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How the U.S. became a science superpower

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Re: How the U.S. became a science superpower

#91

Post by jack_h »

netsharc wrote: post #80
jack_h wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In 2025, with the abandonment of U.S. government support for university research, the long run of U.S. dominance in science may be over. I find it amazing that this is the conclusion when earlier in the article it was stated that "[Britain] was teetering on bankruptcy. It couldn’t afford the broad and deep investments that the U.S. made." The US debt is starting to become an existential problem. Last year the secon…

> The US debt is starting to become an existential problem. Really...? Until Liberation Day the other week, I would doubt this. The whole world holds the US dollar, if the USA fails (side-glare at Donald and Elon), the whole world goes into chaos. If President Harris had said "OK world, we need to borrow x more dollars to keep this country running", people (private creditors and nations) would say "I'm pretty sure th…

This has nothing to do with Trump beyond the fact that his plans could hasten how quickly this blows up. Bond rates were already going up before the election, the bond market was already nervous. Your indication that the world isn’t starting to have doubts isn’t born out by the bond market rates.

> And as this chart says, it's not all owned by "Chaina"

I never said that. China has been rolling US debt off of their books for a decade now and moving towards BRICS.

If we make this a partisan issue, which you appear to be, we won’t solve this problem. That would be a catastrophic mistake.

Re: How the U.S. became a science superpower

#92

Post by jack_h »

regularization wrote: post #88
jack_h wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In 2025, with the abandonment of U.S. government support for university research, the long run of U.S. dominance in science may be over. I find it amazing that this is the conclusion when earlier in the article it was stated that "[Britain] was teetering on bankruptcy. It couldn’t afford the broad and deep investments that the U.S. made." The US debt is starting to become an existential problem. Last year the secon…

The way they math is presented is off. The US is deficit spending this year, yet you present the interest payment as something separate from the military. Obviously that interest is partially from the military spending the US makes this year that it has not paid for, military payments from last year it has not paid for etc. The billions sent to Israel, the Ukraine and the hundreds of military bases the US has spannin…

I have no idea what you’re talking about honestly. The data for government spending can be seen in multiple places, here is the CBO numbers (this might be an older article or out of date, I don’t have time or access to a laptop right now).

https://www.cbo.gov/publication/61172

Re: How the U.S. became a science superpower

#93

Post by JumpCrisscross »

oldprogrammer2 wrote: post #63
cs702 wrote: post #7

Worth reading in its entirety. The following four paragraphs, about post-WWII funding of science in Britain versus the US, are spot-on, in my view: > Britain’s focused, centralized model using government research labs was created in a struggle for short-term survival. They achieved brilliant breakthroughs but lacked the scale, integration and capital needed to dominate in the post-war world. > The U.S. built a decent…

Systems don’t remain constant, though, and every system gets “gamed” once the incentives are well understood. I’m 100% for investment in scientific research, but I’m skeptical that the current system is efficient at allocating the funds. We’ve seen so many reports of celebrity scientists committing fraud at our most elite institutions, and a publish or perish model that encourages that bad behavior as well as junk sc…

> I’m skeptical that the current system is efficient at allocating the funds

Probably. But the solution almost certainly doesn't involve the federal government policing what is and isn't researched, discussed and taught. We had a system that worked. We're destroying the parts of it that worked, while retaining the parts that are novel. (Turning conservatives into a protected class, for instance--not even the CCP explicitly reserves seats for party members.)

Re: How the U.S. became a science superpower

#94

Post by amanaplanacanal »

oldprogrammer2 wrote: post #63
cs702 wrote: post #7

Worth reading in its entirety. The following four paragraphs, about post-WWII funding of science in Britain versus the US, are spot-on, in my view: > Britain’s focused, centralized model using government research labs was created in a struggle for short-term survival. They achieved brilliant breakthroughs but lacked the scale, integration and capital needed to dominate in the post-war world. > The U.S. built a decent…

Systems don’t remain constant, though, and every system gets “gamed” once the incentives are well understood. I’m 100% for investment in scientific research, but I’m skeptical that the current system is efficient at allocating the funds. We’ve seen so many reports of celebrity scientists committing fraud at our most elite institutions, and a publish or perish model that encourages that bad behavior as well as junk sc…

Ok... If it's not the most efficient way to allocate funds, it's now your job to design a more efficient way. Good luck and let us know what you come up with!

