Scientists Stage Funerals To Protest Against Cuts — a New Trend? 263
ananyo writes "Physicists, chemists and mathematicians in the UK are campaigning against their chief public funder (EPSRC) over reforms that they say threaten blue-skies research, kicking off their protest by toting a coffin to the Prime Minister in Downing Street. The reforms are a response to declining budgets and political pressure to focus science on areas that will produce economic benefits for the UK. Last month, over 2000 Canadian scientists marched to Parliament Hill with a coffin to protest against the Harper government's cuts to basic research and scientific facilities, which they believe undermine the quality of scientific evidence in government. With budget cuts to science expected in the U.S., is it time for scientists in U.S. — and perhaps elsewhere — to think about getting their retaliation in first and ready their coffins?"
Who cares? (Score:3, Insightful)
There is an educated minority who does obviously but big business that can't make use of curiosity based research in the immediate quarter doesn't care, Joe Sixpack who is fearing unemployment due to a massive recession doesn't care. Political powers that are trying to "stabilize" the middle east by shooting at it don't care.
So who, with power, cares?
Re:Who cares? (Score:4, Insightful)
You outline the real problem: so many big businesses don't seem to care beyond the next quarter. Extreme nearsightedness, it seems.
You don't ever seem to see them taking a hit for the NOW, looking towards a payoff on the LATER. Always it's now now now.
Re:Who cares? (Score:4, Informative)
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I said "So many businesses" not "all businesses."
You may want to work on your reading comprehension.
Death of evidence (Score:5, Insightful)
This is intentional. They deliberately impoverish the intellectual community so that few will be able to question what government does. If no one has hard data, the government can do what it wants. If hard data is available, the government has to take that into consideration. Behind every anti-intellectual is an authoritarian.
I hate to break it to you (Score:2)
but the governments already do whatever they want. The one percent isn't the rich, its the politicians. The have deliberately impoverished us all to assert more control over our lives. Then through their near infinite channels of influence they set one group against another all the while offering laws to protect each for each other.
If those UK scientist want to see their budget, I think they can still get tickets. There appear to lots of empty seats
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Or, you know, we could be in the middle of a worldwide financial meltdown where hard decisions have to be made.
Governments love to fund scientists, especially when those scientists come to conclusions that convienently give authoritarians the excuse to take more money and power.
Even considering that, however, sometimes, you just run out of other people's money to borrow and/or take.
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Or, you know, we could be in the middle of a worldwide financial meltdown where hard decisions have to be made.
All the more reason to keep these steady middle class jobs around so there's more demand for services in the economy. And we're not just talking about scientists. There's support staff, people who repair equipment, companies that manufacture reagents. If you're looking for a "shovel ready" project that will have positive ripple effects throughout the economy, basic research should be at the top
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I don't buy the authoritarian conspiracy theories. It's more about priorities
It's not a conspiracy theory and it is about priorities. Authoritarians don't value knowledge, so they place it at a low priority. Conservatives don't have to meet in secret to hatch a plan to kill science. They just follow their own self interest in not funding people who are likely to oppose them with facts.
currently there is little to no interest in the general populace towards science and research. Just look at what is trend
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I don't buy that. And I'd argue that both sides of the political spectrum are equally to blame. The SSC and SEI projects were shut down under Clinton's watch, and the Obama administration cancelled the Ares program in 2010 (even though they didn't cancel the cons
Re:Death of evidence (Score:5, Informative)
There's an economic downturn. The government is having trouble funding programs. And the fact that they want to cut spending to a program that doesn't have immediate and clearly predictable economic benefit is because they're anti-intellectual?
Basic research provides the greatest ROI of any sort of investment anywhere ever. On top of that, government spending helps to stimulate economies. Creating solid middle class jobs filled by smart, motivated people is exactly the kind of thing that you want to do to get out of a recession.
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So what did we get out of the trillions of dollars spent on the moon landings & research? Velcro? That's a very very low ROI. Trillions spent for a few dollars worth of plastic.
>>>On top of that, government spending helps to stimulate economies.
Or it creates bubbles that go "pop" and make a crash. Like the government-backed mortgage bubble we experienced from 2002-to 2007. That was supposed to stimulate the economy but instead it wrecked it.
