Here's a picture of Andrew and KengWei when we were at the MaRS center before our meeting. MaRS connects communities of science, business and capital and is a place where smart brains meet world changing ideas.There is a very good energy from the people there not to mention the building design is a masterpiece.
The current market failure makes us wonder what is really wrong with our system. It brings out the age-old debate about the efficacy of state intervention versus laissez faire. The primacy of the concept of market failure in policymaking - the view that state intervention can only be justified when it can be demonstrated that free markets cannot do better - comes in for particular criticism. Not least, this is because market failures emerge due to a typically prevalent lack of information transfer between the different agents in an economy, something that is affected by, among other things, the level of trust between different agents. Economists have very different views among themselves.
As I wrote in my last blog, we need a major technological innovation to get our economy back on track. Should the government pour money into advanced technologies or rather giving money to the automakers? What is the government role in investing in science and technological innovation? Public investments often raised questions on whether it is an effective means.
Many believe that scientific knowledge is most effectively gained through processes of investigation independent of its application. Therefore it is important to accept that it relies upon institutions with a central interest in the pursuit of knowledge without regard to its immediate practical application. This is the tricky part. Military is one of the largest backer of advanced research and historically many today innovation including the Internet and GPS are all military inventions. Is there anything wrong with this?
Governments are pouring money into military innovation gearing for the future warfare. I can't imagine if the same resources and talent were instead invested into healthcare? Here are some of the advanced research taking place:
Software that compiles meteorological and topographical data from a certain area to create new patterns for camouflage. This software in combination with advances in temporary camouflage technology may allow soldiers to paint trucks and other hardware for a single mission and then wash it off later on.
Once reserved for only the richest armies in the world, infrared technology is now ubiquitous. To combat this, scientists and defense contractors are designing fabrics that block human heat-signatures and allow soldiers to move undetected. Others are working on similar products for military hardware.
Engineers at Lockheed Martin have developed a radar system, Foliage Penetration Synthetic Aperture Radar (FOPEN for short), that allows pilots to see military hardware covered by foliage or netting.
I am definitely not suggesting that there should not be any funding for science and technology from military sources. I am simply thinking that the system is too heavily weighted towards these interests and hence the scientific knowledge produced will often not be geared towards the best interests of the larger society. We have a lot of global challenges to deal with from poverty, heathcare to sustainability, it is more important than inventing the next tactical laser fighter jet.
