The Billionaires Privatizing American Science 279
An anonymous reader writes "Government-funded science is struggling in the United States. With the unstable economy over the past decade and the growing hostility to science in popular rhetoric, basic research money is getting hard to find. Part of the gap is being filled by billionaire philanthropists. Steven Edwards of the American Association for the Advancement of Science says, 'For better or worse, the practice of science in the 21st century is becoming shaped less by national priorities or by peer-review groups and more by the particular preferences of individuals with huge amounts of money.' Vast amounts of research are now driven by names like Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg, David Koch, and Eric Schmidt. While this helps in some ways, it can hurt in others. 'Many of the patrons, they say, are ignoring basic research — the kind that investigates the riddles of nature and has produced centuries of breakthroughs, even whole industries — for a jumble of popular, feel-good fields like environmental studies and space exploration. ... Fundamentally at stake, the critics say, is the social contract that cultivates science for the common good.'"
Science for Profit (Score:2, Insightful)
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Nuclear plants can be safe if and only if you don't rely on designs from the 60s.... Look up Thorium cycle reactors. Their waste products, not so much, but modern ones produce less of the above.
But don't let facts get in the way of your rant. Carry on...
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The problem remains that you have to put that waste somewhere. It's one of the biggest NIMBY problems of our times, everyone wants the "cheap" electricity (it's not that cheap once you factor in risk and waste deposit, but who cares about problems that might be or problems that only affect us in 30 years, i.e. long after I left office?) but nobody wants to deal with it. Thorium reactors have a completely different problem (like, say, that you probably do NOT want certain states to run them, considering that
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The proper long-term destiny of nuclear waste is to be recycled into new fuel. But so long as Cold War warheads are so cheap and while we wait for lower-cost recycling methods, we have an ideal place to store it. We just have to get rid of one item of low-grade, long-term biological waste first: Harry Reid.
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As I understood it, the idea was to process fuel from older reactors into something with a lower half life. Fact is, we have a lot of waste to deal with and the lower the half life the better.
In any case I think freezing R&D on fission because some 30+ year old reactors had fairly well contained accidents might be a bad idea. Just because the older reactors or even current ones aren't as foolproof as we'd like doesn't mean they can't be.
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I'm certainly no nuclear physicist, but doesn't lower half life also mean faster decay and more radiation?
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From what I recall of my physics, no, but I will listen to the experts on that - I may recall wrong. I seem to recall that it depends on the material. The point being that it might be easier to contain even deadly radiation for 100 years than moderate radiation for 10 000 years. Ever try designing a container to last 10 or 100 thousand years?
Well contained? (Score:2)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that at least a couple of Fukushima reactors are a *long* way away from being well contained,with the expectation being that they will continue spewing contaminated material into the environment for years, possibly decades, before they can actually be decommissioned.
I agree that freezing R&D into fission is probably the wrong reaction, but a bigger issue would seem to me to be changing the economic realities that make corner-cutting so lucrative an
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Well, simply put, how is Fukushima compared to Chernobyl? We may just be getting a bit better at this and the fact is, our world is fairly large and the nuclear power related incidents so far are relatively minor.
Your idea is pretty good, but why would that company not also cut corners? I don't get how centralizing helps - it just gives a central point for the corruption to occur. Or maybe living in Africa has made me a bit cynical.
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I haven't done anything like due diligence, but I've heard from some places that, in terms of total expected environmental contamination, Fukushima is projected to be far worse. They didn't have the initial high-intensity blast, but they also aren't in a situation where they can simply entomb the reactor until it cools down - it'd just melt it's way down into the groundwater supply.
As to why the reactor company wouldn't cut corners - well, presumably you'd have multiple companies selling modular reactors,
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I haven't done nearly enough due diligence on Fukushima either, but I did get the impression it was better handled. Then we're comparing it to the Russians, so that may not be hard. I think the point being that a more modern passive shutdown reactor would fair better.
The rational(?) power generating corporations may not be that much better than the general populace. Having worked a bit in the industry, I have seen them cut corners happily... Then again, this is Africa, and I think I may well be cynical. Com
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Actually - the power companies may cut corners, but they'll tend to do it rationally - i.e. any way they can maximize corporate and personal profits, amortization included, and with the awareness that if there is a disaster they're totally screwed anyway so why bother considering it. So not a lot of incentive to make sure reactors remain safe unless the managers are actually going to be on-site close enough to have a high chance of being killed or terminally poisoned by any disaster. And you tell me, how
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This may work, but it would take some setting up...
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Wow, given the comments here, it is like I didn't even mention the waste! Amazing.