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So what did we get out of the trillions of dollars spent on the moon landings & research?
We got the best aerospace industry on Earth.
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Re:Death of evidence (Score:4, Funny)
What?! You don't know what we got out of the moon landings? Seriously?
The moon landings were propaganda first and science second. They demonstrated the superiority of capitalism over communism, thereby helping to perpetuate the economic system you apparently love so. We also got a few nice scientific advancements out of the affair, sort of as a side bonus. Don't go laying the expense of all that on science.
Makes me sick how conservatives' vision has withered to nothing. What grand projects and great achievements would you conservatives have us do next? Apparently nothing at all, because that would make it harder to balance the budget. You whine that we can't afford it. You'd kill the James Webb telescope if you could, despite the huge contributions the Hubble has made to astronomy and physics. You did kill the Supercollider, and now look what happened. We did NOT discover the Higgs boson, the Europeans did. When you can be persuaded to open the vaults, do you do something noble and great? No, you prefer to stomp around the world and shoot up a bunch of Muslims, Africans, Asians, and maybe a few Latin Americans and Europeans, carrying on as if kicking the butts of a bunch of poorly armed terrorists and drilling a few more oil wells is the height of our aspirations. The only thing you seem to respect is force and money. Sure showed those Iraqis, didn't you? Do you understand how much money Iraq cost us? More than all the bailouts we've done in the past 5 years! Are the only past accomplishments of the US you can relate to the elimination of slavery in the Civil War, and victory in WWI and WWII because they were wars? What about the transatlantic cable and the telegraph and telephone system? The transcontinental railroad? The light bulb? Electrification of the entire nation? Refrigeration? Radio and TV broadcasting? The Interstate highway system? The Internet?
Pooh-poohing the moon landings, Jesus H. Christ!
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Like the government-backed mortgage bubble we experienced from 2002-to 2007. That was supposed to stimulate the economy but instead it wrecked it.
You sir are an idiot! (you belong in politics, clearly)
Throwing Money At People does not usually benefit the economy. At best, no long term benefit. At worst it backfires like the mortgage bubble.
As opposed to investing in "development" (R&D, Infrastructure, Education), which *always* pays out generous returns. Admittedly said payouts are usually in the mid-to-long-term, but you yourself or perhaps your children will (still) be alive in the mid-to-long term and you'd much rather be better off as a re
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All of that is true enough but it means nothing when the cost of borrowing is going up. Thanks to entire countries that went bankrupt during the last downturn, government debt is no longer considered safe and consequently the days of borrowing money forever are over.
The options are: make slightly painful cuts now or make devastating cuts later when the government runs out of money,
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Cutting research when the economy bad is like eating your feet when you're hungry. Sure, it might make things slightly better in the short term, but now you're stuck in a very bad place with no way to get out.
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Really? Are you serious? There's an economic downturn.
Yes, and a big one at that. Just like there was 10 years ago and 20 years ago and ... you get the idea.
Just because there's a downturn doesn't mean we stop investing in the future. Had the U.S. done that in the 30s, we would have lost in the 40s (old aircraft, slow ships, old rifles, broken tanks, no nukes).
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In an economic downturn the government should increase spending, because it is the only entity that have an infinite amount of money. It should spend that money on R&D, infrastructure and creating new markets.
I have no idea where the idiocy comes from to decrease government spending in an economic downturn. If the economy is down, the government needs to step in and revive the industry. That cannot be done with austerity programs.
Since the government is the biggest employee for example, austerity progra
Can't cut anything... (Score:5, Insightful)
We can't cut social security because old people will starve in the streets.
We can't cut the drug benefits because old people can't afford their medication.
We can't cut the military, or our enemies will attack us.
We can't cut unemployment benefits, because people are unemployed.
We can't cut benefits to the poor because the poor need help.
We can't cut support to the bank industry because they need help to recover.
And apparently, we also can't cut science funding, or scientists will die.
The government is huge because people never want to give up ANYTHING. It's always "the other guy" who should pay.
Well when you have a massive debt, everyone has to give up something.. and that includes (unfortunately) scientists. Maybe those researching "blue skies" projects that have gone no where should be cut.
