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Open Source Molecules
manganese4 writes "They've been discussed before in relation to Google, but the American Chemical Society has launched a new effort against perceived competitors. They are attempting to limit the government's ability to freely publish the results of scientific work paid for by tax dollars. The British journal Nature and the Univeristy of California reports on efforts by the ACS in attempting to shutdown a free database, PubChem, of molecular structures because it competes head to head with the fee-for-service Chemical Abstract Service. Their rationale is that the government should not spend taxpayer dollars on something private business is already doing. Luckily the government has not backed down."
Government shouldn't pay for something that the private sector is already doing. Full stop.
The government's job is to make sure the citizenry is protected against foreign invaders, provide a reasonable level of safety, and provide a forum in which aggrieved parties can have an impartial entity adjudicate issues. In short: Military, Police, and Courts.
It should try to stay out of the way of individuals to the maximum extent possible. Every encroachment it makes results in the diminishment of freedom for its citizens. If we accept that it is the government's job to research medicine, should we also accept that it is the government's job to provide that medicine? Such a system in which we rely on the government to do something automatically puts downward pressure on the current providers of that service. It essentially provides the government with a monopoly over that service.
I'm all for freedom of information. I think that having information available to all is absolutely essential for a free society. However, it is essential that the government stay as far away from that as possible. They should neither encourage nor discourage companies from releasing information. In fact, they should be a completely uninterested party.
To the extent that government funds help jumpstart lagging scientific research, the same amount of freedom is lost. The public money is a double-edged sword, and this time we see what happens when someone tries to directly compete with the government. Typically this is decried as selfish on the part of the company, but is that really true? Would you not have a grievance if the government decided to take away your job? If it were a private company doing this, you would have no argument from me. However because it is the government doing it, and not a private company, I think that it would be more prudent to take the side of the private sector rather than the side of a growing government bureaucracy.
The whole mess of taxpayer money being used to fund private research, at which point competitors demand access to that research, would be resolved if property rights in the US were respected. The State would cease its protection racket against those living under its control, the State would stop using extorted funds in an attempt to prop up pet interests and buy votes, and there would be no question on the right-to-access information, as it would be justly privately owned.
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You don't understand the Libertarian mindset. Libertarians think they're smarter and more capable than the average man, and thus will be in the upper classes were a Libertarian form of government instituted. Thus they'll personally benefit from it, and they don't give a fuck about anyone else.
Of course in reality, that isn't true. If the government was removed and big business allowed to fuck over people as they want, their standard of living would hit rock bottom just like the rest of us. But you'll never convince them of that, they're convinced of their own inherent superiority.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?