As noted elsewhere, there are reactors that improve on the current state of affairs re: waste.
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Call it a minimum requirement. If nuclear plants run on 1960s tech they will not be safe. Fukushima complied with the safety requirements of the day.
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Actually, didn't come out that Fukushima actually cut a lot of corners over the years, so that by the time of the disaster they didn't even fully comply with the 1960's era safety regulations?
More and more I think the only way a nuclear plant can realistically escape from the creeping systemic rot of corner-cutting is to remove all the critical components from the reach of the operators - systems like sealed modular reactors that essentially act like a 5-20 year nuclear heat battery which can then be plugge
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"Actually, didn't come out that Fukushima actually cut a lot of corners over the years, so that by the time of the disaster they didn't even fully comply with the 1960's era safety regulations?"
Yes. For just one example, there was a "temporary" waste storage unit at the reactor that was designed to store spent rods and the like for only something like 60-90 days. But in fact they had been taking waste that was supposed to be sent elsewhere, and instead stockpiling it in that "temporary" storage, for years.
Re: Science for Profit (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Science for Profit (Score:5, Interesting)
The article and summary emphasize individuals who are funding scientific research, emphasizing the "philanthropic" model, including some of the problem with it. Most of the comments here take that bait and read this as "rich guys (mostly) funding science -- is this evil?". In fact, private corporations have funded fundamental and applied scientific work in the US and abroad for many decades. Bell Labs, IBM, General Electric, and so on. Was the transistor an important scientific discovery? The Nobel committee seemed to think so, and its change to society undoubtedly profound. Was it funded publicly? No. In fact, not only was it funded by a private corporation, the scientists were not independent in the least. They were not university researchers with funding from the private corporation -- they were employees. The scientists jobs depended on preserving and maintaining dominance of a private monopoly on telephone service. Was the transistor an evil plot by a private corporation? Yeah, it kind of was, actually.
Legally and in practice of funding research, the difference between corporations and individuals is very small. Many corporations have closed their private labs and fund chairs at universities instead. This is basically cheaper for them..... wait, I mean "more efficient" in the economic sense. It also allows for better decoupling of paycheck and results. Scientists may get a grant from Monsanto or the Keck foundation or Microsoft or whoever, and others may question whether the research is biased, but the scientists is probably not solely dependent on that source of funding.
FWIW, government funded research has implied biases too. The researchers at national labs and those funded by NSF, DOE, NIH, and NASA are definitely not given open-ended grants without continual scrutiny of topics being worked on and results.
In summary, this is neither that new or surprising. Government funding for science (especially at NIH) is way down. The huge income inequality in the US means there are many more obscenely rich people, most of them well-educated and many with technical backgrounds. As a research scientist, I'm happy to see them "giving back", at least partly. It's only natural that they would choose areas they are interested. I don't see much reason to expect results more biased or fraudulent than other scientific work. Of course, the better solution would be for the rest of the country to take (ie, tax) the money from the rich people and fund science collectively.
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In summary, this is neither that new or surprising. Government funding for science (especially at NIH) is way down.
There is no such thing as "government funding."
All funding is private until the government appropriates it and calls it their own.
If you don't like how other private parties allocate their funds, allocate yours differently.
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What could possibly go wrong? ... We, our children and our grandchildren will all profit from this!
Then you had better get ready to pay your own way.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't be too sure of yourself. (Score:5, Insightful)
What if the Billionaire WANTS a certain answer and lets the scientist know it, so that the "data" can be published for a huge return on investment for the billionaire? Tobacco industry did this.
Or maybe billionaire just has an answer he emotionally wants to hear and funds science to get that instead of sensible science? If Jenny McCarthy had billions what sort of research d'you think she might fund?
Or what if billionaire wants research on life extending treatments for him and him alone and screw publishing?
I don't see any compelling reason billionare science would be any better than publicly funded science. I'd rather everyone own the results, too, than a billionaire.
I mean, one thing a billionare is VERY good at is hoarding good things (money) for themselves AREN'T THEY.
--PeterM
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IPCC
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Economists call it a sunk cost - it's a cost that's already been incurred, and cannot be recovered. We should still try and recover whatever benefit there is, even if continuing the behavior into the future is harmful.
Sunk costs: Even if your farm is going to turn a loss this year, you STILL need to sell the corn crop and minimize your losses!
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What if the Billionaire WANTS a certain answer and lets the scientist know it, so that the "data" can be published for a huge return on investment for the billionaire? Tobacco industry did this.