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Well across the board budget cuts are fine. But when science gets cut at the expense of the military(which ever keeps rising), it is not acceptable.
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In Canada, where these protests occurred, the military's budget was one of the hardest cut.
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We should have started a program called Avrow Arrow 2 with that money, using every willing members of the original team as mentor to the most patriotic areonauthic PhD students (Yeah, select them on patriotism, but tell them that the selection is based on intelligence)
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We can't cut social security because old people will starve in the streets.
We can't cut the drug benefits because old people can't afford their medication.
We can't cut the military, or our enemies will attack us.
We can't cut unemployment benefits, because people are unemployed.
We can't cut benefits to the poor because the poor need help.
We can't cut support to the bank industry because they need help to recover.
And apparently, we also can't cut science funding, or scientists will die.
The government is huge because people never want to give up ANYTHING. It's always "the other guy" who should pay.
Well when you have a massive debt, everyone has to give up something.. and that includes (unfortunately) scientists. Maybe those researching "blue skies" projects that have gone no where should be cut.
This is exactly why the US will follow Spain, Italy, Greece, and others because the politicians are too afraid to lose their jobs instead of doing their jobs. Two things need to done in the US.
1) Amendment: A Representative or Senator cannot serve more than two consecutive terms (and yes I know they serve for different time periods).
2) Amendment: Corporations, Unions, Lobbyist groups, Not For Profit, any organization do not have the same First Amendment rights as an individual.
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I'm always curious as to why people think getting rid of professional politicians will help things. One of the great things that Britain has always had is a tradition of long-serving politicians who create a sort of central group of experienced men and women who have been in and out government. From these ranks you produce people like Gladstone, Churchill and Thatcher. It's ludicrous to force out your most experienced people in any profession simply because you think fresh air alone is enough to fix the pro
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But those politicians have districts and states. They are answerable to the voter. Rather than creating artificial barriers and basically throwing the baby (in this case the experienced lawmaker) out with the bathwater, it strikes me the better solution is try to encourage the voters to become part of the political process.
It's not as if first or second term politicians are not vulnerable to interest groups. The political process is poisoned by money from the very start. The solution isn't getting rid of pr
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AND, further, how do you propose that we guarantee that big media and the like won't skew the stories to condition people to think a certain way about the candidate of their choice?
And as a side note, I didn't say that I agreed with it, I was simply explaining it as you asked,
I'm always curious as to why people think getting rid of professional politicians will help things.
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Simple. Tax the living shit out of all political donations and disallow political advertising as an expense that can reduce net income.
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From these ranks you produce people like ... Thatcher.
You're right! We could do with someone to destroy the last vestiges of industry which have managed to thrive despite the best efforts of successive governments.
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Thatcher wasn't such a great example.
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If you start chipping at those things which represent future prosperity, all you're doing is pulling down the walls. Rome started going down the tubes when it began debasing its currency. It meant ultimately less artisans, tradesmen, a less professional army, less civil servants and in the end, complete collapse.
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well you have to either do cuts or debase currency.
that's just math.
(alternatively, raise taxes)
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In this situation, I think measured cuts and tax increases are by far the more sensible solution. Yes, tax increases do have a retarding effect on the economy, but that can be overstated.
Unfortunately, tax policy isn't developed by sensible people, it's developed by people more interested in short term political gain.
Re:Can't cut anything... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well when you have a massive debt, everyone has to give up something.. and that includes (unfortunately) scientists
Science is not a cost, it's an investment. You don't fix the economy by stopping spending money on things that will give a return.
Maybe those researching "blue skies" projects that have gone no where should be cut.
The departments where people only do research that is guaranteed to work are usually the weaker ones. Good research addresses problems where the solution isn't known, where there are only some approximate ideas about what it may be, and where failure is likely. A big problem in academia today is exactly the attitude in your post - that people who do research that may fail should be penalised.
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Who said they should be penalized? If your project has failed, you don't get to keep working on it forever. MOVE ON to your next project.
That is not a penalty. A penalty would be not allowing you on a new project because of your previous failure. No where did I suggest that.
