US Government Plays Rope-a-dope with Science
The Boston Globe, in their article “How stop-and-go science funding puts the brakes on progress,” says “this chaotic funding environment” has “devastating implications.”
It reminded me of something Alan Kay said:
“90 percent of all good things that I can think of that have been done in computer science have been funded by [ARPA]. Chances that they would have been funded elsewhere are very low. The basic ARPA idea is that you find good people and you give them a lot of money and then you step back. If they don’t do good things in three years they get dropped – where ‘good’ is very much related to new or interesting.”
It’s unfortunate that government bureaucrats, who do not understand the consequences of their actions, are keeping us from all the benefits scientific progress brings. Yet this quote, and the amazing things that came out of ARPA, point to how much can be done with a small amount of money (relative to total spending). Imagine the wave of innovation we could produce if we got a few of the purse-string holders on board 