Or maybe billionaire just has an answer he emotionally wants to hear and funds science to get that instead of sensible science? If Jenny McCarthy had billions what sort of research d'you think she might fund?
Or what if billionaire wants research on life extending treatments for him and him alone and screw publishing?
I don't see any compelling reason billionare science would be any better than publicly funded science. I'd rather everyone own the results, too, than a billionaire.
I mean, one thing a billionare is VERY good at is hoarding good things (money) for themselves AREN'T THEY.
--PeterM
And the incentives of the people deciding which research will get public funding differ exactly how? You seem to start with the assumption that the career bureaucrat won't dispose of assets under his control to his greatest advantage whereas the career businessman will. I'm not seeing it. [blogspot.com]
Re:Don't be too sure of yourself. (Score:5, Interesting)
1) Given away for free, no patents being used to hinder
2) Patent and charge money, but that money goes back into the educational system that created them and paid for over 90% of my state uni tuition. Out of State $30k/sem, in-state $2k/sem.
For over 30 years, my state unis have been very cheap for in-state citizens because of patents. Our state owns a lot of stem cell, pharma, bio-tech, and integrated circuit patents. Most of the money made from those patents get pumped back into the higher educational system and dramatically lower the price. We're also highly coveted because of high quality graduates. We've got freshmen getting contacted via phone by the likes of Intel, AMD, Microsoft, and Google, asking them what they plan on doing after they graduate.
We also have a large amount of research that is state funded or alumni funded that gets released for free for the greater good of the general public.
Re:What they're really afraid of, I think... (Score:5, Insightful)
You're an idiot. There was a recent article on how Columbia fired two of its eminent public intellectuals [thenation.com]. Why? For not bringing in enough grant money. Not because they didn't publish, or not because they weren't any good. No, because they weren't politically savvy enough to bring in grant money.
Both Vance and Hopper had 30 and 26 years at Columbia respectively, and highly respected in their fields. They were let go because the expectation was that they bring in ~80% of their income from outside grants. Not doing research, not publishing, but bringing in *money*. No wonder people like Grigori Perelman hate the current academia.
You aren't doing science then, you are rewarding those that can *market* their subjects well.
Really? If you'd read the piece, you will notice that subjects with seemingly little application are the ones that get little to not attention. Because they are neither utilitarian nor do they make them feel good.
Take the Fourier transform for instance -- once upon a time, it would have been considered pure math, but today, DSP wouldn't exist without it. To focus only on those that *we* think are utilitarian can be extremely myopic, not to mention downright arrogant.
That is downright silly. Just because something was done a certain way is not an argument for not using a better way. Using patrons has always been problematic, because patrons always favored things that they liked, with a vested interest.
If we still did things the way they were done, democracy wouldn't exist. As a concept, it is downright radical and new - giving power to the people?! Imagine that!
Similarly, the idea that people would fund science for the common good is just as radical, and going back to having patrons is pushing us back to the dark ages. We should be moving forward, not backward.
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You are ascribing power to governments, rather than the people -- therein lies your fallacy.
The idea is that *people* are more powerful and altruistic than individuals or institutions. A government is nothing more than an instrument -- an institution that supposedly represents the people.
If a government is contrary to its people's values, then they should fix the government, not discard it altogether in favor of private enterprise.
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The idea is that *people* are more powerful and altruistic than individuals or institutions.
Even if "people" actually were more powerful and altruistic, which I disagree with, then there's still the matter that actual public funding doesn't have much to do with the "people" or their desires. There's millennia of history indicating that even in democracies a substantial deviation between the workings of a government and the people it supposedly represents.
If a government is contrary to its people's values, then they should fix the government, not discard it altogether in favor of private enterprise.
Discarding government for tasks for which private enterprise is superior is a fix. Instead, you're proposing the following destructive cycle:
1
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they should fix the government, not discard it altogether in favor of private enterprise.
Who and how did they "discard it altogether" ?
Cutting the size of gov't IS a necessary part of the "fix."
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On what basis?
Cutting the size just because is not a good enough rationale.
I'm agnostic when it comes to the size of the government but given our current crappy patent system, it is downright silly to think short term greed won't override long term progress for the species.
There's no "profit" in investing in pure math or landing a probe on Pluto or conserving a dying species of insect. Scientific curiosity is seldom profitable in the short run.
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I'm not interested in side discussion detailing what is necessary to fix the gov't when you have yet to substantiate your claim that gov't was being discarded. I see no evidence to support that claim given that gov't is now larger than it has ever been.