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The departments where people only do research that is guaranteed to work are usually the weaker ones. Good research addresses problems where the solution isn't known, where there are only some approximate ideas about what it may be, and where failure is likely. A big problem in academia today is exactly the attitude in your post - that people who do research that may fail should be penalised.
Somebody give him a medal for actually thinking through the problem.
I would argue (I don't have hard facts) that MOST "scientific discoveries" are not actually found as a direct result of being sought-after. If not "most" then certainly lots-and-lots were accidental/coincidental or peripheral discoveries. There are SO MANY discoveries resulting from "WTF was THAT?" turning into something useful (Penicillin, Viagra, Teflon, Vulcanization of Rubber, Cellophane, Microwave Oven) rather than something that was
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This contradicts "The Law of Budgetary Circumcision."
You can cut 5% off the top of ANYTHING.
Re:Can't cut anything... (Score:5, Insightful)
Well when you have a massive debt, everyone has to give up something
No you don't. You can increase revenue. The 1% own something like 75% of everything, they can afford it. FUCKING DOUBLE THEIR TAXES! History has shown that high taxes on the rich do NOT harm the economy.
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History has shown that high taxes on the rich do NOT harm the economy.
They do when the rich arbitrarily make decisions to fuck the rest of us if we tax them more. Humans are one thing consistently: spiteful and greedy.
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History has shown that high taxes on the rich do NOT harm the economy
History has also shown [mercatus.org] that higher taxes != higher revenue, but that's not your point, is it?
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The root of all the trouble is the fact that we no longer seem to understand that the private sector has to lead. Government funds come from taxes and if you crush the private sector through taxation and regulation tax revenue dives. (Google "Laffer curve" if you need an explanation), You can spend all the tax money you want on research but if you kill the private sector you lose both revenue AND a huge alternate source of innovation that costs the taxpayer nothing.
The funeral shouldn't be for science bu
We're broke, you know (Score:3)
Actually, (with the U.S. government at least) we're worse than broke. Broke would imply we at least had nothing. We would actually have to earn about $15 trillion to be broke.
So no, we DON'T have the money. We have these pieces of paper that SAY "money" on them. But they only work because no one has figured out yet that they're worthless.
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On the plus side we only owe $15 trillion of those pieces of paper that SAY "money" on them. And like you said they are worthless. So we really owe nothing and are in fact broke.
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Oh Christ, would you fucking Ron Paulites shut the fuck up. Jesus, none of you know a fucking thing about economics, just mouthing "fiat currency is baaaaad" like semi-retarded sheep.
The value of a fiat currency isn't based on nothing, it's based on a huge number of factors, including net economic output, GDP and so forth. Much more sensible than basing it on how much fucking gold the government is sitting on, which is utterly arbitrary and has little or nothing to do with the actual economic life of the co
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How do you know that guy is a Ron Paulite? You don't know that, anymore than you know what color he is. You're just setting-up random strawmen and knocking them down, rather than addressing the man you responded to.
As for fiat currency:
The fact it has lost 97% of its value since 1913 is reason enough to seek something better. The gold-backed dollar the Founders created may not have been perfect but it was certainly better than that. It lost only 1% of its value from 1810 to 1910. A monetary supply that
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Based on what? Money in circulation? I mean, what's your metric here? How does it make any sense?
And yes, the guy is a Ron Paulite, as is the lunatic that just posted a reply to your post.
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Historically, fiat currencies work great and boost economic output; for a decade or so. Then hyperinflation hits and they fall apart. The stronger the economy, and more dependent the rest of the world is on it, the longer it lasts; but no fiat currency has ever avoided inflation. http://www.europac.net/voices/experience_teacher_fools [europac.net]
That said, there are some great opportunities in times of inflation o
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And you can't devalue metal-based money? My favorite example of how stupid it is to peg your currency to metals is what happened in the 19th century when China, who held much of the world's silver, began seeing a massive outflow due to unfair trade and opium sales. It caused a general depression in most currencies because the supply of silver suddenly jumped through the ceiling. Effectively a large increase in supply on the market can lead to severe downward pressure on a currency, based on nothing more tha
The Cult of Science (Score:3)
I wonder how long before they start devouring human flesh?
