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

251–260 of 529 posts

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

#251

Post by chewbacha »

didgetmaster wrote: post #232
linksnapzz wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a purely practical matter, trying to fix federal budget outlays by cutting indirect funds attached to NSF/NIH/DOE etc. grants is like telling a guy who is morbidly obese by 350lbs that you can lose weight quickly by shaving your head and trimming your fingernails really, really close.

And yet that morbidly obese guy probably got that way by a thousand unhealthy snacks between meals. While just a few extra calories generally doesn't do much; a steady stream of them over time can do the trick. As DOGE is finding, that $36 trillion of government debt didn't come in one blow. When every agency has a bunch of bloated programs; it really adds up.

Doge is lying through its teeth. They are costing the government more than they are saving and the biggest savings have been contracts that never existed in the first place. They also keep revising down their saving projections. Now it’s down to 150 billion from 4 trillion.

They are operating a coup and if you don’t see it you are lying to yourself.

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

#252

Post by brokeAstronomer »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #205
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. There are far too many documented instances of it actually working to call it a fantasy. > Markets don’t account for externalities Markets aren't expected to account for externalities. Externalities are the things you're supposed to tax. > they concentrate wealth (and therefore political power) You're describing regu…

>> There are far too many documented instances of it actually working to call it a fantasy.

Markets are a tool which can work extremely well if deployed carefully and within a sensible regulatory framework. Given that the world CO2 level keeps rising, we can't eat fish because of heavy metals and we all have forever microplastics in us, I think it's fair to question some of our assumptions.

>> Markets aren't expected to account for externalities. Externalities are the things you're supposed to tax.

Agreed - however taxing externalities doesn't seem to be working out in practice (in the US).

>> You're describing regulatory capture. This is why governments are supposed to have limited powers.

Wealth inequality can rise without regulatory capture. Government is not the source of all evil. Smaller govenrment would just lead to further concentration of wealth and power within the private sector. We need a balanced system, not blind devotion.

>> Markets are actually pretty good at providing all of those things... The real problem here is that some people can't afford those thing

So can the market provide those things or not? Clearly we want everyone to have an education not just the uber wealthy.

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

#253

Post by bee_rider »

laughingcurve wrote: post #206
bee_rider wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It kicked off a feedback loop. The best scientists and engineers wanted to work on the projects that were 10 years ahead. As a result US companies were at the forefront of new technology and developments… attracting the next generation of the best scientists and engineers. This was quite robust until screwed it up for ideological reasons (fortunately, I guess, I can say this in a non-partisan manner because everybody…

Schrödinger's politics

The hope is that the ambiguity will lead people to think about their general principles. If they agree or disagree strongly depending on how the variable is resolved, what does that say?

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

#254

Post by AnthonyMouse »

consumer451 wrote: post #248
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> when an economy becomes "advanced," the birth rates drop to tragic levels. I believe what could help here involves all kinds of non-market solutions which are hard to solve, and very not cool at the moment. There is a huge factor in this which is well-documented to reduce the fertility rate: The first generation to become affluent enough to own property does so and then lobbies for policies that increase home price…

As mentioned in this other comment [0], I find this to be one of the most interesting problems of our time. > There is a huge factor in this which is well-documented to reduce the fertility rate: If you have a moment, would you mind pointing me to this documentation? It sounds very correct to me, but I would love to have the receipts when I quote you in the future. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43699799

There are numerous studies showing that higher housing costs reduce the fertility rate, e.g.: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2024.102572

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

#255

Post by fuzztester »

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…

>At least in the free market inefficient companies will eventually go defunct which frees those resources for more economically useful output.

ha ha. you mean like in 2008 and 2009, the great recession (1), the subprime mortgage crisis (2), etc., and then things like:

(1) the great recession

(2) the subprime mortgage crisis

TARP:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Progra...

terms floating around at that time, like:

"privatize profits, socialize losses"

"too big to fail"

etc.?