Re:What they're really afraid of, I think... (Score:4, Insightful)
Huh? What does this even mean? You sound as if you are regurgitating the small government propaganda without any sound argument.
The stated function is funding research, and that's getting done. The rational plan is funding scientists who are the most eligible to win the research grants. What is so hard about that?
The problem is the expectation of something "fruitful" to come out of research. As any half-decent scientist will tell you, a lot of good science comes from learning from our failures, and examining questions that may seem pointless today.
NSF grants have funded several amazing scientists and their research -- how do you even *begin* to "measure" the purpose of scientific research? The whole idea behind scientific research is asking questions that may seem trivial or even meaningless. The only viable measure is publications, and even that is meaningless -- would you rather have one outstanding paper every decade or a bunch of pointless papers to check a box?
The myopic outlook that decries large government also decries spending on science and research, never mind the fact that open science is what helps civilization as a whole. Closed research funded by the beck and call of corporations defeats the scientific process -- science is about openness, understanding, and investigating hard questions that may not have tangible benefits for the next few hundred years or more.
And sometimes, that means our time and effort are spent doing absolutely silly things that may have impacts that we do not yet understand. If pursuit of knowledge for its own sake isn't a good enough reason, then I weep for the future of this country.
Re:What they're really afraid of, I think... (Score:4, Insightful)
Billionaires tend to be far more critical of what their money finances than government granting authorities.
True, but the outcome is not usually what you are implying. Billionaires tend to put their money where there is the most to gain for themselves, while governments have a stronger motivation to fund important fundamental discoveries that do not provide an immediate return on investment.
Consider all of the scandals involving made up data.
Both privately and publicly funded entities do this. At least publicly funded entities can be cross-checked. Privately funded entities are under no pressure to disclose all their sources, and will be even less so as private funding of science becomes more socially acceptable.
A billionaire who discovers shenanigans certainly won't fund that researcher again, a government agency probably will.
To a billionaire, "shenanigans" means that the "researcher" didn't arrive at the results the billionaire paid for. So yes, the billionaire will not fund that researcher again.
...it's pretty obvious that private donors are more likely to scrutinize than public sector donors.
Yes, but only to make sure that the private donors' political biases take precedence over the truth.
Billionaires have the luxury of blowing their money however they see fit.
And they will only "blow" their money on endeavors that make them more money. How do you think they became billionaires to begin with?
This is how science got funded during its first centuries as a discipline when many of the giants of science did their work.
Lots and lots and lots of good science had to fight and uphill battle against the political desires of private patrons back then, which held back scientific progress rather than promoted it.
No, private funding of the sciences was, is, and will be a disaster.
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And you're assuming government funded research isn't conducted the same way? Haha. [blogspot.com]
Social Security is Going to Gobble Everything (Score:3, Informative)
Return to very old models? (Score:4, Interesting)
This seems to be a return to some very old models of research- think Aristotle, Leonardo Da Vinci, where research was not government supported, but either the hobby of the very rich, or the very rich paying someone. I suppose that it could be considered as government supported, as the very rich *were* the government. The institutional government supporting research appears to be a 19th or 20th century change, and that is dominated by military motives.
The super rich have more money than they could possibly spend- why not let them spend that money in the way that they want? Be it driven by guilt or by the desire to make more money... I'd much rather them spend the money on science as opposed to spending their money on becoming part of the government (think Mitt Romney and Michael Bloomberg in the US and Silvio Berlusconi in Italy).
Fundamental Research (Score:3)
This seems to be a return to some very old models of research
Not entirely. Aristotle, Da Vinci etc were given leave to "explore". They were funded to do curiosity driven research as well as the "build a better widget" kind. Today's billionaires, very like governments, are focussed on getting better widgets rather than improving mankind's knowledge. The problem is that it can take 50-100 years before our new fundamental knowledge can be applied so by the time that they all wake up to find that applied science has slowed to a crawl it will be a long time before the da
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Should have strong private and public funding ... (Score:3)
Private funding is great in many areas. This is particularly true of science that addresses problems that society needs to solve (e.g. medicine) or that captures people's imaginations (e.g. astronomy).
However, there is a lot of science that needs to be done that doesn't fit into either category. That is where governments need to step in.
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I'll leave it to you as an exercise to compare the amounts of private funding that went to astronomy vs. "economics" (paid-for publications and think-tanks included). Why would that have happened?
Re:Should have strong private and public funding . (Score:5, Insightful)
Private funding in medicine sucks. If the new drug you're testings turns out to not work well or produces some really bad side effects you can't sell it and all the money seems lost (you've learned something, but you can't sell or quantify that). So there's a lot of pressure to bury the facts and get your drugs to market as long as we'll make a profit before the lawsuits come in.