Wouldn't a giant urn be more appropriate? (Score:2)
Maybe they should use a giant urn instead of a coffin, to represent the result of the giant flaming failure of the future ahead of us under proposed budget cuts to basic scientific research? It would symbolically include the future economy as we fall further and further behind other countries in scientific knowledge and capability.
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Less graphically iconic.
An urn is just a jar. Not as visually unique as a coffin. A coffin may be just a box, but it's a very particular box. An urn can really be any shape.
Not to mention the fact that, at least in the western world, coffin burials are far more common than cremation, and thus death is more strongly associated with coffins than urns.
cut military spending (Score:4, Insightful)
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The Liberals in Canada spent years gutting the military. To the point where it was putting the lives of the soldiers in direct jeopardy. I could fill the entire comment box full of stories with from friends and family who were or are in the military about the flying, riding, doomed death traps that we gave our servicemen and women up here. And to be honest? It got so bloody bad, we were renting military equipment from the US and UK because ours was so unsafe.
They're welcome to put on whatever song and d
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And there's the problem; it always comes down to morals and opinions. Is the life of a scientist or the life of a soldier more valuable?
Is it better to spend $10 trillion on guns, barracks, flak jackets, soldier pay and pensions, health care for vets and the like, or on chemicals, labs, lab-coats (I don't really know how scientists dress anymore. . . .), scientist pay and pensions, and health care and the like for people trying to do science? (does one 'do' science?)
One is not inherently more valuable than
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I'm not, but being a soldier is a decent job. Here in the states, when a river floods, the first on the scene are soldiers. When there is a relief effort for victims of a natural disaster of any kind, generally soldiers are the first there to help.
For many, being a soldier is the only way to pay for college effectively. or to increase their experience before looking for full-time employment - a means to an end, or, as you put it, to help them "GET A DECENT JOB".
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To the point where it was putting the lives of the soldiers in direct jeopardy.
Why didn't Canada simply have less soldiers and go on fewer international adventures?
It would have been less humanitarian in some circles but don't forget that it wasn't just Canada's military that suffered. It was the SAR (search and air rescue) that got it the worst with helicopters so old they spent more time in the repair shop than they did flying and winches known to fail when you least expect them to. I know a SAR tech who is two inches shorter than he used to be because of a winch accident.
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To some extent, these are one and the same. DOE, Darpa and DoD budgets are massive contributors to science funding in general, even in pure academia (aka outside national labs).
Death of evidence, not death of funding (Score:2, Interesting)
We Canadians weren't protesting because of general science funding cuts. Budgets get rearranged. The economy is in shambles. We accept that.
The "Death of evidence" protest formed because cuts were being very carefully targeted: If your research produced results that suggested the Harper Government (tm) might be making a dumb decision, your research was ignored, suppressed, and eventually canned.
Statistics Canada has never lost control of any personal information. Never. So the long-form census gets scrapped
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All part of Harper's goal to turn Canada into USA (Score:2)
Traitorous politicians like Harper and a great many in the USA only care about winning AT ALL COST. The nation and the democracy do not matter they are not actually important, only winning the "war". Anybody who is not "one of us" must be cleansed of the body politic and naturally these lesser people are to be despised. This kind of fanaticism is as old as civilization and it always starts out minor then it grows until it is extreme enough and/or large enough that a majority can see it (usually it has to
Public science funding (Score:2)
Is this really a surprise at all? If these scientists had to raise their own funding via private means, this wouldn't be news at all. This is just wasted time, energy and smart minds rent seeking the government. Move along.
Should be very very worried (Score:2)
Piss off too many scientists and they will go back in time and step on the fish that eventually became your entire family tree. Then again this is government cutting back funding....
The Canadian government no longer funds research (Score:2)
So the boffins... (Score:2)
are doffing coffins?
(er, sorry. carry on.)
I hate to say it, but... (Score:3)
As it was blown some time ago, do you know that one stupid little anesthesiologist makes $400 thousands Canadian dollars??? WTF??? Can you imagine how many patients he must manage in order to justify his salary? I could, but for some strange reason he does not do it.
As of the "scientists", i wonder how many innovations do you happen to know made by them? Zero? Really? Then what is the point!!!
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And i see that you have not answered my question, if you have to pay one doctor $400k/year, how much patients he must to serve in order to deserve his salary? Oh, i see, if it comes out of your pocket it is entirely different business case...
