This page was last updated on June 16, 2016.
How Conservative Businessmen Can Be Revolutionaries; Carl Davidson; Facebook; May 13, 2016.
You can learn more about BCR’s leftster management here. “Leftster” is the combination of leftist and gangster, inspired by the left-originated “bankster.”
They know they can’t win if they don’t lie #11. (links to the other episodes in this series)
On his Facebook page, Carl Davidson (KD) of Beaver County Reds (BCR) wrote, “HOW CONSERVATIVE BUSINESSMEN CAN BE REVOLUTIONARIES. The case of Vannevar Bush (No relation to the Bush dynasty) is instructive. Here’s a vision he first thought out ahead of his time, while he was FDR’s ace advisor on science:”
KD then cut-and-pasted part of the “Memex concept” section from the Wikipedia page about Mr. Bush (VB). Following this, KD wrote:
“One of Bush’s students and proteges was Douglas Englebert [sic], the guy who invented the mouse we all use, and helped all Bush’s ideas become realized, and more.
“BUT HERE IS THE MORAL OF THE STORY: None of this would have happened by markets alone. They were entirely secondary. Every single step of Bush’s vision was backed and developed by government in myriad ways. Keep it in mind when your buddies on the right tell you government can’t do anything right, and never has.”
Except for the portion cut-and-pasted from Wikipedia, it appears KD made up everything else he wrote.
First, KD implied VB was a conservative businessman. I don’t know why KD thinks this matters, but the Wikipedia page KD referenced gave no indication of VB’s political ideology or party affiliation. A quick Google search also came up empty.
Second, KD claimed VB’s memex thoughts came while VB “was FDR’s ace advisor on science.” This claim appears to be false.
According to “Vannevar Bush and Memex” in the “Annual Review of Information Science and Technology” (Volume 41 - 2007), VB “formulated recognizable parts of it [memex] in 1932-1933 in an attempt to improve information retrieval. … In 1939, Bush wrote an unpublished article ‘Mechanization and the Record,’ in which he formulated his concept of a filing and retrieval system, designed largely for experienced researchers and trained librarians, into a ‘memex’ for anyone.” According to the Wikipedia page for “As We May Think,” authored by VB and published by The Atlantic in 1945, “The article was a reworked and expanded version of Bush’s essay ‘Mechanization and the Record’ (1939).”
VB was on several government committees during the late-1930s/early-1940s and it’s not clear which overlapped and which didn’t. Also, some committees were gobbled up by others. VB became chairman of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics in late-1939, chairman of the National Defense Research Committee in June 1940, and chairman of the Office of Scientific Research and Development in June 1941.
KD didn’t tell readers when he thought VB became “FDR’s ace advisor on science.” As noted previously, VB’s thoughts on memex go back to at least 1932, years before he worked on government committees and became an FDR advisor. While I’m sure VB continued to think about memex while working for the feds, there’s nothing to indicate VB’s memex thoughts had anything to do with his time serving on government committees.
Third, Douglas Engelbart (DE) was NOT “One of Bush’s students and proteges.” The Wikipedia pages for “As We May Think” and Messrs. Bush and Engelbart say “As We May Think” influenced DE but that’s it. The same is true for the Doug Engelbart Institute. I found nothing to indicate VB and DE had a close relationship of any kind. In fact, a 1962 letter from DE to VB requesting permission “to extract lengthy and definitely acknowledged quotes from … ‘As We May Think’” reads like a first-contact letter.
Fourth, DE did NOT “helped all Bush’s ideas become realized,” unless he was a time traveler and used an alias. You see, VB was already a successful businessman and engineer years before Mr. Engelbart’s birth in 1925. For example, VB co-founded the company today known as Raytheon in 1922.
Fifth, KD asserted, “None of this would have happened by markets alone.” Not exactly. There is no private-sector market for things like tanks, aircraft carriers, nuclear bombs, ICBMs to deliver the nukes, and so on. A market for a military need doesn’t exist until the feds decide on a preliminary set of capabilities. For example, the Navy wants to be able to launch and land a fighter jet on an aircraft carrier at night during a storm. Enter the “markets” KD detests. Once the feds know what they want in terms of capabilities and cost, they do not design and/or build the jet. The Navy requests proposals from private-sector companies in the military hardware marketplace. Sometimes a bidder may be able to use off-the-shelf technology to meet the specs, sometimes not. In some (most?) cases, the feds and bidders work together to fine tune the final set of capabilities. Due to its nature, military weaponry tends to push technology, and most of this technology can enable civilian needs, either soon or decades in the future. That said, there’s nothing to indicate byproduct technology invented to meet a government need wouldn’t eventually be invented to address civilian needs/wants. To the best of my recollection, government didn’t invent the wheel, airplane, car, radio, telegraph, telephone, television, and so on.
You’ll find the inventions KD tends to use as examples are byproducts of satisfying a military need, the same military whose budget KD wants to cut “in a major way.” You’ll also find “backed and developed by government in myriad ways” mostly means “backed and developed for military projects in myriad ways.” The fictitious People’s Department of Cooking didn’t fund the technology research that led to the microwave oven; albeit by accident, the U.S. military did.
KD would probably like readers to believe the benevolent feds saw a market for microwave ovens and funded a project to invent one. That would be false, however. While working on a radar project for the U.S. military during World War II, a Raytheon scientist noticed a candy bar in his pocket melted when he stood in front of an operating radar unit. That observation turned into the first commercial microwave oven, appropriately named the Radarange. Even so, it took Raytheon more than 20 years after World War II to make Radaranges home-kitchen-friendly in terms of price and size.
Nobody questions that inventions required to satisfy military needs, facilitate space flight, and so on routinely result in byproduct benefits for the rest of us. It’s a whole different thing to believe the feds should direct research in general.
KD wrote, “Keep it in mind when your buddies on the right tell you government can’t do anything right, and never has.” This is a straw man argument. KD knows full well what people mean when they express that sentiment. Things like Medicare, Socialist Security, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and so on come to mind.
In Peace, Friendship, Community, Cooperation, and Solidarity. <g>
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