We shouldn't have privately funded medical research.
Govt funding is aberration (Score:4, Insightful)
It really was not until the Manhattan project and post WWII cold war that government became the patron of scientists. Was Diract writing grant requests? Bohr? Heisenberg? Shockley (et al)?
This is a really encouraging sign and should be looked upon favorably even if it is not prefect. Philanthropists have been on the sidelines for a long time now and it will be a learning process for all involved on how to best utilize funding.
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nonsense, governments have been funding science for at least three thousand years
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Theorists who did thought experiments. Now, how about a particle physicist that needs a multibillion dollar collider that may discover something that has absolutely no economic value - at least in the near term?
You believe then, that since you are unable to conceive of its value and articulate that vision sufficient to convince people (the rich and the corporations) to fund it, that instead you should use guns to force them to pay for it?
Centuries of government funded basic research? (Score:3, Informative)
I don't think so. Basic scientific research has been privately funded for most of those centuries. Government funding is a relatively recent change.
Traditional patronage != government? Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
Really? Patronage was the norm for a long time, but who were the patrons? Mostly the upper nobility who had money to burn - aka the government of the time. How often do you suppose the king kept separate treasuries for the nation and himself? Or the nobility, who were basically state or county governments. Sure, you had the merchant-princes as well whose empire was forged from trade routes rather than farmland, but basically those with money *were* the government.
Private investment is a good thing (Score:2)
Human space exploration is an ideal field for private research. There is now a body of billionaires with a geeky interest in what is out there. When you consider that any new initiative, such as a lunar base or a Mars expedition, will require assuming great personal risk, there is no Western government that would run the political risk of subjecting astronauts to a high probability of death far from Earth. Remember those long periods of space shutdown after each Shuttle accident?
Another rich field is energy
How much is enough? (Score:5, Informative)
The poster asserts, "Government-funded science is struggling in the United States."
The Federal Government spends more than $130 billion on research and development (R&D) each year, conducted primarily at universities and Federal laboratories.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog... [whitehouse.gov]
How much should the taxpayers spend on research? Show your work.
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Your calculation implies that the benefit is full employment. The benefit of science is knowledge. You get an F.
Those darn feel-good fields... (Score:2)
This has been going on longer than a decade (Score:2)
We have slowing been destroying what it means to be a civic society for a long time. Not many people meet in the park these days to discuss ideas (or gossip) on Sunday afternoons.
And remember when Reagan said that "government is the problem". And all of those names on buildings at your local university? Someone's name on a building helps insure the university does that person's bidding.
So I have an idea.... why don't we stop giving our money to rich assholes or corrupt government assholes, and since neither
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No, we meet on the Internet instead.
That's utter nonsense. The US government has always been in the hands of a rich elite. It's just that the damage it could do was limited by its limited role. But the rich elite has figured out that by promising people "stuff" (social security, health care, cheap homes, etc.), they can convince them to give them more and m
Want Proper Science, Funding is there, However,.. (Score:2)
....the employees have control over the peoples funding of government. and That is inherent Corruption incentive.
How are the so called representatives to represent the people in this republic when they have no way of knowing what the people want?
The "No Vote" won the last election by far, worse qualified voter turnout % since before 1948 if not of all time. But Taxpayers still fund government, and this doesn't change..
What is missing is the paperwork allowing the taxpayers to say how their taxes are to be u
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Your concept essentially reduces to only taxpayers can vote, and rich people's votes count more than others'. This is exactly what this country has been against from day one.
You stopped learning history beyond about 5th grade?
Only white male landowners could vote.
In these enlightened times, we should change that to only those who own their primary residence in the area can vote.
Better Than The Alternative (Score:3)
I'm sure that this news may make a lot of slashdotters uncomfortable. But I ask you to think of the alternative. They could spend their billions influencing elections. How many attack ads can you buy for $75 billion?
Here's a challenge. How should billionaires spend their money?
I'm not asking for how you would spend the billions if it was yours, nor am I interested in your concept of social justice or what is beneficial for mankind. I'm challenging you to try to imagine the world from, the billionaire's view.
Maybe basic research isn't what we need (Score:2)
We've got tons of "basic research" which doesn't go anywhere. How often on this site do we hear about a new breakthrough in solar energy or batteries or cellulosic biofuel that ends up going nowhere? Perhaps we really do need more in the way of applied research and development; get one of these "breakthroughs" to actually do something.
