Erm, what is wrong with your country?

Non American here - one of my country's favorite discussion topics is figuring out how to hack our (somewhat broken) national governance system/national culture into working well.

One of the ways to do that is to get fewer people into the consulting jobs which steal our brightest and best because of better pay and resulting prestige. Now obviously to do this you need to significantly up the budget for any and all science so that people make a wage which:

a) they can live comfortably on b) point to so that their clan/community doesn't constantly tell them - "what a waste of your life, make sure your kids don't do that."

That would have immense trickle down effects and huge repercussions for our development. Civilizational transitions/evolutions have more to do with the introduction of technology (fire, agriculture, the stirrup, medicine, writing, the press) than any other agent (I'm guessing mother nature comes close).

So how is this stuff being discussed when "innovation" is supposedly meant to save the economy? How do you guys plan to handle this? Ignore-let it blow over/give them what they want-let them deal with the fallout/???

May I suggest that this is being done for political mileage, that the politicians are smart and understand how the game is played and that this is going to get them votes.

May I further suggest that this be made to blow up in their faces? Since not losing votes<<<<<<<<<<< getting votes?

The video on the first link has the guy saying "Should we really be spending N dollars on soccer research!?!"

Prime example of misinformation that I was just discussing with someone yesterday.

He'd probably say we wasted billions on this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_Large_Array so that NASA could listen to the radio.

As other comments have drawn attention to, it's a shame that the first things to go in any government austerity drive are sciences and things too complicated for the average, TV-educated Joe to care about. Imagine how different the world would be if in the 1940s the UK decided computers had no use outside of war and cut their funding. Or if in the 1960's the US government decided that DARPA should be focusing on cutting costs, not trying to connect these computer machines together over this network they'd been working on...

Well, choosing the National Science Foundation as their first target for cutting isn't likely to improve their standing here: scientists identify 55% as Democrats, 32% independents, 6% Republicans (http://people-press.org/report/528/).

With all the great writing Aaronson puts up, does HN really need to highlight the rare political post?

Perhaps. I've never seen something from him before.

Exactly. If you've never read the blog of this brilliant researcher in computational complexity, the last post of his that HN should be showing you is some (justified) tongue-in-cheek political rant.

With upwards $1.4trillion of deficit, surely there are fatter targets to cut first.

Still, on quantum computing alone, I'd be surprised if no private company is interested in the field at all.

There are some that dabble in a limited fashion. e.g. D-Wave, which has attracted the business of companies like google.

However, private companies typically do not engage in long-term research that isn't likely to lead to directly commercializable results. I know this flies in the face of red-blooded 'merican "all socialism is evil" doctrine, but public sector research, funded by tax-payer money, is needed to build the foundations for tomorrow's industries. Quantum computing, like many other bleeding edge fields, is too immature, too high-risk, and with pay-offs that are far too distant for the private sector.

Research and education are both investments that can yield fantastic returns, but they are long-term investments and require steady commitment rather than periodic outbursts of zeal punctuating long periods of apathy. A minor cut now might help balance the books today, but the lost opportunities down the road will more than negate that.

Top researchers don't hang around after you cut the funding they run their labs and pay their students and post-docs with. They go where the money they need to work is, and if they can't find that in the U.S., they'll likely find it in Canada, China, Australia, etc.. The U.S. is far from the only country doing quality research in QC these days.

Yeah, but the problem is that you pretty much have to cut social security and the military, which are two things that can't be cut without unless you end your political career.

So what is left to do is to scramble for the peanuts, while trying to appear economically "though".

There are at least some bigger peanuts than trying to take a few nibbles out of the NSF budget ($7 billion) though. Like farm subsidies (~$20 billion), homeland security (~$45 b), or department of justice ($27 b). But I suppose I'm not surprised they didn't take on any of those, either.

All of which a lot of lobbyism is paid to protect.

Patents only last 17-20 years. Anything with a longer development timeline to profitability, which quantum computing surely has, cannot be accomplished by the private sector. Either you have to fund the research with public money, or you have to modify the patent system.

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