Re: How the U.S. became a science superpower

#95

Post by JumpCrisscross »

jack_h wrote: post #91
netsharc wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US debt is starting to become an existential problem. Really...? Until Liberation Day the other week, I would doubt this. The whole world holds the US dollar, if the USA fails (side-glare at Donald and Elon), the whole world goes into chaos. If President Harris had said "OK world, we need to borrow x more dollars to keep this country running", people (private creditors and nations) would say "I'm pretty sure th…

This has nothing to do with Trump beyond the fact that his plans could hasten how quickly this blows up. Bond rates were already going up before the election, the bond market was already nervous. Your indication that the world isn’t starting to have doubts isn’t born out by the bond market rates. > And as this chart says, it's not all owned by "Chaina" I never said that. China has been rolling US debt off of their bo…

> Bond rates were already going up before the election

Treasuries behaving like a risk asset is 100% Trump. And it has nothing to do with him blowing out our deficit, it's 100% about stagflation and money markets.

Re: How the U.S. became a science superpower

#96

Post by amanaplanacanal »

jack_h wrote: post #91
netsharc wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The US debt is starting to become an existential problem. Really...? Until Liberation Day the other week, I would doubt this. The whole world holds the US dollar, if the USA fails (side-glare at Donald and Elon), the whole world goes into chaos. If President Harris had said "OK world, we need to borrow x more dollars to keep this country running", people (private creditors and nations) would say "I'm pretty sure th…

This has nothing to do with Trump beyond the fact that his plans could hasten how quickly this blows up. Bond rates were already going up before the election, the bond market was already nervous. Your indication that the world isn’t starting to have doubts isn’t born out by the bond market rates. > And as this chart says, it's not all owned by "Chaina" I never said that. China has been rolling US debt off of their bo…

Are you saying that hastening the catastrophe is the right move?

Re: How the U.S. became a science superpower

#97

Post by apercu »

fifilura wrote: post #22
apercu wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Is that your honest take? It's either late stage unfettered capitalism, regulatory capture and oligarchy OR communism? Edit: I forgot theocracy.

Yeah, sarcasm does not work on internet, I know. I tried to paraphrase the ruler in chief.

Ah, thank you. I was so terribly disappointed to see that take on here.

Re: How the U.S. became a science superpower

#98

Post by 9283409232 »

jack_h wrote: post #84
9283409232 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with US debt comes from their unwillingness to tax billionaires. We just passed even more tax cuts for rich people and are scheduled to add more to the debt. Just tax rich people, it's not complicated.

The economic projections I’ve seen have shown taxing the rich will increase tax revenue by around 1.5% of GDP. We’re slated to borrow 7.3%. That math doesn’t work. To be fair, the republican math with cuts (assuming no tax cuts) also doesn’t work. Neither side is serious about this issue.

Taxing billionaires is just one of many necessary steps but it is the most important and vital step in my opinion. There are fundamental problems with how the US is run down to the local level but it starts with taxing billionaires and getting money out of politics.

Re: How the U.S. became a science superpower

#99

Post by mola »

jack_h wrote: post #84
9283409232 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with US debt comes from their unwillingness to tax billionaires. We just passed even more tax cuts for rich people and are scheduled to add more to the debt. Just tax rich people, it's not complicated.

The economic projections I’ve seen have shown taxing the rich will increase tax revenue by around 1.5% of GDP. We’re slated to borrow 7.3%. That math doesn’t work. To be fair, the republican math with cuts (assuming no tax cuts) also doesn’t work. Neither side is serious about this issue.

You can tax the rich, and then cut less of the good stuff. Or you can cut taxes and decimate everything. Guess what the billionaire class chose.

Re: How the U.S. became a science superpower

#100

Post by randunel »

Permit wrote: post #25
Arubis wrote: post #9

Being the sole western industrialized nation that hadn't just had most of their infrastructure bombed to rubble can't have hurt.

Canada and Australia are smaller but surely count as industrialized western nations (Canada is like 9th by GDP) whose infrastructure was not bombed to rubble.

Canada's population was 10mil, maybe less, when ww2 ended.
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