And then there's physics, which in terms of basic research has spent decades trying to break the Standard Model with more and more powerful accelerators, and gotten zip for
Not anything new (Score:2)
In the old days did not the kinds have Imperial Mathematicians, imperial astronomers, and what not?
The only thing new here is that we now know who the kings really are.
The alternative being govt funding? (Score:2)
When the alternative is government funding, you're at the mercy of political winds and the loss of a patron in the next election.
Social contract? Them's fighting words. (Score:2)
Seems to me you're talking about SOCIALISM, or even worse, COMMUNISM.
I didn't sign no contract, and there ain't no such thing as society. That's a lie told by Karl Marx.
— All of America
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Soon Americans will call it .. Socialism Security!!
(At which point Americans will vote to take Social Security away from the government and put the money in the private hands of Wall Street banks.)
bullshit (Score:2)
Federal science funding is near an all time high (disregarding the one-time stimulus nonsense):
http://www.nature.com/news/201... [nature.com]
Whether billionaires also spend money on additional research makes no iota of difference to the publicly funded research.
Furthermore, large-scale government funding of research is historically a relatively recent phenomenon and closely tied to the rise of socialism and communism: socialist and communist regimes in large part tried to direct research for what their central planners
"The growing hostility to science in rhetoric". (Score:2)
There, I said it. Lets all now have a rational, civilized discussion.
I've long felt that the only value of guys is to make gals look good.
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Re:Global Warming "Research" (Score:5, Interesting)
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funny, of course the norm for humans isn't leaders elected by votes. although leadeers in many systems have and are in the pockets of what we'd today call large corporations
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Sure it is, and even dictatorships acknowledge this. What is a cult of personality or state propaganda but an attempt to persuade people to vote for the current leader and system, either formally or with their feet? What is brutal oppression other than an attempt to secure votes through intimidation?
You can't rule without the consent of the ruled, and a formal voting mechanism is simply a means of establishing who has it in a public and un
Re: Global Warming "Research" (Score:3)
Epic post. It took a few seconds to catch on, but awesome reuse and appropriation of the feel of that particular homily.
That you had someone moderate it without knowing what it was and have to post to remove moderation only increases the epicness.
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Stopped reading at "son".
*Whoosh*
Re:Good! (Score:5, Interesting)
Many years ago, the rightmost elements decided that a strong government was not beneficial to the wealthiest citizens and in fact was a threat to them. Therefore, the goal became to reduce the size of government to the bare essentials - the smallest possible size that would protect them and their hoards - and then, control it.
At some point several decades ago, around the time or Reagan or maybe a little earlier, it was realized the way to do this was to do this was to reduce the amount of money government had to spend. There were two ways they could accomplish this. They could either reduce taxes, or increase the debt so that interest became a more and more substantial portion of the budget. It wasn't an either/or scenario, in fact the two were completely complimentary. They went down both roads.
For decades Republicans have been coupling tax cuts, preferentially for the wealthy to please the oligarch and corporate overlords, combined with prolific spending, preferentially on the military industrial complex (MIC).
This has gotten us to where we are today: an unpayable debt, a military budget that exceeds the rest of the developed world combined (with a large part of that budget going directly to defense contracting companies), and the budgets for most of the 'good' parts of government (which include scientific research and programs that keep people out of abject poverty) being slashed.
The place where the architects of this plan fucked up, and the one hope rational middle class and lower class people have to salvage the situation, is that the right also threw their lot in with the religious extremists in order to get people elected into office that otherwise would not. This has, today, given them an important faction of their bloc that continues to alienate minorities and people of more moderate viewpoints with absurd and offensive positions and statements, in some cases costing the Republicans elections. The chickens have come home to roost, so to speak.
This is the last chance to save our society from complete control by the monied elite and corporations, which apparently are now equivalent to very, very rich people in the eyes of the government (without many of the obligations). This division must be exploited, expanded, and communicated to the voters. Also, people must be allowed and urged to vote - Republican voter suppression efforts, gerrymandering, and electoral college changes are another, more obvious, flank of this battle that results in representation in Washington that does not represent the demographics of the population they are representing. 2014 may be a lost cause, but 2016 is not. I'll have to hold my nose while I do it, but if I have to, I'll put Hillary's name on the ballot in 2016.
Other tenets of the far right to hold the lower classes down where they belong include:
- Continuing to tie insurance to employers - leaving the workers completely dependent upon the corporations where they are employed. Sort of the equivalent of the old 'company store' where you could spend the scrip you received as pay.
