Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How the U.S. became a science superpower

steveblank.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 529 posts

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

#191

Post by XorNot »

nostrademons wrote: post #181
monknomo wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, a relatively easy fix to a negative replacement rate (at least when you have a well-run, wealthy, attractive country) is immigration. Replacement rate isn't a problem when you let more folks in

Fertility rates are below replacement on every continent except Africa, and they're dropping quickly there. Immigration isn't going to save us, at least not long-term. I think what'll happen is that areas that still have a vibrant age pyramid will put up borders (either geographic or economic or both) with ones that don't, and say "Sorry, you're on your own" to the latter. They protect their children at the expense o…

Stop trying to solve problems 100 years from now in other countries though.

The US is an enormously attractive immigration target and can easily bring in enormous numbers of new workers if it wants to. It's so good at this that it actually has and those people pay taxes but don't get government benefits.

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

#192

Post by aaron695 »

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…

[dead]

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

#193

Post by blululu »

csa wrote: post #172
b_emery wrote: post #2

If you read nothing else in this excellent post, read the conclusion: > A key component of this U.S. research ecosystem was the genius of the indirect cost reimbursement system. Not only did the U.S. fund researchers in universities by paying the cost of their salaries, the U.S. gave universities money for the researchers facilities and administration. This was the secret sauce that allowed U.S. universities to build…

> papers from China have gone from sparse and poorly done imitations of western papers (~15-20 yrs ago), to innovative must reads if you want to stay on top of the field. Usually when I think of a new idea, it has already been done by some Chinese researcher. Not germane to the main thread, but are the “new idea” papers written by Chinese authors mostly published in English, Chinese, or both? If Chinese is part or al…

In my experience Chinese academics are far more bilingual than western ones. I think that for Chinese academics the English publications are generally of a higher quality and more prestigious, but I’m sure that too will change over time. I can definitely say that Chinese publications have gotten much better in terms of quality over the last 20 years and there are now a lot of results worth translating.

At this point ML translation is sufficiently good that it does not make a material difference for the readership. This means that there is not a lot of political advantage around having a more dominant language. The bigger point is about the relative strength of the underlying research communities and this is definitely moving in favor of the Chinese.

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

#194

Post by BobbyJo »

grafmax wrote: post #174
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 idea that the free market will self-correct and optimize outcomes is a well-documented fantasy. Markets don’t account for externalities, they concentrate wealth (and therefore political power), and they routinely underprovide merit goods like education, healthcare, and basic research (things that benefit society broadly but aren’t immediately profitable). As for how to address budget issues, the solution is simpl…

Im afraid you'd need to be pretty liberal with your definition of rich at this point to dig us out of this hole through taxes alone.

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

#195

Post by 6510 »

philwelch wrote: post #144
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.

False. The combined net worth of all US billionaires is about 6 trillion dollars. The US national debt is over 36 trillion dollars.

The rich half of the US populus own about $156 trillion. Thus therefore as a conclusion therefrom you only have to take 23% from half the population. Lets make it progressive from 0% at average wealth to 52% at the top.

Much less than Roosevelt's 94%

But I'm neither democrat nor republican, it might not make sense to anyone :)

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

#196

Post by sgregnt »

grafmax wrote: post #174
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 idea that the free market will self-correct and optimize outcomes is a well-documented fantasy. Markets don’t account for externalities, they concentrate wealth (and therefore political power), and they routinely underprovide merit goods like education, healthcare, and basic research (things that benefit society broadly but aren’t immediately profitable). As for how to address budget issues, the solution is simpl…

>The idea that the free market will self-correct and optimize outcomes is a well-documented fantasy.

Could you share some sources to back this up? At least a sources to back up at least a few case studies would be curious. I'm interested in economics and never have been aware that free market self-correction is a well documented fantasy and would love to understand where is your claim coming from.

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

#197

Post by hedora »

philwelch wrote: post #142
Retric wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US government funding of science isn’t a net cost due to taxes on the long term economic productivity that results. This is unlike say corn subsidies which not only reduce economic efficiency but also have direct negative heath impacts furthering the harm. Medicare spending is problematic because it’s consumptive, but there’s ways to minimize the expense without massively reducing care. The VA for example dramaticall…

> US government funding of science isn’t a net cost due to taxes on the long term economic productivity that results. There's an assumption here that deserves some closer examination. If we are taking this as a justification for federal science spending, we would have to also support a policy of awarding research grants on the basis of expected long term return on investment, which is not the criteria applied now. Fu…

So, the current system generates net income for the government, but you’re claiming it needs to be changed in order to do so?

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

#198

Post by vkou »

jack_h wrote: post #52
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…

> 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.

1. No, it isn't. And if you think the finances of the US in 2025 are remotely similar to the finances and the world position of the British Empire in 1945, you are staggeringly wrong about either the past, or the present, or both.

2. And if it were, there's a million lower-ROI things that could be cut. Does an isolationist America really need eleven carrier groups, in a world where there are zero non-American ones?

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

#199

Post by rsfern »

philwelch wrote: post #142
Retric wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US government funding of science isn’t a net cost due to taxes on the long term economic productivity that results. This is unlike say corn subsidies which not only reduce economic efficiency but also have direct negative heath impacts furthering the harm. Medicare spending is problematic because it’s consumptive, but there’s ways to minimize the expense without massively reducing care. The VA for example dramaticall…

> US government funding of science isn’t a net cost due to taxes on the long term economic productivity that results. There's an assumption here that deserves some closer examination. If we are taking this as a justification for federal science spending, we would have to also support a policy of awarding research grants on the basis of expected long term return on investment, which is not the criteria applied now. Fu…

NSF has actually been experimenting with this sort of funding model for a couple years through its new (as of 2019) convergence accelerator program, which I think is awesome. It’s explicitly a multi-sector program where academics partner with companies to do some proof of concept research in a phase 1 award and translate that into a viable commercial product or innovation in a phase 2 award. Potential for long term return on investment is explicitly part of the review criteria, which target this sort of historically underfunded middle ground between basic research and technology development

https://www.nsf.gov/funding/initiatives/convergence-accelera...

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

#200

Post by woooooo »

sgregnt wrote: post #196
grafmax wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that the free market will self-correct and optimize outcomes is a well-documented fantasy. Markets don’t account for externalities, they concentrate wealth (and therefore political power), and they routinely underprovide merit goods like education, healthcare, and basic research (things that benefit society broadly but aren’t immediately profitable). As for how to address budget issues, the solution is simpl…

>The idea that the free market will self-correct and optimize outcomes is a well-documented fantasy. Could you share some sources to back this up? At least a sources to back up at least a few case studies would be curious. I'm interested in economics and never have been aware that free market self-correction is a well documented fantasy and would love to understand where is your claim coming from.

Libertarians took over a town in NH and abolished town wide garbage collection. The free market produced a bunch of trash in people's yards, which attracted bears, causing havoc all around town. True story.

That's not to say you can't solve a lot of problems with markets. It just means waving your hands at "the free market" like it's a magic talisman is a childish thing to do.

Post reply on HN