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

#256

Post by zipy124 »

makeitdouble wrote: post #211
tkiolp4 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such a “simple” solution. Wonder why doing a PhD in the majority of european countries is equal to a poor monthly income. Just pay them more. I guess countries don’t like long term solutions.

I was curious how much of a gap there is, and landed on about 100k in the US[0] vs 85k[1] USD in France for instance, in average. That sounds on par with most other professions where the US salary is about a third higher, with a cost of living (health, housing etc) eating most of the difference. Perhaps I'm also not buying that the US has a fundamentally better system, and not just a dominant position to begin with,…

Your ciation [1] shows the highest number as being approximately 70,000 USD a year, not 85k. That's 15,000 dollars less than you claim. Your [0] citation is not a share-able link and just redirects to the home-page.

In the UK (where I am based so I know the numbers well) a post doc is usually paid around 52,936 dollars a year, or a bit more if in london closer to 60,000 dollars a year. US postdocs seem to be somewehre between 60,000-90,000 dollars depending on institution, MIT [2] for example state a minimum of 69,000 and maximum of 90,000 dollars for a post-doc. This lines up well with your claim of a third higher, however the cost of living claim doesn't really check out, especially since tax rates are much higher in european countries than the US.

If we take your numbers for example with 100k usd, after federal taxes and NY state taxes (the highest I believe) you're looking at close to a 25% marginal tax rate so a take-home of 75,000 USD. In France on 85000 USD you would have a marginal tax rate of 38% for a take home of 52,700 USD. This is closer to a 43% difference not 33%, and does not include the fact that this is not disposable income. For instance my annual pay recently doubled, but my disposable income after council tax/bills/food/transport increased by about 900%, far above the 200% increase. Thus a 33% pay increase would be life-changing, not just some minor increase. (and the cost of living is really not that much higher in the US anyway, since VAT at 20% in europe is much higher than sales tax in most states, and health-care is included in many US jobs of the type we are talking about here, rent is the only thing largely more expensive in the US, but you guys actually have incredibly cheap property when normalised by size. In the us you are looking at a median of 2,500 USD per square meter for houses and somewhere around 5,000 for an apatment, whilst in france it is somewhere around 6750 (couldn't find a breakdown per type)).

[2]: https://postdocs.mit.edu/postdoctoral-position/postdoctoral-...

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

#258

Post by hylaride »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #135
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…

Not everyone is happy to depend on USD. BRICs were making plans to introduce their own alternative reserve currency. Trump once threatened 100% tariffs if they followed through with that. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/aggressive-tariffs-f... https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/trump-threatens-100-... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-12-02/south-afr...

That plan was DoA. They were never going to agree (Some being petro states, some being commodities exporters, some manufacturers etc) and half those countries lack proper rule of law to enforce contracts that turn out to be negative for said countries.

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

#259

Post by consumer451 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #254
consumer451 wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As mentioned in this other comment [0], I find this to be one of the most interesting problems of our time. > There is a huge factor in this which is well-documented to reduce the fertility rate: If you have a moment, would you mind pointing me to this documentation? It sounds very correct to me, but I would love to have the receipts when I quote you in the future. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43699799

There are numerous studies showing that higher housing costs reduce the fertility rate, e.g.: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.labeco.2024.102572

Thank you. This is excellent. I am really curious how we fix this in the future.

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

#260

Post by netsharc »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #135
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…

Not everyone is happy to depend on USD. BRICs were making plans to introduce their own alternative reserve currency. Trump once threatened 100% tariffs if they followed through with that. https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/aggressive-tariffs-f... https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/trump-threatens-100-... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-12-02/south-afr...

I wonder if these plans have anything to do with the world's reserve currency being controlled by an entity that's sometimes erratic and assholey...

In the utopia where the USA is actually a beacon of democracy, the people in the BRICs countries might be fans of it, and would vehemently support politicians who align themselves with it, weakening other political factions.

Post reply on HN