- Cutting unemployment benefits - forcing people to stay in shitty jobs
- Cutting or dumbing down education - a less educated populace is easier to control. Think about how many of the Founding Fathers were educated and wealthy. We can't have that again, can we?
- Eliminating birth control - a child will force people out of higher education and into a paycheck to paycheck job to pay the bills, and as a bonus the child is likely to grow up less educated as well.
- A war on the scientifically accepted climate change theories. Any attempt to do anything about these will result in lower profits for the Overlords.
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Interesting attempt to paint the "rightmost elements" of government as being responsible for our dysfunctional government.
I suggest, instead, that the primary problem with our government, and our economy, is the Federal Reserve. Like the World Bank and the various Central Banks around the world, it's interests supersede any national interests. Central banks, especially the Bank of England, are notorious for funding both sides in a war, knowing that the winner will control the assets necessary to repay to
Re:Good! (Score:4, Insightful)
Why do people buy "luxury" goods with handouts? why ever not? It may be that they live a life so frugal that they have leftover ressources. Or maybe you are one of these "small government" tyoes who think that there should be a list of items that you are allowed to buy with food stamps -- which there already is, shockingly enough -- but think that giving parents vouchers to put their kids in whatever school is fine, because government has no business to run our lives.
If you believe in the free market, and simultaneoulsy believe in a safety net -- which is a wholly reasonable and humane position to have -- you should demand that the government handouts be in the form of cash. Sure, sometimes, it will be used to buy dope, but most of the time, people will use it in ways which are good for them. And it will not cause stupid market distortions and serve as a handout to the financial industry.
Also if you think that people get stuck in wellfare because of wellfare, let me just point out to you that countries whith more generous wellfare are also much better at getting people out of it. This is because to educate yourself, search effectively for a job or land a job, you must have the time and ressources. Minimal wellfare is indeed a trap which barely prevents people from dying of hunger, but to get people out of poverty, you need to invest in them, and this means much larger handouts.
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Don't like food stamp allowable lists? Forget food stamps then. There should just be a cafeteria where they can get food. Plain sustenance food, and plenty of it. Nobody should go hungry.
And nobody should waste my sustenance. Absolutely there should be a list of allowed goods purchasable with food stamps. And the penalty for repeated violation should be no more food stamps - either as a recipient or as a store. If I'm helping somebody, I get to set the terms.
And there should not be any school voucher
Re:Good! (Score:5, Informative)
Interesting attempt to paint the "rightmost elements" of government as being responsible for our dysfunctional government.
A 30-year senior GOP insider said explicitly that the agreed strategy to destroy government, and then blame the other guy. [truth-out.org]
I suggest, instead, that the primary problem with our government, and our economy, is the Federal Reserve.
Ah, I see we're dealing with a crank [rationalwiki.org]. Well no-one expects a true believer to give due diligence to counter-arguments, but for those reading... both provided links are pithy, and highlight just how screwed up our situation really is.
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From your second link:
Critics of the Fed make a big deal out of the fact that the Federal Reserve is a private corporation partially governed by the same banks it is supposed to regulate rather than a federal government agency.
And, the answer is more or less, "So what? The foxes are good at guarding the hen house! No chickens escape, after all!"
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Oil subsidies are the largest welfare payout granted by the Federal government, dwarfing the amount paid out to ALL human recipients.
Given that you use the term welfare in two different senses. If we consider welfare to be generic entitlement spending as it is with corporate welfare, then Social Security would be the obvious counterexample to your assertion. It uses roughly 20% of the budget.
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No, Social Security is a bad example. It is actually not subsidized. It does not do much wealth redistribution. Yes there is some from rich to poor, but mostly it moves wealth from your present self to your future self. Since the money that it puts aside for the future is a huge amount, the government borrows it, paying some interest. It's a much safer deal for Social Security than all these schemes to privatize it by putting those savings into the stock markets.
If Social Security money is ever place
Re:Good! (Score:4, Insightful)
The OP's comments on the "social contract" refer to his desire for people with guns to take from my science projects and from the people I support, and give to his science projects, and the people he supports. Calling it "the social contract that cultivates science for the common good" is despicable propaganda. It's funny how
"the common good" always involves hiring thugs to threaten other people so that you get your way.
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Wow. You're full of shit aren't you AC. Please compare the supermarket shelves in the USA with those in Venezuela or North Korea and then come back here and tell me why big govern
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Please compare the supermarket shelves in the USA with those in Venezuela or North Korea and then come back here and tell me why big government controlling the means and distribution of production is a good idea, compared to the free market, with people providing each other with services in return for a token of exchange (currency).