The Future (Score:2)
Will progess stop 10 years from now?
Melodramatic Science Community... (Score:2)
is Melodramatic. Marching with a coffin? Come on. I guess I would hope that such a group of people wouldn't stoop to that level for attention.
Why cut budgets in the first place. (Score:2)
Most of the posts here seem to be of the "cut this or else cut that" ilk. Why not do the right thing and raise taxes, or in the USA case, return the tax rates on the very rich to what they once were, and change the business tax code to reflect some sort of reality. And then stop taxing capital gains less than "ordinary" income.
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Do you have a reference for that claim?
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Yea, the fact that the actual first post is first. You know.... this one [slashdot.org]?
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Why do these scientists feel so entitled to my tax dollars? Support yourselves and raise your own research dollars, you fucking leeches.
In which case: bye-bye space program, bye-bye national security, bye-bye communications. etc.
Re:How about the USA? (Score:5, Informative)
RTFA much? The coffin is not a mock funeral for the respective prime ministers, but rather for the 'death of science'.
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Walmart sells coffins (Score:2)
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Man. I didn't RTFA, and I thought it was about staging scientists funerals, or funereal scientists stooges! Why can't the articles be about what I think they're about?
Re:How about the USA? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you don't have anything informed to say, you could try saying nothing at all.
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Re:Because these scientists are Special (Score:4, Insightful)
And they shouldn't be subject to economic downturns eh?
Absoloutely, the best way out of an economic downturn is to make sure you don't develop anything new.
Also, you and the idiots who modded you up are idiots.
The real think that's pissing off all the victims of the EPSRC incompetence is that the EPSRC fucked up its advocacy efforts and got much heavier funding cuts than the other members of RCUK.
So, basically, you and the mods have no idea what you're talking about and decided to mod up inflammatory crap anyway.
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I doubt anything "new" will come out of "blue sky" research efforts in a time frame that will help the current economic downturn.
While they should be concerned about funding cuts and should do what they can to minimize them and their impacts, parading down the street with a coffin is stupid and melodramatic.
Buck up and do the best you can, as will everyone else.
Re:Because these scientists are Special (Score:4, Insightful)
Even if te government spent $10 trllion on research, but then announced "cuts" to a more-reasonable level, these guys would still protest. It's human nature never to be satisfied. You will never hear them say, "Oh well 10 trllion was outrageously high. Cuts to 7 trillion would be reasonable."
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It does exist. Look at the Pentagon. They get close to a trllion dollars a year but the moment someone says, "The war is almost over. Let's lower that 100 billion," then they and their military supporters have a fit about how cuts will hurt them.
(shrug). Can YOU cite a single example where teachers or military or old people or students or some other group said, "Yeah we're okay if you cut our budget 10%." It doesn't exist.
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(shrug). Can YOU cite a single example where teachers or military or old people or students or some other group said, "Yeah we're okay if you cut our budget 10%." It doesn't exist.
well [lmgtfy.com], yeah [lmgtfy.com].
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And they shouldn't be subject to economic downturns eh?
Self important blowhards.
Of course scientists are not saying that. Budgets have to be tightened for everyone if they are going to be balanced. What's being argued is that the cuts are disproportionate and clearly politically-motivated. This is especially apparent when you see what's being cut (a lot of environment-related research) and when you see the unreasonable excesses that continue for other government budget items. Two that come to mind are the ridiculously exorbitant pensions that MPs get after only a few years of publi
Science vs. Bank Bailouts (Score:5, Insightful)
Because these scientists are Special And they shouldn't be subject to economic downturns eh?
In the last year or so the British government spent more money bailing out the banks that it has spent on science in the last 1,000 years. Now just pause and think about that for a second. Think about the world 1,000 years ago and where we are today because that difference is due primarily to science. If governments can blow more than 1,000 years worth of their science budget to bail out the very people whose greed created the economic down turn then you might think that they could find the relatively meagre pittance required to continue a program which has transformed our society.
...of course this may be part of the problem: it was far easier for those in power to deal with us troublesome peasants in the dark ages!
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Learn to say 'do you want fries with that', same as your students.
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