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2012/07/23/yes-government-researchers-really-did-invent-the-internet/

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/07/wsj-mangles-history-to-argue-government-didnt-launch-the-internet/

Can anyone rebutt this?

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Clayton replied on Mon, Jul 23 2012 6:46 PM

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Rebuttal: The importance of TCP/IP is overblown. There are many competing protocols (e.g. UDP), any one of which could have been the "backbone" of the Internet, instead. Basically, a protocol just specifies the details of disassembling the transmission into packets and gives the header format for each packet. Big freakin' deal. If government invented the Internet, then, by the same token, government murdered the man who made the invention of the Internet possible, Alan Turing.

Clayton -

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impala76 replied on Tue, Jul 24 2012 12:56 PM

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But did the government inventing the internet cause Alan Turing to be murdered? Or vice versa?

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Clayton replied on Tue, Jul 24 2012 6:51 PM

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The point is that if you're going to apply causality that loosely, then the government is responsible for a great deal of nefarious goings on, far more than can be redeemed by the work of a couple guys in defining one out of many available packet transport protocols who happened to be on government payroll and which happened to emerge as the dominant protocol, despite its many flaws. TCP/IP is nothing to wax poetic over... it's really the QWERTY of internetwork protocols.

Clayton -

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The Texas Trigger replied on Tue, Jul 24 2012 7:29 PM

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impala76:

Eventually, yes. The important point is whether or not the market would have invented it sooner on its own, without government working with private companies to make it.

I don't think its really even that important a question whether or not the internet would have been created sooner in a free-market situation. If we could know the truth, and the truth turned out to be that the internet would have first come about through the government instead of from a free-market, would this necessarily be points for the government or strikes against the market? I don't think it would be.

To say the government invented the internet is already a dubious claim, and somewhat a matter of semantics. What the government really did was compile many different, highly important technological advances made by the market and use them in unison to form the internet. But, for the sake of argument, lets just say that their compellation of these technologies constitutes "invention". At the time of its invention, it was used for military purposes. It would have had virtually no use in the market of the time. We can certainly credit the government with inventing the tank first (I would guess), yet this is no strike against the market.

Of course the internet and a tank are very different things. My point in saying that is for the market to have invented the internet when the internet was invented might have been a wasteful use of resources. The government doesn't always invent eternally worthless shit, its just that when the shit they invent aint eternally worthless, its probably worthless today, or will be worthless very soon. So internet = good idea. Internet back then may have equaled good idea with no practical market purpose. 

I could be wrong about this as I have very limited knowledge in this field. Perhaps there was some great usage. I just wanted to make the point that the first entrant into a market is not always points for the entrant.