I'm not saying that there isn't an element of truth in what you are saying, but you have to pick comparable countries or the comparison will mean nothing. So looking at North Korea versus South Korea is fine, as is comparing Venezuela to Colombia, or Cuba to Dominican Republic. If you want to compare the U.S. to anyone, perhaps Sweden would do. But Sweden is pretty darn nice. :)
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you have to pick comparable countries or the comparison will mean nothing. So looking at North Korea versus South Korea is fine
Really? Make that comparison then. Do you like it?
But the rest of your spew is populist crap. There is no way to "pick comparable countries" because different policies will lead to different outcomes and the countries become not comparable. Compare U.S. in 1900 with Mexico in 1900. Look at the different policies and practices over the years and make the same comparison in 1950 and 2000. Compare Rhodesia and South Africa in 1979 then compare again in 1990, 2000 and 2010. See what happens when you chang
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The free market does many things very well. It ignores externalities. It ignores morality.
In a limited sense, it is great at optimizing resource use. In other senses, it is terrible, often leading to great concentrations of wealth at the expense of others.
In a limited sense, it is great at making investments. In practice, the investments tend to go for short-term individual gain, and can easily be a net loss to total wealth because of externalities. We're all going to be better off investing in ba
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Re:Tax revenue increased from $600B to $1T (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, Reagan initially cut taxes and then (unlike the teapartiests of today) realized that he would have to raise taxes, which he did
Reagan also (like the op said) increased military spending dramatically and cut social programs, effectively diverting the tax revenues from the poor to the wealthy
Bush 2 played the game much harder and kept tax cuts in place while riding the national debt to new heights. As far as military spending went, they kept the mounting war debt off the books, which magically made Obama responsible for it when he brought that debt back on the books
It IS all the childish games that the gop has decided to play on Americans that have put us in this position and no amount of o'really bloviating or hannity shouting down the truth will change that
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Yes, what I meant is that when faced with increasing deficits due to his tax cuts and military spending, unlike Reagan, he refused to push his party towards accepting tax increases
Reagan was a moderate compared to the current gopers and their quest to find the next Reagan will fail because their would reject the real Reagan as a rino
And yes, the middle class will bear the brunt of this and considering the reliance on sales taxes, the poor will pay more towards this debt as well
What needs to be said is, no I
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Bullshit. The science you are referring to is mostly medical science. Try cutting corners in physics or chemistry. Mathematics isn't technically a science but if you tried it there too, you'd get your ass handed to you. Logic is similar.
So stop cherry picking to support your beliefs...much like the science you claim not to like.
Re:Lots of government funding is wasted (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is we don't actually know what is and isn't a waste.
A lot of very useful science started out as just some researchers pie in the sky distraction. For instance, much of the work in number theory and pure mathematics of the past few hundred years had no clear use. In Hilberts autobiography, "Apology of a Mathematician" he apologized for spending his life playing with puzzles that he thought were fun.
However, actually number theory (especially now that we have computers) actually turned out to be QUITE useful.
The problem is you don't know what will or won't be useful ex-ante. There are certainly benefits to saying "we should find a cure for _____" However, perhaps some microbiologist who just wanted to see what he could grow if he tried culturing a geyser will discover something revolutionary. (Really happened. Modern microbiology relies on replicating DNA which uses a mechanism found in a bacteria that figured out how to live in a geyser).
Really we need a mix. If a billionaire likes the idea of going into space, we should welcome him to try. However, we should still support pure research because of the probably effects on society.
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_A Mathematician's Apology_ was by G.H. Hardy, not Hilbert.
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Yes, I have no idea what I was thinking when I wrote down Hilbert.
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The problem is we don't actually know what is and isn't a waste.
[...]
The problem is you don't know what will or won't be useful ex-ante.
But we aren't operating from a position of complete ignorance. We have a fairly good idea what things have near future value. I'm tired of the people who push this myth that science has incredible future value conveniently off the horizon which we can't even begin to determine.
If that were true, then there would be no distinction between funding thousands of US colleges and funding me the same amount of money. It's all Science and my parties (I'd bring a whole new meaning to the term "state-wide par
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They are buying. They buy results.
Statin meds come to mind.
good argument for private education (Score:2)
A free market in education lets parents choose what their children learn, which results in a wide diversity of viewpoints being taught. That's a good approach.
The approach we are increasingly heading towards is having everybody educated according to a single, government-imposed standard. That results in exactly what you fear: generations of students who "get fed biased information and suffer for it on the world stage".
Don't believe me? Look at the US education system. It's not the private schools that are d